Chapter 6 wrap-up

11/17/2012

1. Discuss ways in which you would like to see search engines improved.
2. In this digital media information age most, if not all information is available to anyone at any time on a compact, easy-to-use device. How do you think this affects the level of people’s general knowledge or education? Are people becoming more knowledgable and more active in society? Or are they becoming more apathetic, or are they more or less the same? How does this device affect different people within society, such as rich versus poor, or various ethnic or language groups?

Summer

11/21/2012 11:51:06 am

1. To be honest, everyday when I turn on my laptop, the first thing is to open baidu.com. However, it doesn’t mean baidu is so important to me, instead, I just open up its page to make sure that my computer is connected to the network. So, as you see, baidu is no longer the necessary choice if I need a search engine. I choose google instead. There are so many ways I would like to see search engine improved. First of all, I hope they can provide more accurate information that we need. When I type in just a few key words, the information I get can never be what I actually want. But if I type in many many key words…. You know what the story would be, there would be no information related at all. So once and once again it turns out to be a waste of time to search on the search engine! Another way I hope them, especially baidu, to improve is that, to be more tolerant to foreign webs. This is rather important epecially for students of foreign language major. I know it is beyond what a search engine can handle, maybe there are many factors in the way. That’s why I prefer google more. And last, I hope to see fewer ads in the pages.

2. It really depend, I think, living in the digital media information age, the diligent people is getting wiser and more knowledgeable. However, the lazy bones are getting rather more stupid and lazier. So whether you are heading toward a higher level of knowledge and education really depends on who you are. We are living in a world full of information and knowledge. If you wish, it’s never too late to learn, because there are so much resources around. But if you just sit and wait, you will sure to suck. As for those easy-to-use devices, rich people will easily afford them and make use of them. But poor people may not. However, devices may make our life easier and better, it can also take up a large part of time. What we should do is to make the best use of them.

Marissa

11/21/2012 01:52:59 pm

Good suggestions for improvement.
Great analysis. It does come down to how we use said device.

COCO

11/21/2012 11:59:14 am

1. As technology developing, search engines are smarter and safer.
First of all, I want to take smarter Gmail as an example. Recently I have read the news that the Gmail search engine can correct the mistakes, such as the plural of words and the forms of tenses. Google search engine is stronger than Gmail. If you type “NY”, you can get “New York”. If you type “televasion”, you will get “TV”. If you type拼音, any search engine will automatically change it into汉字. Also, we can use some symbols, such as “+” “-”, representing “and” “not” and so on.
In addition, some search engines become safer such as 360. Before you start to go through websites, the engine will make a safe environment for netizens to surf on the Internet.
2.if not all information is available to anyone at any time on a compact easy-to use device, people will be more apathetic. First of all, only some information can be known by people, they won’t be familiar with the factual issues that happen recently. The smart phones will be no use for everyone because we can’t read news or know other new things from it. Secondly, we will be far away from the society gradually. Without new information, bissinessmen will lose some essencial opptunities to make money, students won’t know the big issues about their countries, the workers will be deaf that where to find jobs. People will become dull and cloistered from the society step by step and lose interest in everything they should have known. They will contribute less and less to build our society. Therefore, we need more and more new information.

Marissa

11/21/2012 01:55:48 pm

Google search engine. Gmail is Google's email service. We call that predictive text.
We do need more information, but you should not forget that information overload can occur as a result.

Nina

11/21/2012 02:47:14 pm

1、The current search engines can only be applied to searching key words. But there’re a lot of cases in which we know nothing about what we want to search, but just a piece of melody, a picture. Maybe the future search engine can combine with the technology of sound scan or picture scan. Like if I see a stunning boy on the internet, I can download that picture and put it on the search engine, then through the picture scan, I can get the results of who he is and other stuff related.
2、If we can’t get the information that easily and effectively, I guess for most ordinary people, they are becoming more apathetic. Because without the convenient access to the knowledge of all areas, they may give up to find the answer. But there are still some people who will always find a way to improve themselves. For those people, if they can’t get what they want at any time, they will dig it thoroughly once time, and remember it forever. So, it depends. For the rich who can afford these expensive high-tech devices, they rely on them heavily for entertainment, study, or even business. These devices bring a lot of convenience. But for the poor, I think these devices make little difference to their life.

Marissa

11/28/2012 10:13:08 pm

Great idea!
Good over-arching view of how these devices affect different types of people.

Tammy

11/21/2012 02:54:42 pm

1.In my opinion, the search engines can be improved as follow:
1)More intelligentize. We can search information through key words, though, the result search engines provided were not so meshed. I hope the search engine provide more identical and anastomose results.
2)Become a GPS in the stock information. What we need is not only the massive information links, but also the well management of the information. I hope the search engines can well guide the users how to deal with the result it provided, just like the GPS tell us how to arrive the destination.
3)More personalize. I hope the search engines can according to users search histories and visit activities, provide more appropriate information.
•
2.
1) I think the level of people’s general knowledge is improved. First, the people who know how to use internet and search engines are definitely educated, and that means they are able to educate themselves. There are so many resources on the internet for them to self-improve. With the help of the internet, the level of the people’s general knowledge is surely improved. Secondly, the internet increases users’ capacity stealthily. Reading news, watching documentary or listening to the online opening classes through the internet are all open our horizon.
2) I think people are become more active in the physical world. Due to lots of internet communities, more like-minded people making friends and they not only connect on the internet, but also on the physical world. And thanks to the social network, we can keep close touch with our friends. Besides, we even make more friends than ever. We can meet people from all kinds of classes or different countries. Rich people can make friend with poor people, Chinese can talk to American. People’s friend circles are larger and larger. Internet connects every individual together and make the Earth become a county.

