[psych/anthro] The Other Problem with Big Brother
The NYTimes has an article Big Data on Campus about colleges using all sorts of innovative data mining and, well, surveillance, e.g.-- The research team's raw material: anonymous logs from swipes made with Arizona State ID cards. When students use these cards, be it to buy food on campus or access the fitness center, the transaction gets recorded. The question that struck Mr. Pittinsky was whether or not you could infer social ties from those trails.
Say two students swipe within 5 or 10 seconds of each other at different times of day in different contexts. Are they more likely to be friends? And can you predict attrition by pinpointing changes in how a student uses a campus? Say someone goes to Starbucks at 2 p.m. every day before 2:15 p.m. class. Then stops. "If that happens three weeks in a row," Mr. Pittinsky says, "and we're seeing log-ins into Blackboard, and maybe you've made a request at the registrar to have your transcript sent somewhere, there ought to be an adviser with a really big red flashing light saying, reach out to this student."
--to guide students and identify which are falling through the cracks.
The article is worth reading, not least because the critics of the MIT card back in the 1990s are entitled to a whopping ITYS. However, I think most people are so primed to perceive the Orwellian, privacy-invasion problems and the over-structuring problem, that they'll miss what strikes me as another very troubling aspect of this increasingly real scenario.
One of the part of human development we all have to go through is developing a "theory of mind", and coming to understand that other people have minds of their own, and perspectives and view points of their own. Including literally. Children have to learn that just because they know something, doesn't mean that other people know that something. Later on, young people develop increasing awareness that other people are people just like themselves, unable to read minds and predict the future, trying to function on imperfect information and with their own agendas and concerns.
You learn -- or are supposed to learn -- that you are not the center of the universe. That other people are not bit players in the movie of your life. That other people have a function other than catering to you, anticipating your needs and taking responsibility for your outcomes.
I think the idea of closely monitoring students and catching them as they fall through the cracks is a very laudable thing. And, still, at the same, time, I'm very creeped out by how closely the results of the performance surveillance system they describe resemble a childhood fantasy of omniscient parent-substitutes magically knowing everything and taking care of everything: When class meets, she taps her nails on the hard drive of Carolina Beltran's computer. "You were working on it at 4 a.m.," the instructor tells the student.
"Yeah, I mean, like, I sleep. My sleeping schedule is weird," Ms. Beltran stammers.
I'm less concerned that it's none of the instructor's goddamned business what time Ms. Beltran chooses to work on an assignment, than I am that Ms. Beltran is getting the impression that there is someone other than her who cares when she does her homework, who will intervene to make her do it at the "right time".
We know that paranoia is a bad thing, right? The reverse is pronoia: wikipedia: "having the sense that there is a conspiracy that exists to help the person." That is no more reality-congruent than paranoia, and is a kind of narcissistic infantile wish-fulfillment fantasy. Except in the collegiate bubbles described in the articles, it's also queasily accurate. "Just because you're pronoid doesn't mean they aren't out to help you"?
I don't think we want to be more encouraging college students to believe "it will all just work out because unseen people are looking out for me and will make sure things go okay."
Say two students swipe within 5 or 10 seconds of each other at different times of day in different contexts. Are they more likely to be friends? And can you predict attrition by pinpointing changes in how a student uses a campus? Say someone goes to Starbucks at 2 p.m. every day before 2:15 p.m. class. Then stops. "If that happens three weeks in a row," Mr. Pittinsky says, "and we're seeing log-ins into Blackboard, and maybe you've made a request at the registrar to have your transcript sent somewhere, there ought to be an adviser with a really big red flashing light saying, reach out to this student."
--to guide students and identify which are falling through the cracks.
The article is worth reading, not least because the critics of the MIT card back in the 1990s are entitled to a whopping ITYS. However, I think most people are so primed to perceive the Orwellian, privacy-invasion problems and the over-structuring problem, that they'll miss what strikes me as another very troubling aspect of this increasingly real scenario.
One of the part of human development we all have to go through is developing a "theory of mind", and coming to understand that other people have minds of their own, and perspectives and view points of their own. Including literally. Children have to learn that just because they know something, doesn't mean that other people know that something. Later on, young people develop increasing awareness that other people are people just like themselves, unable to read minds and predict the future, trying to function on imperfect information and with their own agendas and concerns.
You learn -- or are supposed to learn -- that you are not the center of the universe. That other people are not bit players in the movie of your life. That other people have a function other than catering to you, anticipating your needs and taking responsibility for your outcomes.
I think the idea of closely monitoring students and catching them as they fall through the cracks is a very laudable thing. And, still, at the same, time, I'm very creeped out by how closely the results of the performance surveillance system they describe resemble a childhood fantasy of omniscient parent-substitutes magically knowing everything and taking care of everything: When class meets, she taps her nails on the hard drive of Carolina Beltran's computer. "You were working on it at 4 a.m.," the instructor tells the student.
"Yeah, I mean, like, I sleep. My sleeping schedule is weird," Ms. Beltran stammers.
I'm less concerned that it's none of the instructor's goddamned business what time Ms. Beltran chooses to work on an assignment, than I am that Ms. Beltran is getting the impression that there is someone other than her who cares when she does her homework, who will intervene to make her do it at the "right time".
We know that paranoia is a bad thing, right? The reverse is pronoia: wikipedia: "having the sense that there is a conspiracy that exists to help the person." That is no more reality-congruent than paranoia, and is a kind of narcissistic infantile wish-fulfillment fantasy. Except in the collegiate bubbles described in the articles, it's also queasily accurate. "Just because you're pronoid doesn't mean they aren't out to help you"?
I don't think we want to be more encouraging college students to believe "it will all just work out because unseen people are looking out for me and will make sure things go okay."