Provost Eric Darr of Harrisburg University of Science and Technology implemented an interesting policy for the week of September 13-17: he deprived all of his faculty and students on the University Network from accessing several popular social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and AOL Instant Messenger. His reasons for this censorship, succinct, although misguided, were to remind his students what it was like to live in the "dinosaur age" of a disconnected world (Chapman), but was this really necessary? After all, argues the blogger Alex Priest of Technorati, these websites and others like them only became the cornerstones of the young American's world a mere five years ago, a time most competent college students are likely to recall (1).
However, regardless of Darr's motives, it is nearly impossible for a person informed of contemporary ethics of human experimentation to listen about this censorship with a calm facade. The learned ethicist would argue that such psychological experimentation is clearly lacking sound academic rationalization (Who will benefit from this? Unwilling subjects make reluctant recipients of the research in which they participate) powerful enough to justify depriving an entire community of an integrated part of their social infrastructure. This program tests the students' reaction to a social media blackout, making this clearly a psychological experiment, and Darr did not request informed consent. In addition, this was never submitted to an ethical review board (or else it would be immediately disallowed, says a university librarian [CalorieLab]). This type of program is therefore unethical experimentation, albeit of a relatively new breed, and must be understood as such to be prevented in the future.
According to an increasingly enraged student, this has only been the most recent of the so-called King Darr's transgressions against humanity (Hu), but similar experiments depriving students of social media have been going on for quite some time. Check the links below for more information.
Sources:
http://technorati.com/blogging/article/harrisburg-university-plans-social-media-blackout/
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/A-Social-Media-Blackout-at/26826/
http://calorielab.com/labnotes/20100909/harrisburg-university-social-media-blackout/
http://watchinghu.wordpress.com/
More social media experiments:
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Professor-Challenges-Studen/7463/
http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/tv/87598062.html?page=1&c=y
http://www.tcudailyskiff.com/study-shows-that-facebook-decreases-test-scores-by-20-percent-1.2327746
2 comments:
Eric Darr’s interestingly annoying study of the effects of social media deprivation is a complex issue that, behind the questionable legality of it, definitely has an interesting mission. How has easily accessible networking actually affected our lives?
The blogger Alex Priest argues the uselessness and needlessness of this study by stating, in essence, we know what it was like before Facebook and Twitter. In his opinion, the whole “back in my day” argument has no merit, because we all lived back in that day. All of us knew what life was like without the immediate satisfaction of clicking on someone’s name and learning their limited life story. So yes, I agree that the study was not necessary for the sake of telling young adults to appreciate the current state of technology, but a large percentage of social experiments aren’t necessary per se. Social experiments are normally conducted not because they’re necessary, but because they have the potential to provide interesting insights on the adverse effects of certain stimuli. This experiment definitely has the potential to do just that.
As shown in one of the articles cited by the author of the blog post, significant findings have already been made on the relationship between social networks and academic success. It was found that students who studied while using Facebook scored significantly lower on tests (1). Darr’s study could produce information like this and address controversial questions on relationships like this – for instance, the correlation between online social networks and the strength of actual interpersonal relationships.
Of course, all of this is great, but how does one get past the law of informed consent? This is where this study comes to a roadblock and is deemed unethical by medical authorities and the general annoyed populace of Harrison University. How unethical is it actually though?
There seem to be no immediate risks to anyone’s personal safety as a result of the study, only inconveniences. The worst thing that could happen would be that someone would not be able let the world know what they’re doing with the amount of ease that normally comes along with the posting of a status on Facebook. Furthermore, the ban on Facebook only pertains to the wireless owned by the school, so any student could drive down the street if they really needed an online social network. And if anyone really felt inconvenienced in terms of organizing any sort of meeting – personal, academic, or whatever else – they, unfortunately, would have to resort back to the outdated piece of technology known as the cell phone.
So, it seems like the general outcry against the study is showing just the kind of power that Darr expected the social networks to have – a power the cripples us into being a nation full of addicts just trying to get back to our habit.
Source:
http://www.tcudailyskiff.com/study-shows-that-facebook-decreases-test-scores-by-20-percent-1.2327746
In any case, the social world of people who have been exposed to Facebook have already been altered. As such, banning a bunch of people from using Facebook isn't even a good simulation of what it was like "back in the days", because people are no longer used to the alternatives, and the alternatives are no longer being maintained.
I remember how six years ago, many people I knew had their own blogs and so much happened on their tagboards and chatterboxes daily. For people who were reading/maintaining blogs mainly to find out and update others what's going on in their lives, Facebook has come as a much better alternative and pretty much displaced blogs that exist for that purpose. As such, pulling the plug on Facebook when everyone is already used to it is analagous to creating an artificial black-out in the 21st century just so that people know what it's like to live without electricity, but guess what? We no longer have gas lamps at home! Then of course people in this hypothetical black out are in a worse position than people who were actually living in the 19th century and they would be rightfully displeased. So whether this experiment is ethical or not, it's a completely pointless exercise, because yes, people used to live without Facebook, but they had other alternatives, they were used to it, and nobody expected them to use anything else.
At some point I think we should distinguish between an action that is unethical and one that makes people worse off unnecessarily. If some government decides to raise taxes without its citizens' informed consent so that they can build more statues of their leaders, that's not being unethical - that's just being unwise. An institution that has power doesn't need informed consent to do things to people. For instance: Did anyone seek our informed consent before they closed the dining halls yesterday? If it was just an experiment to see if doing so would make more people attend cane spree, does that make it unethical? No, because we judge institutions with power by the wisdom of their decisions and policies. We give them the power over individuals because we trust them to use it responsibly. In the case of experiments, researchers do not typically have power over the individual, and that's why they need informed consent. In the case of the social media deprivation experiment, the Provost does have power over its students, and we should judge his actions as the head of the institution, and not as a researcher. This case is interesting, because it is an overlap of policy and experimentation. But nobody calls experimental policies "unethical" unless they directly cause suffering. Until it reaches that point, policies that make people worse off for no good reason are just unwise, and not unethical.
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