Vrena

11/21/2012 03:03:06 pm

Q1:
Search engine is essential for us in the digital age. Every time I turn on my computer, I would like to seek the information by it. According to my using experience, there are still some aspects which need to be improved.

The search engine consists of a wide range of information which nearly satisfies everyone. But it comes to an obvious shortcoming that too much information wastes time to select. We enter the key words in it and get countless results. How can I find exactly what I want in the first sight? So I pay attention to read the words sentence by sentence. What the search engine needs to focus on is providing a brief list of content which closely related to the key words. We are waiting for an automatic and efficient filter system to bring it to a higher level.

Though the search engine has the function severed for providing the related information, it doesn’t work very well on similar information providing. It happens when I can’t remember the exact words of the content I need. What I can do is only trying again and again until I find it. If the search engine can test my words and provide similar words and content, it will benefit the users a lot.

Q2: It definitely does harm to the level of people’s general knowledge or education. No one can tickle every trouble and grasp everything. Just as knowing all the knowledge is impossible. When the information is limited to people in time and devices, they can’t equip themselves with the unknown instantly and they will be more apathetic. As time passes by, the unknown piles up resulting in a big lose of learning. And it narrows the range of the knowledge for people.

The compact and easy-to-use device ensures that most of the people have access to learn more and know the other parts of the world. However, is differs in different groups of people. For instance, this kind of device is of various qualities and functions. The rich people can afford better devices which are equipped with more and complex functions. Those functions allow them to get more information and have fun. As for the poor, they only have devices with less and easy functions, which conversely cut down information. Of course, the device brings a better choice of information for all of the people.

Amelia

11/21/2012 03:43:35 pm

To be honest, I think the search engines at present time are good enough. They all help me a lot with searching for information online. But sometimes,I am reaally upset and annoyed, because when I input the key words, the search engine provides me with a lot of information that is not useful to me, I have to waste a lot of time to look for what I need.

As for the sencond topic, I think that it all depends. If not all information is available to anyone at any time on a compact, easy-to-use device, people still use other means to get information through books, magazines, newspapers and so on. It does not affect their knowledgeable level. But it may affect people for whom the devices are necessaries in their life.

Amelia

11/21/2012 03:49:32 pm

I am sorry for not mentioning in which way I would like the engine to be improved. I hope that the engines could be more accerate and don't provide me with a lot of useless information..

Penny

11/21/2012 05:18:41 pm

　　　1.I discovered that there’s so much useless information that search engine gives when we use it. For example, if we are using Baidu to search “study aboard”, maybe the first information will be an advertisement of a company of studying aboard service. Maybe the commercial atmosphere of search engine is a little bit heavy. I know they need to make money by this way, but it is not convenient for users. In a conclusion, I want to see there is the information we need most instead of the useless advertisement. I suggest the search engine to put the advertisements in a certain place or separate them from the valuable information, maybe it is more convenient for us.
　2.I think people are becoming more knowledgeable and more active in society, and they are also getting more apathetic. We can see, with digital devices, we can search information timely and quickly, for example we can look for the dictionary with an electric dictionary instead of a paper one, so we can get the meaning of a strange word without 20 seconds. But I also believe that people are becoming more apathetic, because we can get what we want easily, we are lazy to learn initiatively, we just turn on our mobile phones or pads when we need some information. It seems that people are losing the interests of learning and exploring.
　　The digital devices certainly affect the way of our life. And it also magnified the gap between the rich and the poor.

Bunny

11/21/2012 05:53:44 pm

As for the first question, the search engines can be proved by such three ways. The first, I think that the search engines should provide more key words or options for people. Because sometimes we can not find what we want form the internet. The results will be: “we can not find the content that you search. Maybe you can try other words.” So we need more key words provided for us. The second, I think the search engines need to organize the content that customers search. Because when we find some information online, there are always many repeating content that we do not need. The last, I think the search engines should clear up the user interface; we do not need ads and make the engines as simple as everyone can use it.

