Week 1) Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Sessions:
- Thursday, January 6 (Mandatory First Day Attendance Policy)
Questions:
- What is this class about, and why does it matter? How is constant access to information changing our lives, our minds, and the way we think? Is Google making us stupid? If this is the information age, why doesn't anyone know anything? What are the pros and cons of the information technologies we use every day?
Readings:
- The Course Syllabus, Weekly Outline, and Assignment Descriptions. Please note that conduct of the course, including grading, will proceed the rest of the semester assuming you have carefully read, understand, and agree to adhere to all the requirements in all of these documents.
Assignments:
- No written assignments due this week.
Week 2) Life in the Information Society: The Pros and Cons of Big Tech
Sessions:
- Tuesday, January 11 (Class Participation Required)
- Thursday, January 13 (Class Participation Required)
Questions:
- What are the sociotechnical trade-offs we make as we engage with everyday information technologies? How can we ensure that the pros and cons of these trade-offs result in a net positive benefit for ourselves as individuals and for society as a whole? How can we become more intelligent consumers of information technologies, and make smarter decisions about how our personal use of technology affects us and those around us?
Readings:
- Carr 2008. Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. The Atlantic.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/ - Twenge 2017. Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? The Atlantic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/ - Shah 2021. The True Cost of Free Search. Information Matters.
https://informationmatters.org/2021/10/the-true-cost-of-free-search/ - D'Anastasio 2021. The Metaverse Is Simply Big Tech, but Bigger. Wired.
https://www.wired.com/story/big-tech-metaverse-internet-consolidation-business/
Assignments:
- No written assignments due this week.
Week 3) Smart Homes, Smart Devices, and Smart People: Artificial Intelligence and the Connected World
Sessions:
- Tuesday, January 18 (Class Participation Required)
- Thursday, January 20 (Class Participation Required)
Questions:
- What is the future of humanity in an instantly-connected, fully-networked, and always-on world? Once there are sensors everywhere, connecting every object to every other object in the Internet of Things, what will the world look like, and where will we find peace? What are the dangers we face in the connected world as we bring artificial intelligence and smart devices into every aspect of our everyday lives?
Readings:
- Valentino-DeVries, Singer, Keller, and Krolik 2018. Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret. New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/location-data-privacy-apps.html - Hill 2020. The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It. New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/technology/clearview-privacy-facial-recognition.html - Anderson 2020. The Panopticon Is Already Here. The Atlantic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/china-ai-surveillance/614197/ - Mangan 2021. The Surveilled Student. Chronicle of Higher Education.
https://www-chronicle-com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/article/the-surveilled-student
Assignments:
- No written assignments due this week.
Week 4) Group Exploration 1: Surviving the Surveillance Society
Sessions:
- Tuesday, January 25 (Class Participation Required)
- Thursday, January 27 (Class Participation Required)
Questions:
- What are the dangers of living in "smart" homes with "smart" devices? Is the "Internet of Things" creating a programmable world full of predictable people generating big data trails that follow our every move? What are the risks? What are the rewards? As we design the greatest apparatus for surveillance in human history, how can we make sure the pros outweigh the cons in the information society?
Readings:
- None.
Assignments:
- Group presentations in class on Thursday.
- No written assignments due this week.
Week 5) Surveillance Capitalism: If You Aren't Paying For It, You're the Product
Sessions:
- Tuesday, February 1 (Class Participation Required)
- Thursday, February 3 (Class Participation Required)
Questions:
- Many companies offer you free services because they can make more money selling information about you to others, than by selling products directly to you. How much are you willing to give up in exchange for convenience? What price do you put on your privacy? How do we move forward safely and securely in a world where your most important commodity is your personal identifiable information?
Readings:
- Tarnoff 2016. The Attention Merchants Review: How the Web is Being Debased for Profit. The Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/26/the-attention-merchants-tim-wu-review - Economist 2017. Regulating the Internet Giants: The World's Most Valuable Resource is No Longer Oil, but Data. The Economist.
https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21721656-data-economy-demands-new-approach-antitrust-rules-worlds-most-valuable-resource - Naughton 2019. Welcome to the Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/20/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-surveillance-capitalism-google-facebook - Romeo 2020. What can American learn from Europe about Regulating Big Tech? The New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/what-can-america-learn-from-europe-about-regulating-big-tech
Assignments:
- Interest Paper due Sunday, February 6. Please submit your assignment to Canvas.
Week 6) Group Exploration 2: Attention Merchants and Data Giants
Sessions:
- Tuesday, February 8 (Class Participation Required)
- Thursday, February 10 (Class Participation Required)
Questions:
- If you don't want to live in a world of surveillance capitalism where your attention is being sold to the highest bidder, how can you fight back? As individuals and as a society, how can we avoid being someone else's data point blindly? How can we fight against the attention merchants, and take control of our own online experiences? Are we doomed to live in a dystopia designed to make people to click on ads?
