Sunday, February 8, 2009

Social networking inequalities

I found an article about vulnerability of social networking space on the web. Article, "Social networking: Not as inclusive as you might think" is mainly focused on arguing how the particular group of people, who have physical disabilities, are not providing equal opportunities in using those websites. Specially, the process of accessing information we have to get through, and the methods for using basic tools, that those websites provides are designed for majority of people in society (including producers), so it is very hard to use for some people. For example, link or CAPTCHA for visual impairment, enormous number of required mouse movement and clicks in order to access information, so on. The article also illustrates how software and devices help people to use those websites at the end, so it it interesting to compare how information technology advantage or disadvantage people. 

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1 comment:

  1. DJFebruary 9, 2009 at 9:05 PM

    Hey I thought you found an extremely interesting and original article. I'm particularly curious about technological advancement and the effects on social networking. I think that your decesion to choose an article from the perspective that social networking sites are ultimately a technological inequality in themselves is great.

    The article discusses things I have never even considered. I guess I was completely oblivious to the fact that disabled people, just like everyone else, need and want to network on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

    Also I didn't realize that many of the website developers probably don't think about disabilities during the design and layout phases of website production. This is ultimately where the problem lies and where the greatest inequality exists.

    I think now that we are becoming more and more aware of the digital divide and the effects it has on our society, wesbites will become more accomodating over time.

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