About the second question, I think that internet does bring people much information and we can learn some we can get in book and classes. Obviously, it improves people’s knowledge and we know that there are some online classes which are free for users. But if one day, it can not be access to easily, a lot of people will be affected. Especially, some people have a habit that scan news online, they can not enjoy the free information. For our college students, we can not get much information when we need to do some reseach. But, for some senior people like my grandparents, they do not use internet, so that's may be few effect for them. So, i think if the information is not easy to get, and only you were a netizen, no matter poor or rich, you would feel uncomfortable

Epperly

11/21/2012 05:57:38 pm

Q1: Every time I type the searching key words into the search engines, there is always some un-related information and even some advertisements appearing in the top places, which is so inconvenient if I am in a hurry to find some useful content. In terms of suggestions for the improvement of search engines, I think it needs to provide us with more accurate information which is more related to our searching key words. It can help us save time by easily picking up the information that we really need. Honestly speaking, the ads are unavoidable because the search engine companies need that to make profits, thus, in order to make the search results friendlier to information consumers, the companies can give the ads content a certain area instead of mixing them up with the related information, which will be a big favor for save information-finding time. In addition, I think maybe the search engines can provide customized service based on the personal need of different information consumers.
Q2: We are in a digital media information age, and information is kind of part of our lives. So if not all information is available to anyone at any time on a compact, easy-to-use device, I think most people’s general knowledge and education will be sabotaged. But we still face the potential risk of being overwhelmed by the overloaded information. Sometimes, way too much information worries us a lot, because it makes us feel dizzy and forget we really need. Therefore, under the circumstances that not all information is available, people will become more knowledgeable and more active in society. Because without the accessible information, people will always find another ways to improve the level of knowledge and there is no worries about overloaded information any more. When it comes to the effect of the device, I think different groups of people have different situations. For example, for the poor, they cannot easily afford the device in the first place, so they can live well and keep their own ways to access to information without the device. As for the rich, they have already got used to the easy-to-use device, so it will be a tough time for them to get through without the device.

Celia

11/21/2012 06:45:50 pm

For nowadays, search engines need to be self-reinforced in three aspects, it needs to be comprehensive, accurate and personalize. That means it must apply searchers all information they may need, and filter useless information and ads, moreover, to analyze the key word people searched then offer the information they really need.

As far as we can see, the whole society become interactive as a result in the information age, even if we don’t get all information at anytime, we know more from those information we have got than we used to. People definitely are becoming more knowledgeable and more active. Now, elementary students knew Obama has elected the American president, housewives heard the clash between Palestine and Israel.
Certainly, information affects different people in different ways. Stock price changes can make rich guys nervous but have nothing to do with the poor who have no stock. Pork price raises only effects those who eat pork but have no influence to those Muslim.

Ivy

11/21/2012 06:49:48 pm

Question 1:

Since search engines are one of the most frequently-used tools, I’ve been very familiar with Baidu and Google. I can see that these search engines are trying their best to make a progress, but I think no matter how they changed, the basic principle is to know more about people’s thoughts and to meet the needs of the netizens. I’ve come up with lots of visions of this amazing engine. :)

(1) Search engines should provide more advanced search functions to filter the information. Maybe I can put my detailed requirements like: “what I want to find”, “what I don’t need”. For example, when I want to search some information about a botanist called George Smith, Baidu always collects all the information about the name George Smith. However, some of them are football player George and some are businessman George. Thus, if I can put my detailed requirements on the search engine, the search result will be clearer and simpler.

(2) I hope that the search engine can provide the backward query. If I only have some picture and I want to know more about this picture, I wish that I can seek out the image source and the related articles by uploading my picture.

(3) Also, I hope that the search engine can be more professional. Maybe it can classify different kinds of information such as medicine, military and astronomy etc. If the search engine can provide such professional information, I think it’s reasonable for users to pay for the service.

(4) Search engines may also provide individualized service. It can record the search history, the habit, the content on microblog of everyone. In this way, the search engine can provide some information closer to our needs.

(5) Lastly, I hope that the search engine on our cellphones can indentify our position to provide more related information we need. For example, when I’m in the Apple Store to buy a cellphone, the keywords I put in the search bar of Google must refer to the Apple Company, not the fruit. Thus, the search engine can identify my position and provide the correct search results.

And I also hope that the search engine should respect the copyrights of others. Google does better than Baidu on this aspect. Several years ago, a famous writer, Han Han, complained that his book’s content can be easily found in Baidu and everyone can read them for free. However, Baidu didn’t give any explanation to him. On the contrary, Google gave him right-price payments. Personally, expecting of copyrights is a basic principle for search engines.

Question 2:

If not all information is available to anyone at any time on a compact, easy-to-use device, it’ll affect the level of people to get general knowledge. As a student, if we don’t have a cellphone to use microblog, we’ll miss lots of breaking news and interesting anecdotes. The content on microblog updates very fast and it can always dig out interesting news. For example, news of election is not that attractive for most of the students several years ago, but microblog can spread the news on election and make it interesting to read. More and more people would love to know more about the news and finally we’ll get more general knowledge.

For the same reason, I think people are becoming more knowledgeable and more active in society. The information on the compact device is easy to get. When we’re on our way home, we can use the device to check every-day news by using these devices. The interesting news will always provoke our interests. We can gradually get more common topics for our chat with friends. So we’ll be more active in society.

This device can build a bridge among various ethnic and language groups. We can understand foreigners better and share our happiness with each other. What’s more, it can help improve the relationship between the rich and the poor. The two different groups may understand each other much better.

