E-mail, Shmee-Mail.Indexing, Anchoring, and the Topical Index Expansion
Published November 2, 1995
Lori N. M. Morita
University of Hawaii @ Manoa
Fall 1995: Psychology 409
Dr. Leon James
How much negative emotions did it cost you, in all?
Very Little 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very much
This week's rating=8
How valuable for later use is this knowledge or skill going to be
for you?
Not useful 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very useful
This week's rating=9
How likely is it that you'll be getting good at this week's tasks?
Not likely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Quite likely
This week's rating=10
How satisfied are you with the computer and Internet systems?
Not satisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very satisfied
This week's rating=8
How hard did you try to get through this week's tasks?
Gave up easily 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Refused to give up
This week's rating=8
This week was a lesson and a chore and kind of fun.
My negative emotions ran and ran and quite frequently ran so far ahead of me that I sat at the terminal, goggle-eyed (not too different from the usual, to the casual observer) and completely fried. I wasn't too thrilled. It is not so much the frustration of this week's assignment, but the perserverance test. Anchors in all paragraphs? My kingdom, my kingdom, for an anchoring program. Concept-based, like the latest search engines. And voice-activated. And with broad shoulders, and dark hair, and about 6'2", and...but I digress. It was work.
The value of this? I place a high value on it, but as I went over (did I really have a choice?) my past weeks, this seems to be a constant in my ratings. There is almost nothing I feel is not worth learning on the Internet, even during weeks where I would blow it up if it were an actual place. (See "frustration on simple stuff"). So what particular rush does this week give me? Not a whole lot, other than the java. Seriously, though, it does force one to analyze the document, if nothing else. This is where the babbling and the substance split. The links have got to mean something; have something in them of use. I realised: I babble a lot. (Do ya think?)
I am going to get proficient at this if it kills me. Maybe I'll find some way to shorten the time. Where is that slave when I need him? There is a very good chance I'll get this down, if only because I think the more I go through my files and categorize what I have now sent around the world and back again...the more what I say comes under my own scrutiny--and this is the only really honest scrutiny I can take without beating someone up. We're not patient people, my family. When putting everything together (or taking everything apart), it is a strictly cognitive thing.
On the Internet, we're dealing strictly with thought. This is the entire concept of CyberSpace. What happens when all these random thoughts come flying? Chances are, they don't come under much fire unless they really offend. How do we discriminate? Not everyone is going to get looked at by NetWatch or any of the other Net Critics. The answer is simply to discriminate within one's own documents. How do we organise our publications? Creating anchors is a built-in organisation process, I believe.
Ah, and those links to the outside world, where academia is a pitstop on the Information Superhighway, and you can be as weird as you want without a grade. (I may do that anyway.) The topical index is rolling...rolling a little too fast and far away from yours truly. There is now no limit to the amount of addresses plastered to my Home Page, although I have an odd feeling there will be more information about myself revealed in the topical index than in the rest of my lab reports. Isn't that the way it is, though? Even on the Web?
You tell more than can ever be explained in your presentation, the links chosen to share, even the background. Sometimes I think of it as the only way to present the world as your mind sees it; the backdrop of your cerebral cortex. No limits, no time and physical laws to tell you how your "inner rooms" must look. Mama, is this the "inner child" gone wild? If someone has a link to some nasty Home Page, or a link to weird humor, what do you know about the person?
A friend of mine had a bizarre message in his corner of the CyberUniverse, and I had to call him on it. Turns out it was his version of a joke. Uh-huh. I had thought it was time to put my undergraduate psychology skills to work. Now that I think about it, if this is his idea of a funny, maybe I'll still have to...
Speaking of bizarre pieces of information, I have noticed my satisfaction with the computer and Internet going down in past reports. As usual, got a possible explanation. In previous reports, I have experienced dissatisfaction because of my inability to control the Internet and the frustration resulting from such an acknowledgement. Now finally having gotten some grip on the Internet, I am slightly dissatisfied because I cannot access things quickly enough, or am not able to do everything I want at once. Is this progression? I am not sure if impatience is so very far from ignorance.
As my dissatisfaction grows, I want to find ways to change this completely cerebral world to make it fit round me and my little itty-bitty grey matter. I want it faster, I want it to do certain things no one has told me how to do yet. Is it out there? Maybe; probably. Do I have the time to go a-huntin' for the programs or the instructions? No. For all the search engines and all the research, there is so much to still explore and so much I will never be able to learn from, all due to the simple fact of the vastness of the Internet. So I want to figure it out on my own, or I want more time, more time, and it seems I can never have enough. Perhaps this dissatisfaction is still rooted in my own capabilities and the time I have to spend in a place I could easily see spending my entire life exploring.
People tease me a bit about my "addiction"; a close friend tells me I really need some 12-step program. And I'm aware they're a little baffled and a bit contemptuous. There isn't the greatest picture of NetHeads as people, (Bill Gates doesn't help much) and they wonder if I'm going to walk around with complete VR gear to help me reacclimate...etc., etc., etc. Something interesting, though, has developed from this teasing. I do not think of the time I spend on the Net as an "addiction" any more; it has become too small a term. I do not know the words which will enclose my need to make something better, more useful. I love to explore; it was a major motivating drive in the beginning of this semester's project. The curiousity drive remains, but there is more than just some consummatory theory (thanks, Sheffield, you and your poor unfulfilled rats). It is a strange urge to contribute somehow, even at my unsophisticated level.
Documents can be made, and learning on the Internet is more than cumulative, it is exponential. I do not only build on previous skills, as a mason with a foundation. I combine skills and come up with much more than the sum of the parts; a whole new piece of presentation or programming is created. It may exist somewhere else already; it probably does. But for me, (like with any mad, isolated scientist) it is figuring out something which did not exist before, at least for me.
In my team's research concerning search engines, I find many
engines repeated over and over again. It makes my research tedious
sometimes; research becomes a simple eliminating of what is already
well-publicized. Communicating with one of these resource pages'
creators, I found out they do these documents free of service; they
want to "give back". Each resource page has its own method of
presenting their offerings. Perhaps they have found a bit of
programming that is unique to them, and they want to share it as
well; the same drive, the same need to contribute and expand in
ways that cannot be predicted or measured. Is it an addiction?
This would be a very interesting topic to explore in the future.