Readings:
- None.
Assignments:
- Group presentations in class on Thursday.
- No written assignments due this week.
Week 7) Unlimited Access to Funny Pictures of Cats: Information, Misinformation, and Digital Citizenship
Sessions:
- Tuesday, February 15 (Class Participation Required)
- Thursday, February 17 (Class Participation Required)
Questions:
- With unlimited access to the world's knowledge through amazing devices small enough to fit in our pockets, why do we use them for looking at funny pictures of cats? What are the information literacy skills we need to survive in the information society? How can we work together to manage our information resources, and ensure that access to information remains seen as a public good for the future of democracy?
Readings:
- Hervey 2019. The Information Diet. Medium.
https://medium.com/future-crunch/the-information-diet-b84d683681ce - Stengel 2019. We're in the Middle of a Global Information War. Here's What We Need to do to Win. Time.
https://time.com/5686843/global-information-war/ - Menczer and Hills 2020. Information Overload Helps Fake News Spread, and Social Media Knows It. Scientific American.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/information-overload-helps-fake-news-spread-and-social-media-knows-it/ - Woolley and Sawiris 2021. Global Democracies Need to Align to Fight Disinformation. Wired.
https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-global-democracies-need-to-align-to-fight-disinformation/
Assignments:
- Peer Reviews of Interest Paper due Sunday, February 20. Please complete your peer reviews on Canvas.
Week 8) Group Exploration 3: Digital Freedom and the War on Misinformation
Sessions:
- Tuesday, February 22 (Class Participation Required)
- Thursday, February 24 (Class Participation Required)
Questions:
- How can we make sense of the sheer amount of information available in our everyday lives, decide what is useful, and determine what is real and what is not? How do we decide what is authoritative, avoid falling for internet scams, and fight back against misinformation? How can we develop the information literacy skills we need to assess the quality of information sources, conquer information overload, and win the information war?
Readings:
- None.
Assignments:
- Group presentations in class on Thursday.
- No written assignments due this week.
Week 9) Information Privacy, Anonymity, Literacy, and Security: Personal Rights in a Big Data World
Sessions:
- Tuesday, March 1 (Class Participation Required)
- Thursday, March 3 (Class Participation Required)
Questions:
- What does it mean to live in a world where someone or something knows everything you do, everywhere you go, everything you buy, and everything you say? What happens to personal privacy when the information technologies documenting and tracking our personal information get more sophisticated every year? How can we secure our personal rights when we explicitly or implictly leave data trails behind us everywhere we go?
Readings:
- Bogost 2018. Welcome to the Age of Privacy Nihilism. The Atlantic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/the-age-of-privacy-nihilism-is-here/568198/ - Fussell 2019. The Endless, Invisible Persuasion Tactics of the Internet. The Atlantic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/08/how-dark-patterns-online-manipulate-shoppers/595360/ - McDowell 2020. Taxonomy is the new fashion-tech essential. Vogue Business.
https://www.voguebusiness.com/technology/taxonomy-is-the-new-fashion-tech-essential-the-yes - Mehra 2020. The Digital Panopticon and How It Is Fuelled by Personal Data. The India Forum. https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/digital-panopticon-and-how-it-fuelled-personal-data
Assignments:
- Annotated Bibliography due Sunday, March 6. Please submit your assignment to Canvas.
Week 10) Group Exploration 4: Digital Bill of Rights, Part 1: Your Personal Data
Sessions:
- Tuesday, March 8 (Class Participation Required)
- Thursday, March 10 (Class Participation Required)
Questions:
- Who has your personally identifiable information? What do they know about you? What are they doing with that information? Are they keeping it safe? Do you have right to be forgotten? Do you have the right to ask for your data back if you want? Do you trust them? What rights should we have? How can we work together to protect our rights to privacy, anonymity, and security with respect to our personal data?
Readings:
- None.
Assignments:
- Group presentations in class on Thursday.
- No written assignments due this week.
SPRING BREAK -- No Class on March 15 or March 17
Week 11) You Wouldn't Download a Car, Would You? Digital Ownership and Information Ethics
Sessions:
- Tuesday, March 22 (Class Participation Required)
- Thursday, March 24 (Class Participation Required)
Questions:
- What does it mean to own something in a world where physical objects have been replaced with digital representations? How are new information technologies reshaping our concepts of property, privacy, and ethics? As digital citizens of the information society, how do we shape the future of information ethics, and what are the consequences for digital ownership in the information age?