Louise

11/21/2012 09:12:21 pm

1. As far as I am concerned,today’s media engines haven’t hit a rapid speed.Besides,the format is too limited.To illustrate more, we click a webpage,it’s too slow.If we open some more pages,our computer may paralyze sometimes.It cause our worries,which may influence our task.Another thing I want to mention is that the limited format,which means its content can’t satisfy us.There are too many spam there,everywhere,too terrified.In the future,I would rather to see little advertisement,little spam.However,more effective information.Only in this way,we can surf the Internat more quickly.
2. In this digital media,if we can’t find information anytime,anywhere,it actually affect our level of knowledge.Imagining,if we can’t find effective the minute we need through cell phone or iPad,people get confused.For us,we can’t find the exact meaning of a word,we can’t get across the main idea of the articles,it must affect our learning.Time going by,our literata ability become slow,we become stupid.However,every coin has two sides.We may get less radiation from cell phones,which is good for our health.Besides,less interacting with cyberworld,less porn damage our teenagers.And people may involve in more social activities,which means communicating with classmates more.There are so many incidents which caused by surfing too much on the Internat.

Aurora link

11/21/2012 09:33:50 pm

1. In the future, I hope to see the search engines improved in three aspects:
1) They should be more concise in content. When I first used search engine Baidu, I intended to find some information on wolves, but at last I found more information on Minnesota Timberwolves, as the basketball team is more popular than the files on animals, and they both contain "狼" in Chinese. This kind of incident happened several times and made me feel very confortable. If search engine designers could make their programme more acuurate and concise, that would be perfect.
2) They should filter the websites containing false information and cheating surfers. I once found a website that contained all the hot words that may be searched on the Internet but containing porn contents. It did that only to attract web surfers and cheated them to click in, so that their click account would rise and maybe they could send torjans to careless viewers.That is not only a shame for the Internet, but also for search engines, for a lot of their users are forced to view the information they do not intend to see.
3) They should be more customized on function. I hope search engines will provide their users more choices on the content they want to know, such as find essays containing exact definations on one subject or pictures displaying exactly what you want to find. I think the search engines will get increasingly popular through evolving on these aspects.
2. While we are walking into the digital media age, I found that our life is getting more convinient with the help of all those digital devices and internet access. We can get the latest and the most advanced information in no time at all; and when we are trying to find background information on unfamiliar subjects, we can find a lot on what we want to know, and pack it in a very small and slight device so that we won't have to do with piles of heavy books and magazines. It has completely changed our lifestyle and way of study and work.
Meanwhile, despite all these conviniences, I feel that we are getting lazy and ignorant on certain fields. Because of all those easy access of information, we are gradually used to rely on those search engines and Internet access, and now we are becoming the ones who do not really want to remember things. That is actually not good for human being, as we cannot be too dependent on automatic intellegence and storage. Also, while we are getting used to tf ransmitt and absorb information and knowledge online, through digital devices, people who lived in remote areas or who suffered extreme poverty may be spurn out of the latest human achievements unnoticed. If that becomes reality, maybe one day we will find someone who live in remote mountainous regions and ask us if Egypt's president is still Muhammed Hosni Mubarak. That pospect is terrifying and I wish it will never happen in our future.

jane

11/21/2012 09:35:56 pm

Q1.
The concerns about search engines are safety, completeness and access to information.
When I usually use the search engine to look for some information, usually I will go to Wikipedia or baidubaike, but these contents are organized by any people who want to edit it. Therefore, it is very difficult to identify the information ---whether it is true or not, objective or subjective, complete or only part of it.
When searching the same information, google and baidu can provide me different answers. I must search for more websites to get vast information about it.
I also use dictionary as well. It turns out the dictionary sometimes is not strong enough to get what I need. The examples are not so appropriate, and sometimes the meanings don’t fit the context.
Still, there is secret information only available for insiders, such as nation defense.
Q2.
For people who are still isolated from the internet, the information has nothing to do with them, not to mention any changes in them.
While, despite all the dangers mentioned before may exist and the fact it affects our knowledge, still, its contributions are much more than its drawbacks. Internet has made information historically open than ever before, which made getting information easier and more. No doubt it helps people expand their horizons.
However, it makes cheat and copy popular in “creating” homework, so for those lack of self-discipline, it might be the crime helper.

Rena

11/21/2012 09:44:05 pm

Q1.
In some way, we consumers don’t really have a say in technological development. It’s an era of empowered suppliers. All cell phone manufacturers are now competing against each other in order to provide consumers with more innovative products than ever. We, consumers, only have to decide which is better. Apple, for example, is a typical vanguard of innovation which provides us with the latest technology that we have never thought of.

The same thing is just happening in the search engines world. Google and Baidu keep providing us with more and more convenient apps like a map, a music box, news, novels, videos and so on. Under such circumstances, it is rather difficult for me to add additional function a search engine should have.

So the only thing I want search engines to improve is that they should have fewer advertisements or separate the advertisement part from the content part.

Q2.
Being unable to keep in touch with information on a compact, easy-to-use device will be a disaster! Simply take us, for example, there are no TVs or newspapers here in campus. So the only way we, who live at the remote suburban area, keep ourselves within the real world as well as inform ourselves with the latest news is the Internet which can be accessed through the computer and the cell phone. Therefore, if it is impossible for us to get news through the Internet from our cell phones, our knowledge is limited.

