2014年10月17日星期五

Platform Conversion and Regulation

The technology of social media may have already developed to its limit.  More and more functions are added to these platforms, which is more than we need sometimes. But more platforms and more functions don't mean better. We only want to select the best fit platforms which suit our needs at different situations, and find more methods to build it better. It's both the duty of administrators and the users.

For instance, I was used to Baidu Tieba(various forums built by users) and Baidu Knows(collective intelligence by questions and answers provided by users). But now I barely use the two platforms. Because usually I can’t get the information that I need from them. The two platforms are now full of redundant information, which is not good for not only the efficiency of my study but also entertainment. So for study, I will mainly go to Zhihu and CSDN for others’ experience and point of view, because more professional and experienced people are gathering there. I think it is inevitable for platform conversion as our ages and positions vary, and people easily get aesthetic fatigue and tended to find new place to build their regulation when the old is difficult to manage and use.


Also good self-regulation is important for every user. When come more and more users, it will be more likely to be out of control and lead to quarrel, useless information. For instance, Weibo is an open place for users to share their information, and I follow a micro blogger who talk about basic matters of life for other users. At regular intervals, she will delete her followers who have a conflict of values with her and who cause unhappiness in the comments. In this way, she makes the place happy and comfortable for her and the majority of her followers. I think this is a proper way to arrange a little place inside the big social network.  

2014年10月3日星期五

Sentiment in Social Network

We love comments. The comments under our blogs,  friends' blogs, celebrities blogs, or on the online shopping sites, tourist website... etc. Why? On the one hand, we need information. Is the product worth buying? How to travel a place with less money and find lesser known wonderful attractions? On the other hand, we enjoy finding unknown connections among others, and others' sentiment over a topic. Indeed social network gives us the platform to get nearly all the information we want, but it also leads to information overload.

Unlike normal communication with others, the power of words on the screen sometimes is stronger than we think. Some words full of negative emotion or false information can be spread widely. People who contact those words may get in bad mood, and even eventually form negative thinking patterns, especially teenagers. Also, it can be problems for sentiment analysis research. 

Not all the information is necessary for people, and not all the sentiment matters. In the research, false information should be ignored. But the affection of words on people's mind can't be deleted easily. If we care about the sentiment in social media too much, it may lead to confusing, contradictory and even overwhelming. So we should arrange our time for social network,  learn to distinguish between what's reliable and what isn't. Spending time reading books, thinking independently, and communicating with others directly, are good ways for us, who are living in the information overload world.