Week3-Supervening necessity/unintended consequences/U&G
“Supervening necessity” is what drives technological invention as a result of consumer’s wants and needs. It’s a concentration of the generalized socail forces to determine the process of invention and concerned with how people come to choose to initially use this technology; besides , after becoming “invention”, supervening necessity will examine the capacity again that this new develop of invention to a product is combined with spin-off(Winston,1998). See? “Supervening necessity” is very important in a product’s life cycle; as it likely led to the product’s creation and will its replacement.
Further more, there are many factors or events to bring the appearance of people's needs, such as War, disasters, and so on. After suffering disasters, people need some food and want to reconstruct their house. Nowadays, I think that people always want to get the best thing and never feel satisified, so inventors should create new products to replace an outdated technology in order to accommodate consumer’s needs. For example, 2G/3G cellphone replaced BBcall to become the main personal telecommunication. Several more examples of “supervening necessity were when the DSL/Cable replaced the traditional modem and the LED/LCD replaced the cathode ray tubes. These were all examples of consumer wants and needs leading to new inventions and show the importance of “supervening necessity” in the creation of new technology.
The law of unintended consequences tells us how many seemingly innocuous innovations can become something much more harmful than their inventors had ever imagined. Here is some information about it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/21/unintended_consequences/
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/UnintendedConsequences.html
The above article mentioned that there are five sources of unanticipated consequences.
1. ignorance
2. error
3. imperious immediacy of interest
4. basic values
5. self-defeating prediction
For example, the internet and computer provide many examples of unintended consequences. Though they both provided us alot of advantages they also brought many drawbacks. For example, children play computer video games and forget to write their homework; people rely on via MSN/Skype for communication instead of talking on the phone and possibly become estranged; and people staring at the computer screen can lead to nearsightedness. The article “Informing ourselves to death” said, technology giveth and technology taketh away, and not always in equal measure. To be sure, new technology sometimes destroys more than it creates; but it also can lead to many advantages that ultimately outweigh its unintended consequences.
In this quarter, my research will focus on social network analysis on web log. I’m very interested in Uses and Gratifications theory because it is useful to me.I would like to use this theory to find out why some people are willing to show their emotion and diary to the public. Will they get gratification by doing this? Also, some people extremely like to see other’s blog. What kind of blog is their favorite? Is it relative their life style or their personality? I would like to explore the content gratification and socail gratification, especially the interaction between users and audiences.U&G can help me to explain the motivations of bloggers related continued and increases use on blog.
Further more, there are many factors or events to bring the appearance of people's needs, such as War, disasters, and so on. After suffering disasters, people need some food and want to reconstruct their house. Nowadays, I think that people always want to get the best thing and never feel satisified, so inventors should create new products to replace an outdated technology in order to accommodate consumer’s needs. For example, 2G/3G cellphone replaced BBcall to become the main personal telecommunication. Several more examples of “supervening necessity were when the DSL/Cable replaced the traditional modem and the LED/LCD replaced the cathode ray tubes. These were all examples of consumer wants and needs leading to new inventions and show the importance of “supervening necessity” in the creation of new technology.
The law of unintended consequences tells us how many seemingly innocuous innovations can become something much more harmful than their inventors had ever imagined. Here is some information about it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/21/unintended_consequences/
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/UnintendedConsequences.html
The above article mentioned that there are five sources of unanticipated consequences.
1. ignorance
2. error
3. imperious immediacy of interest
4. basic values
5. self-defeating prediction
For example, the internet and computer provide many examples of unintended consequences. Though they both provided us alot of advantages they also brought many drawbacks. For example, children play computer video games and forget to write their homework; people rely on via MSN/Skype for communication instead of talking on the phone and possibly become estranged; and people staring at the computer screen can lead to nearsightedness. The article “Informing ourselves to death” said, technology giveth and technology taketh away, and not always in equal measure. To be sure, new technology sometimes destroys more than it creates; but it also can lead to many advantages that ultimately outweigh its unintended consequences.
In this quarter, my research will focus on social network analysis on web log. I’m very interested in Uses and Gratifications theory because it is useful to me.I would like to use this theory to find out why some people are willing to show their emotion and diary to the public. Will they get gratification by doing this? Also, some people extremely like to see other’s blog. What kind of blog is their favorite? Is it relative their life style or their personality? I would like to explore the content gratification and socail gratification, especially the interaction between users and audiences.U&G can help me to explain the motivations of bloggers related continued and increases use on blog.
posted by Chloe @ 4:23 PM
1 Comments:
Chloe, again with UG theory,the question of user learning and motivation is critical.
I think we also have to ask ourselves in many cases, what are the parameters of a supervening necessity? In other words, did people change from dial-up modems to broadband because they wanted to or cared? Or was it business driving the need?
If we tried to use a 1986 MAC or PC, what really is the difference? More information? To what end? Is Postman right - We have information coming out of our ears and don't know what to do with it all? But, somehow, we've been sold on the idea that we need it. . .
Your research on blogs, their evolution and where they go should be quite interesting. Much of what's available on blogs is either the musings of someone or what I call RANT-A-LOT, previously known in the e-mail community as flaming.
Of course, looking at what corporations are doing in the blog world is yet another animal... see Wal-Mart's so called flog. http://msft.bloggingstocks.com/2006/10/16/wal-mart-blog-fiasco-a-lesson-for-retailer-on-ethics/
Post a Comment
<< Home