This semester, I was a member of a group project that tried to encourage carpooling in Ithaca. By promoting a system to aid users in finding carpools, we could work to reduce single passenger traffic in Ithaca. Our group designed a Facebook Ride Share Application, where users could post desired destinations and times for arrival onto a public wall or a particular user’s wall who also added this application. By sharing destinations with others, users could work to develop a carpool.
As discussed in the Vieweg et al. article, the Facebook group was established to keep updated information to determine the identity of the Virginia Tech victims. The Facebook group was a display of collective intelligence, in which “a large, distributed group of people who exhibited problem-solving capabilities came together on-line” (Vieweg et al, 2). Similarly, the Facebook Ride Share Application represented an example of collective intelligence, in which users could come together on-line to develop a carpool. Vieweg et al. (2008) discuss the social mechanisms that “enable and guide grassroots distributed problem-solving activity.” An important social mechanism of the carpool application was the shared concern and motivation for people to actually use the application, because there needed to be a large group of online users for the application to be effective. Some motivations that we discussed were the reduced gas costs for carpooling over an extended period of time and helping to minimize environmental impact in the form of pollution by reducing single passenger traffic.
A potential concern for users was the accuracy of information displayed on user profiles and the ability to trust other online users. This concern was less apparent in the Virginia Tech Facebook group to identify victims, because “participants in the list-building activities self-policed, and they knew that adding a name to the list was a serious statement” which led to self-regulated and accurate results (Vieweg et al, 3). The carpooling application dealt with issues of trust by allowing users to display a list of members whom the given user was already friends with on Facebook, allowing users to search for people to carpool with who are existing friends. In addition, users could search for others who shared a mutual Facebook friend with the given user, and the user could separately contact that mutual friend to find out about the unknown user. These two search features were important to establish a form of common ground between users. Developing common ground may increase trust between users and allow them to interact online to find out more about one another, and ultimately develop a carpool. Thus, the Facebook Ride Share Application promoted distributed problem-solving of a large group by providing a motivation for users to add the application as well as search for other users who wished to carpool that they could trust due to an established form of common ground.
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Facebook Ride Share group would probably have more changes in user's status than the Facebook group for Virginia Tech victims since students have things come up all the time, and sometimes they change their plans whereas becoming a victim is more serious. Thus, I wonder how interactions are different in the Ride Share group and how social networks play a role in deciding who to carpool.
ReplyDeleteYou connected the Vieweg et al. article with your Facebook application group brilliantly. I feel that it was very important to mention the benefits of people actually using your system, and you did. I think this point was an excellent application of Vieweg et al.'s point about enabling and guiding grassroots and laying down a foundation for what is to be a very useful tool.
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