To some degree, people now are becoming more knowledgeable and more active in society with the help of Weibo. Weibo is actually a new channel for people to share information about all the things, even about our leaders and sensible issues. It helps to unveil dirty secrets to the mass public so that we will never be ignorant as before. Meanwhile, Chinese central government encourages regional governments to publicize their performance on Weibo which stimulate much more people’s interest in being active in society.

However, different people have various attitudes. Rich people benefit more from the devices than the poor who still have to worry about bread and board.

Elena

11/21/2012 09:59:58 pm

1.First, search engine should become as fast as it could be. When we are searching for information on the Internet. There are mass of information we need to choose. Saving time is very important.
Second, it would be perfect if we could use our voice but not type when we use search engine. For instance, when we are searching for a word or the meaning of a phrase during we are reading a book, we speak it out then search engine could help us find out. In that way, we don’t need to put off the book and type. We can save a lot of time.
2.I don’t think it matters more if not all information is available to anyone at any time on a compact, easy-to-use device. Because as we all know, ancient people do not have any device to get information whenever they want. They could still get knowledge they need. This situation could not stop human improving. But it dose matter so much when think of different kinds of people, such as rich versus poor. Most of rich are businessman, they need massive message to make their business under control. Poor do not have information craving. Multimedia device have more impact on rich. than poor.

Vicki

11/21/2012 10:05:00 pm

1.Search engines are really important for us ,for we need them to look for almost all the information. However, search engines are not so satisfactory. As for me, the first thing I want to see is that the accuracy can be improved. Sometimes,I type some key words to seek for information, but I can not get the most important and accurate information instantly, which makes me very upset .And it takes a lot of time to pick out the most important information. Besides, the advertisements in the search engines should be reduced.If I search some information in Baidu,usually,the first thing jumps into my eyes is the advertisements.That's very annoying.And,the google is much better in this aspect.
2.If not all information is available to anyone at any time on a compact, easy-to-use device, this does affect the level of people's general knowledge.For example, students in the rural districts do not have the opputunities to use computers, and they may do not know what is going on in the world.What's more, through the internet, peopel are becoming more and more active in the sociey.In the past, ordinary people can not join in the disscussion of making some policies, but now,they can freely express their opinions and defend their own rights by talking on the Internet.

Angela

11/21/2012 10:13:12 pm

1.In my opinion,it should develop in several ways.As we know,the social search is becoming a mainstream.The social networking platform now emphasize on the connection between users,challenging the traditional search engine technologies.If you search for a result,it appears so many results in traditional way,which is in mess.
Then I think the real-time search is of great necessity.With the development of individual media,it requires the search engine to provide the real-time information.Meanwhile,with smartphones developing very fast,mobile search is increasingly popular.Therefore,it requires the search engine to be mobile and people can get information at any time .
According to the users' network behaviors,the search engine should set up a set of models based on users' interests.
Additionally,I think the multimedia is very necessary.currently,the search engine is based on text.Even the pictures and videos search is also based on text.However,multimedia form includes not only text,but also pictures、audio and videos.As a result,the multimedia search is a trend that the search engine will develop.
2.Personally speaking,if not all information is available to anyone at any time on a compact, easy-to-use device,it will not affect the level of people’s general knowledge or education.Because we can get knowledge in other ways.For example,we can get information through our personal computer.And there exists massive infromation,which brings the inconvenience.
I think people will be more apathetic.With the development of digital media,people pay more attention on the information on the digital media.They will ignore people around us.For example,nowadayspeople tends to communicate with others through the Internet rather than face to face.
I think it depends.For the rich,especially the businessman,they need to get instant infromation to develop the business.This device can benefit them very much.However,for the poor,there is no point knowing massive knowledge.It will be a burden on them.Therefore,for different groups,it depends.

Tina

11/21/2012 10:15:39 pm

1. The most commonly used search engines for me is Baidu,everytime I need to search some information I would go to Baidu for help.However,someimes I can't find the very information I needed through Baidu.This somehow related to the limitation of the searching engine.It doesn't know the specific need of customers.So I think search engine should be improved to be smart enough to know the main idea of searching item and able to sense customer's needs based on customers' searching history.What's more,the searching engine should be able to detect the misspelling and grammar mistakes to help people corret their searching and be function enlarged with more words to be searched.There's a scandle goes that searching engine sometimes related to commercial webisites,they give priorities to those websites who give them money to let them come out in the first place.I hope this situation changes,too.That's my wishes for the future development of searching engines.
2. I think this is depend on how people use it.This digital media information age really opens up a wealth of information and makes the gap between different people disappear--no matter you're poor or rich,no matter you are an American or a Chinese,no matter you're male or female can all share various of information in this age.We can learn about a event as soon as it happens,enjoy a funny thing shared by our friends through social networking,know about another world so far away from you and we can gain knowledge by reading e-books and wandering BBS.What's more,the way of receiving information has been varied,we can receive texture,audio,video information or even the combination of them.If we use this digit media properly,it can enlarge our knowledge and make us better understand it.For example,you can find the explanation of certain knowlege in a funny way on the internet which may help you understand it and ignite your interests about this topic.If we don't use the digit media properly,for example,get addicted to social networking,spend our lives just concerning about what others are doing,our original life style may be destroyed.The efficiency of our working and studing may be well reduced and we just live in a virtual world and don't care about things happened in the real world which may cause some dangerous consequence.So I think it really depends on how we use it.

