Module 6, 4 (a)(b) My Thoughts

a.       The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple is Just Fine

It was an interesting article. My favorite part of the article was where Mr. Capps mentioned that the Good Enough mindset could be seen in a new initiative by Kaiser Permanente. I have never used Kaiser, but I am familiar with different types of health insurances because my husband works at a medical school. As the article says, Kaiser is nice that usually everything is in one building and it is affordable, but for those who do not live close to a hospital has to drive a long distance, and many times it is hard to make an appointment immediately. I think Kaiser is a perfect example of explain the Good Enough health care.

Over the years, I have seen the development of technologies. When smartphones became popular, I started to see cellphones which only have enough features to call. My grandparents cannot figure out how to use a smartphone, but they use those simple cellphones. They cannot use a digital camera either, but they use an instant camera. As it was mentioned in the article, I think that there is always a need of “good enough” items.

b.      What the Web of Tomorrow will Look Like

I can image the first two points of the article, the web will be accessible anywhere, and web access will not focus around the computer. But the third point, the web will be media-centric, is hard to image for me, especially where it says that users do not have to touch the screen in order to interact, and it enables to give a controller-less experience. Does it mean I interact verbally? This is beyond my imagination. I look forward to encounter such an advanced technology one day.

The fourth point, social media will be its largest component, was something I expected. Mixi is a social networking service which was popular in Japan even before Facebook became well known worldwide. Mixi is very similar to Facebook; users can send and receive messages, tweet, and add friends. One unique feature is to show you which your network friend browsed your page at how many seconds/minutes ago. Because of this feature, many people including me became tired of using Mixi, and stopped using it. I was exactly “Social Media Fatigue”. I sometimes feel the same way to Facebook and other social media too. But I try to enjoy and appreciate the network I have that enable me to communicate with my friends easily.

So when I read the article which says “In ten years, when you access the web, most of the time you spend will be to connect with your friends. Almost all of that will be on social networks and through social media. It will be the #1 reason why we ever pull out our phones, tablets, or computers.” This was powerful to me. I think we need to learn how to stay active and prevent from burn out or spending too much time on social media.