5.09 Impacts of CS: Web Searches

Impacts of CS: Web Searches: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I0pxOxvFxaI2gzNhtoyjGeaJcf1pcVtclMKOrayGxMk/edit?usp=sharing

5.9 Impacts of CS: Web Searches Curriculum Page

Chapter 4 - Read the following parts of Chapter 4:

• Found After Seventy Years, pg. 109-110
• It Matters How It Works, pg. 120-138
• Search is Power, pg. 145-151 (up to the heading Search Engines Don't See Everything)

Activity

Before the reading consider the following questions and then complete the K-W-L chart.

• What do you notice about your own internet searches?
• What search engines have you tried?
• Does Google predict your searches?
• If you use another search engine besides Google, do you get the same results?
• Which search engine is “right”? Which is “better”?

Reading Questions

1. How do web search tools make it more efficient to find information?

Web search tools store a huge amount of data that they access whenever someone uses them. They are always building their index and storing information.

2. When you type a word or phrase into the Google search engine, what is the search algorithm that is being used? Explain in your own words the process used by Google's search engine.

Google looks at the word or phrase that you are typing and searches its index for anything related to that word or phrase. It is able to quickly display the most relevant information by using keywords in this way.

3. What is a captcha? How has the collective efforts of Internet users contributed to analyzing images through captchas?

Captcha stands for “completely automated public turing,” and tests to see if you are a human or a robot. Usually this involves looking at distorted characters and determining what they are.

4. "The architecture of human knowledge has changed as a result of search." Do you agree? Explain your reasoning.

Yes, because people have access to more information than ever as a result of search engines like Google. We have more knowledge than we could possibly memorize, and everybody has access to it.

5. What are the differences between Figures 4.10 and Figure 4.11 in the book? Why are there differences even though they are both a Google search results page?

Figure 4.10 shows the search results of “falun gong” which is a Chinese organization that the Chinese government does not support. Figure 4.11 shows the same search on the Chinese version of Google, and all of the information on falun gong is negative. This is because the Chinese government censors more information than the U.S. government.

6. How do you think mobile computing might have influenced web searches?

Mobile computing is heavily based on advertisement, and influenced web searches to be more commercialized.

7. Would you retain your search history or delete it? Why?

I would delete my search history because I don’t need it and companies and the government can see what you are searching for. Even if you aren’t searching for anything illegal or embarrassing, it still violates your privacy.

8. Should a researcher place absolute trust in a search engine? Why or why not?

No, because the search engine is not completely secure; it can still be hacked or edited, which is not good for research.

9. The authors claim "search is a new form of control over information" (p. 111) and "search is power" (p. 145). Why might it be important to talk about the social implications of searching on the Internet?

Everyone uses internet searches every single day, so whoever controls the search engine could control what people see. Essentially, it would allow someone to control what information you can obtain and change how you think.

10. How have search trends been used to predict information? What are the positive and negative impacts of using trends to make predictions?

Search trends find which sites are most popular and mover those higher on the search results. Search trends can be bad because they skew what information people see first.

11. Find and read an article about web searches or algorithms. Write a 3-4 paragraph summary of the article. Include the author's name, the title of the article, the date it was published, and a link to the article.

I read a 2014 New York Times article by David Leonhardt about the different types of searches that correlate with different places in the United States. He wrote about a study that was conducted that looked at the “hardest places to live” in America and compared the searches of people in those areas with the searches of people that lived in the “easiest places to live.” They study found that there was a higher correlation between living in a worse area and searching for things relating to religion and diets than in the better areas, where people search more for things like cameras and jogging.