Alice

11/21/2012 10:25:15 pm

1.There is no doubt that search engines play a vital role in finding information. So I hope search engines could be more accurate, which means providing more related key words and limits to help me find what I really need, for sometimes I don’t know use what key words.
Moreover, I hope search engines can tell me exactly where the information I want appears in a long long article, which paragraph and which line.
And do some classification of the results, like blog, news website, forum etc.
Last but not least, I hope search engines could be more personalized. I can decide the function I use most to appear and I would like to show the news and translation.
Maybe one day there will be various search engines for different people, for example a language search engines specially designed for language students.
2.As far as I’m concerned, people are becoming more apathetic. We must be clear that information is not equal to knowledge. When we get information, we think hard trying to understand; and then we absorb it; after that we turn the information into our own knowledge. However, now people just read the information and use; they seldom try to understand. This is very common in nowadays universities. Whenever students have to hand in an essay, they just immediately search on the Internet to copy and paste, never think themselves. As a result, they learn nothing and forget what they copy quickly. To sum up, learning knowledge is a long journey; no one can easily make it just by the easy-to-use device.
By now, I don’t see the device affect different people greatly. I think the information is available to everyone. But some very poor areas maybe lagged behind by virtue of lacking Internet access.

Windy

11/21/2012 10:27:12 pm

Q1:
1)It’s essential to put the most important imformation in the first place,therefore, it will be easy for user to get most useful imformation quickly,that requires search engines to behave themselves, not to get bribery from other companies or websites;
2)Put ads on certain places, and don’t bother users when they search for information(sometimes comes with a window people can’t close it);
3)Make search engine work in an effective way, set a platfrom or communities for users to discuss problems which the search engines may have, and managers of the search engine can make quick response or improvement on their engines;
4)An encyclopedia is a very good model, for a search engine, set up it’s own cyclopedia for users to edit information, share the information all over the world is a good way to let users feel they are the owners of the search engines;
5)A search engine should be comprehensive, it should involves as much useful information as it can, and get rid of useless information. What’s more, the areas of imformation are also important, if a search engine has its own feature, that means it involves information which other search engines don’t have, it will have more advantages to survive in the competitive internet world.

Q2:
If this kind of phenimenon happens in real life, it will make a big difference for this socitey.People will become more apthetic, and they will be more the same,for they get information in familiar ways or channels, even they have conflicts, the distance of regions and communications will be the main barriers for people to come up with new ideas. With the development of tech, mobile devices help us to know and explore the world in a straight way, we can get information at anytime anywhere. Although there is a gap exists in the approach people get information, this device is still a big progress for human beings, it allows a group of people touch the information in a few seconds.For poor people,or various ethnic or language groups, maybe the device is not available for them, but it’s just a matter of time, there will be one day with the device available worldwide.

Elaine

11/21/2012 10:34:21 pm

1：I believe that if the search engines would improve in these ways: 1) It could support search in different subject. For example, I tap the word "time" in google search, and I will get different webstes conclued the word. However, if I can choose the subject I look for, like since subject, and I could get more specific websets about time below the since subject. In that way there's no need to tap "since" after "time", that can save a lot of time to find the websets we need.
2) It could show the words on the pictures. Sometimes a picture can make a point more clear than words, if we can get the words on picture, it may do more help and show more information.

2: I believe it will do some negative effects if we cant't get all information, thus we can't make a objective atitude about the world, especially for the students who study foreign studies.
However, at the time we become more knowdgable, we spend less time on social communication. More and more people feel embarraced when speaking with others. So we should take some time on social activities rather than spend all day facing the computers.
Talking about the affects that devices made to people, I believe poor people may get some benifect from it. Because with the development of techonology, it will bring some cheep devices for poor people, and they will get information or some free education for self improvement. That may give them chance to change their life.

Ella

11/21/2012 10:43:18 pm

1.
1 ) A perfect search engine should filter same contents which describe one thing. 1 original answer could be reprinted for 1000 times and labeled with 1000 different names, thus the search engine needs to cancel same contents and only leave few for readers.
2 ) It should overcome governments' and provides as much as possible information for users. Governments always screen out sensitive topics and determine the contents, and a good search engine should serve for mass citizens instead of governments.
3 ) It should provide the final origin of answers. For example, many irresponsible authors reprint others' essay without label their names, and once I found out a report, it said it's reported by New York Times, but actually it's from BBC. Thus the search engine needs to tell us the original hyperlinks.
4 ) It should build up strong firewall to defeat computer virus and "junk" messages. Many times we click a hyperlink or access a website, the computer is infected with virus, or we see porn or violent videos that we don't want to see. The search engine should filter these away.
5 ) It should provide perfect language service. Once my Pakistan
friend told me he couldn't use Baidu for it's in Chinese, then I think if the search engine could translate different languages, it will be better.

2. Digital media can significantly improve people's life quality, making people more knowledgable and active. Digital media can help people save time for searching information, and with lots of people sharing their knowledge, it is absolutely better than the time when people need to search information only in a library. Although digital media may widen the inequality among different groups of people, it does benefits lots of people who can enjoy the convenience of digital media early, and for the rest people, I believe, with the development of digital media, the will benefit from it later on.

