Ethics in a Computing Culture
Chapter 6
How Computing Is Changing Who We Are
The Internet and the Self (continued)
• Psychologists treat compulsive behaviors differently from
addictive behaviors.
– Could checking Facebook or Twitter updates be considered an
addiction? A compulsion?
• Two types of addictions:
– Substance addictions
– Process addictions (compulsive behavior)
• Compulsive behavior:
– anxiety based, repetitive, senseless behaviors predicated by
seemingly uncontrollable thoughts, images, or impulses
– OCD
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Social Network & Graph
Terms:
•Nodes /vertices =
Interconnected objects
•Edges =
links/lines that connect
Theories
•6 degrees of separation
Ethics in a Computing Culture
– ‘67 Prof. Stanley Milgram’s
experiment (6.5 steps)
– Modern:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/a
mzdfxt
3
How the Internet Changes
How We Know
• Epistemology: study of the nature of knowledge and
how we know what we know
• Acquired:
– Indirect
– Direct
• Growing role of intentional bias in finding information
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How the Internet Changes
How We Know
• 6.5.1: Homophily: the tendency for people to have close
friendships primarily with people similar to themselves
– When searching for information about political issues on the
Internet, would you prefer that the pages be sorted by quality
only, or would you like your beliefs taken into account, so that
high-quality pages that agree with you are shown closer to the
top than high-quality pages that disagree with you?
– Would you prefer to see online advertisements that are randomly
selected, or would you prefer to see advertisements for things
that your friends like?
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How the Internet Changes
How We Know (continued)
• 6.5.2: Expert fear of Wikipedia
• In evaluating the quality of information you use in your
academic work, how important is it to you that the author
is an expert in the topic?
– For example, would you be more likely to trust a Wikipedia
article on U.S. history if the author is a history professor, instead
of an average person? Why or why not?
• Crowdsourcing
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How the Internet Changes
How We Know (continued)
• Primary source: as close as possible to the topic being
studied
– Benjamin Franklin’s letters
• Secondary source: discusses information presented
elsewhere
– authoritative history of the Revolutionary War
• Tertiary source: survey or summary of other work that
does not include full evidence sources, or technical
details
– Wikipedia article on the Revolutionary War
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How the Internet Changes
How We Know (continued)
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How the Internet Changes
How We Know (continued)
• If you notice a significant error in Wikipedia, do you have
a moral duty to correct it?
• If a scholar or expert notices a significant error in
Wikipedia in his area of expertise, does he have a
professional duty to correct it?
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Diverse Perspectives:
Race in Video Games
• Digital minstrelsy: refers to types of role play that meet
the following criteria:
– A person who is a member of an advantaged group in real life
plays the role of a person from a disadvantaged group
– The role play purposefully demeans members of the
disadvantaged group
– The experience is primarily played out on a computer or gaming
console
• Does the main character in GTA San Andreas meet
these criteria?
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Interdisciplinary Topic:
Understanding Media
• Tetrad: four questions designed by McLuhan to help
analyze a new medium and foresee its effects:
– What does artifact enhance, intensify, make possible, accelerate?
– If some aspect of a situation is enlarged or enhanced,
simultaneously the old or unenhanced situation is displaced
thereby. What is pushed aside or obsolesced by the new ‘organ’?
– What recurrence/retrieval of earlier actions and services is brought
into play simultaneously by the new form? What older, previously
obsolesced ground is brought back and inheres in the new form?
– When pushed to the limits of its potential (another complementary
action) the new form will tend to reverse what had been its original
characteristics. What is the reversal potential of the new form?
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Interdisciplinary Topic:
Understanding Media (continued)
• Analysis using the tetrad is context-dependent
• Consider applying the tetrad to e-mail:
– How might people in their 50s and 60s view e-mail?
– How might people in their late teens or early 20s view e-mail?
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