Readings:
- Economist 2017. New Technology is Eroding Your Right to Tinker with Things You Own: The End of Ownership in the Digital Era. The Economist.
https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21723679-digital-technology-eroding-peoples-right-tinker-things-they-own-end-ownership - Waldman & Mulvaney 2020. Farmers Fight John Deere Over Who Gets to Fix an $800,000 Tractor. Bloomberg.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-03-05/farmers-fight-john-deere-over-who-gets-to-fix-an-800-000-tractor - Patel 2021. John Deere Turned Tractors into Computers: What's Next? The Verge.
https://www.theverge.com/22533735/john-deere-cto-hindman-decoder-interview-right-to-repair-tractors - Goode 2021. The FTC Votes Unanimously to Enforce Right to Repair. Wired.
https://www.wired.com/story/ftc-votes-to-enforce-right-to-repair/
Assignments:
- Draft Paper due Sunday, March 27. Please submit your assignment to Canvas.
Week 12) Group Exploration 5: Digital Bill of Rights, Part 2: Your Personal Devices
Sessions:
- Tuesday, March 29 (Class Participation Required)
- Thursday, March 31 (Class Participation Required)
Questions:
- Do you have the right to tinker with the digital devices that you own? Should you be allowed to manipulate, repair, break, make, re-use your personal devices in new ways? What should we be allowed to do, or not allowed to do, with our digital devices? What about our digital media? What does it mean to own something in the digital world? Who controls our access to our personal devices, and who should be empowered to make that decision?
Readings:
- None.
Assignments:
- Group presentations in class on Thursday.
- No written assignments due this week.
Week 13) Welcoming our New Robot Overlords: Innovation, Automation, and the Service Economy
Sessions:
- Tuesday, April 5 (Class Participation Required)
- Thursday, April 7 (Class Participation Required)
Questions:
- We are constantly pushing the envelope with innovation and automation, but who is keeping an eye on the possible drawbacks of the latest technology trends? Is our emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship leading to a new kind of freedom, or are we creating a world where everyone is online and working 24/7? What happened to the future where technology was supposed to make our lives easier, with less work time and more free time?
Readings:
- Timberg 2013. Jaron Lanier: The Internet Destroyed the Middle Class. Salon.
https://www.salon.com/2013/05/12/jaron_lanier_the_internet_destroyed_the_middle_class/ - Heller 2017. Is the Gig Economy Working? The New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/15/is-the-gig-economy-working - Leonhardt 2021. The Amazon That Customers Don’t See. New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/15/briefing/amazon-warehouse-investigation.html - Zitron 2021. Why Managers Fear a Remote Work Future. The Atlantic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/work-from-home-benefits/619597/
Assignments:
- Peer Reviews of Draft Paper due Sunday, April 10. Please complete your peer reviews on Canvas.
Week 14) Group Exploration 6: The Future of Work in a Boring Dystopia
Sessions:
- Tuesday, April 12 (Class Participation Required)
- Thursday, April 14 (Class Participation Required)
Questions:
- Technological innovations are revolutionizing the workplace, resulting in micro-careers, digital nomads, and the gig economy. But are these innovations really all that helpful if they promote a workaholic culture where we spend all our time working? How can we use technological innovations to shape the future of work in ways that benefit society, and ensure the pros outweigh the cons for workers in the service economy?
Readings:
- None.
Assignments:
- Group presentations in class on Thursday.
- No written assignments due this week.
Week 15) Who Needs Humans, Anyway? The Future of Humanity in the Information Age
Sessions:
- Tuesday, April 19 (Class Participation Required)
- Thursday, April 21 (Class Participation Required)
Questions:
- Where are we going, and what are we doing? What are we risking, and what is it worth? For what purpose are we changing the world with information technology? What does it mean to be human in a world of smart tech? What is all this actually for? When we look back at ourselves, 50 years from now, will we like what we see?
Readings:
- Carr 2013. All Can Be Lost: The Risk of Putting Our Knowledge in the Hands of Machines. The Atlantic.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/the-great-forgetting/309516/ - Ceglowski 2014. Web Design: The First 100 Years. Idle Words.
http://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm - Brooker 2018. "I Was Devastated": Tim Berners-Lee, The Man Who Created The World Wide Web, Has Some Regrets. Vanity Fair.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/the-man-who-created-the-world-wide-web-has-some-regrets - Anderson, Rainie, and Vogels 2021. Experts Say the ‘New Normal’ in 2025 Will Be Far More Tech-Driven, Presenting More Big Challenges. Pew Research Center.
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/02/18/experts-say-the-new-normal-in-2025-will-be-far-more-tech-driven-presenting-more-big-challenges/
Assignments:
- Final Paper due Sunday, April 24. Please submit your assignment to Canvas.