Catherine

11/21/2012 11:22:30 pm

1.I am satisfied with the present editions of search engines. They are very convenient and personalized. If to be improved, they may be more secure and personalized. The performance of intercepting junk ads and harmful websites would be better and agiler.
2.This has little influence on the level of people’s general knowledge or education. For the time being, most people, especially children, get education in school from books and the bulk of books are not available online.
I can’t draw the conclusion that people are becoming more knowledgeable and more active in society. The information on the Internet is scattered, not systematic. If I want to learn some point, I have to sift the results of the search engines. This is troublesome and I prefer to find a related book. As the Internet and cell phone are becoming more and more popular and widespread, people are less active in society. They choose to search online and call up someone instead of going out. Somebody said that it was the lazy who invented the new things. I think it makes some sense.
The rich and the more open ethnic groups relatively have more access to device and latest information. In the information age, the more information you control , the bigger chance of success you have.

Ray link

11/21/2012 11:28:52 pm

1.No one can deny the fact that the search engine makes our life easier, but I still think that some aspects of those search engines are not satisfactory enough.
Firstly, after we imported the keywords about the resources that we want, some of the resources presented by the search engine are irrelevant. What`s worse, sometimes there are some junk information among the resources presented, which makes it hard for us to get the information we want. The search should take more measures to filter those irrelevant information.
Secondly, normally, the resources provided should be ranked by the click rate, but rumors has it that information that paid money to the search engine will be placed at the top of the resource list, which is the biggest shortcoming that need to be improved. I think they should put the user`s interest at the first place rather than the money.
Thirdly, some search engine`s search range is too narrow. Sometimes we don`t know the name of the information that we want exactly. The search engine should provide us more resource that is relevant to our keywords. Of course, all the information presented should be useful, in other words, that should not be used as a excuse to let the junk information slip in.

2. To be honest, I don`t think that this situation where not all the information is available to anyone at any time on a compact, easy-to-use device will affects people a lot.
Yeah, we could get knowledge easier in a digital media information age most, but whether people is knowledgeable or not depends on themself. If a person wants to get knowledge, if he is desperate for studying, then even he doesn`t have a compact device, he can still become a knowledgeable person, because there are so many ways to get knowledge. On the contrary, if a person isn`t passionate about learning knowledge, then even he could get knowledge easily, he still can`t be a knowledgeable person. Without ease-to-use device, many persons still became greater masters in the past. Therefore, wether we can get all the knowledge easily is not the decisive factor to become more knowledgeable and more active.
The device gives us a easy way to get knowledge, so for the rich people, they have even more chance to become knowledgeable, if they are bookish. But it doesn`t mean that the poor people can hardly become successful, because there are so many ways to get knowledge except for device. Consequently, I don`t think the effect of devices on different people will be remarkably different.

Eve

11/21/2012 11:50:54 pm

Question 1：
As for this question, in conlusion, there are three aspects from my own experience--improving the accuracy, widening the search region, serving the information in the respectively professional ways, and pay attention to the security.
First, improve the accuracy. Once, i searched for a the photos of a famous figure, among the picture webpage of him, there are still many other people's, which annoys me a lot.
Second, widen the search region. Some foreign web sits are not availible on Baidu. And even google is not linked to some small countries' , such Turkey's, Congo's, web sites. It is not convinient for me to conduct some special studies.
Third, serve the information in the respectively professional ways. Add the professioal categories, such the military, politics, entertainment.
Fourth, pay attention to the security. Try to filter the junk and unhealthy information provided , such as the porn and violence.
Quetion 2:
1. Of course, it will affect the level of people's general knowledge and education. In our digital world, the iteration of the information is becoming more and more rapid. The digital equipments provide us the platform to connect these information. Just take the compute for example, the internet services covere 300-400 million people in China, but are not popular in some poor countries in Afica. We more related to the outside through the internet, yet the poor counties are isolated to the world, and even know little about our China. So there is no doubt that the easy-to-use devices affecting the level of people's knowledge. What's more, through internet, i can access the open courses from the classic universities Stanford, Harvard and even get the remote education. You know, that is impossible for the people unlinked to the computers.
2. I believe some people are becoming more knowledgeable and some are becoming more apathetic. Just what i mentioned above, we can access more information through these devices. What i want to mention more is second possibility. The more and more information on this media era is destroying the traditional values. The different media reports, comments, analysis can surely distract people from their traditinal values. In China, there was a report about a young man was sued by an old lady, who actually was rescued by that young man,This report ignited hot debate about the traditional morality. In fact,since that event, few people are willing to help the old in danger. I once thought if we can still have the good virture without knowing that event, and without that report. I have to say that there are much lure around this informational world, it is hard for people to stick to their own traditional values.
3. Actualy, these devises provide the same infomation to all the people , on matter the poor or the rich, and it is the bridge for the communication.

Eve

11/22/2012 12:12:06 am

Dear Marissa, i am really sorry that there are some incorrect words in my comments. It is when i published it that i found these words typed wrongly. I wrote the comments in a hurry and did not review it.

AJ link

11/22/2012 11:09:20 pm

question1:
as for my part , the search engines should promote thier accuracy. because many times when i search for some professional knowledge, they offer me the massive info but most of them are irrelevant. in this day and age, we are focus and the effective tools to help us work, and therefore, i advice that the search engines should be effectivelly in the future.
question2:
in my eyes, the digital media is a double-edged sword. sometimes the comprehensive or massive information have a bad influence to the public's education. maybe the natizen will feel be fed up with much more offered info. they will become more apathetic and lazy to find some knowledge because they know the internet of course will offer the answer.
when it refers to the device, the high-tech device can be available for the rich but if they don't make good use of it or use it illegally , i can't not imagine the media will good for thier development. on the contrary, if the poor make good use of it which means they also can through many platforto enlargre the horizon and broaden thier knowledge. as for nations, i believe that the digital media will promote the communication between the various ethnic and language groups.

Daisy

11/25/2012 06:37:32 pm

Q1:After I read this question, the scene I click Baidu search engine and type “BBC” or “CNN” in it everyday suddenly came to my mind. Despite this, I’m not 100% satisfied with this engine.
First, I hope it can have more search boxes which allows users to write the first key words and secondary key words so that information reveals to users can be more accurate. Because sometimes when I type the keywords and press on “enter”, it takes me a plethora of time to filter information.
Secondly, I do expect that search engines can be more personalized. For example, a business man can set his engines to offer him business information preferentially. I think in this way, it can also improve efficiency.
What’s more, I feel so bothered by those advertisements popping up in my sight. I don’t agree that ads should be blocked completely in the cyber world and of course it’s impossible. Actually, I’ll extremely thankful if they can just be arranged in order not so abrupt. Hehe

Q2:Of course, if not all information is available to anyone at any time on a compact, easy-to-use device, this will definitely affect the level of people’s general knowledge or education. You see, nowadays internet is available to majority of people. When we want to know further information about one concept, we’ll just open PC or take out our mobile phone so that we can search for more on the internet. But, just imagine if without these devices, we might just go to the library and look through large quantities of books to do the research. In this way, many people may think it too inconvenient and give up. So if not all information is available to anyone, it will have influence on people’s general knowledge or education. And people will become more apathetic
Additionally, I think the devices have made the gap among different people within society smaller. Because of this device, all the information is available to everyone who has the internet access. People share information or ideas in it and we know about each other better. That’s a good trend, I think.

Talia

11/28/2012 03:34:49 pm

1. Discuss ways in which you would like to see search engines improved.

Firstly, I do hope the search engine can be more accurate. Anyway, we use it to search for information we need. But sometimes if I type some key words, I cannot find what I really need from the search engine’s result. It’s not related to the key words at all.

secondly, there should be less advertisements. It happens all the time that many advertisements related to my key words are on the top on the search result list . That’s really annoying. Therefore, I think the search engine company should rank each result in order of relativity. They shouldn’t just consider profit.

Thirdly, I think it’s right that search engine should develop a more user-friendly interface, but it should pay more attention on its main function. If a search engine is interesting and has many other functions,but doesn’t have stable searching ability, it’s useless. Personally, I’d rather use an effective and search engine like google, rather than one with many other useless functions like BAIDU.

2. In this digital media information age most, if not all information is available to anyone at any time on a compact, easy-to-use device. How do you think this affects the level of people’s general knowledge or education? Are people becoming more knowledgable and more active in society? Or are they becoming more apathetic, or are they more or less the same? How does this device affect different people within society, such as rich versus poor, or various ethnic or language groups?

I think the impact of digital media on people’s general knowledge or education is complicated.

Indeed, more and more information and knowledge is available thanks to the media development, but not all the information is reliable, in other words, there are lots of information that is fuzzy or even totally wrong.In this case, if we don’t have a high level of media literacy, we will be misguided.

The same for the impact on people’s social contact. We use QQ , weibo and Renren to contact with family and friends, it’s convinient and fast. However, it cannot replace a face-to-face talk or a carefully written letter with deep love. The digital media and devices help ue know more about people around us, but can’t help us build a strong relationship with others.

Monica

11/28/2012 06:40:00 pm

The search engine can work in the way like eBay and Taobao. Specifically, when we are shopping on Taobao, we can list the goods by price, quality and sales volume. Then we can scan these goods by our likes or dislikes. So I think Baidu, Google and other websites can list their searching results by netizens’ preferences.

This must affect the level of people’s general knowledge and education. Would you like to find a information in newspapers for several minutes or would you like to get a message by phones which just needs several seconds? If you can save a lot of time, you can learn much more knowledge than ever before. People should be more knowledgeable because we live in this world wherever it is information, even though we are passive to learn. It is also a way to study. You can’t deny it. The device just gives people a convenient way to touch much more message. So it doesn’t care about the rich or the poor. For example, the rich can use their iphone5 and pad to read i-news and the poor can use their ordinary phone to read i-news. If the communication services can also be divided for the rich and the poor, I really don’t know how to solve this and it will be the biggest disaster for the quality of nation. Thus, In this digital media information age, if not all information is available to anyone at any time on a compact, easy-to-use device. It doesn’t matter. Methods is always method. The initiative is the main course.

Chapter 6 wrap-up

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