The Social Knowledge Exchange

Gregory already had it in the Amazee blog (http://blog.amazee.com/), but I am posting it again here, just in case you are not reading our blog (which, if you are not, raises the question: Why not?). Us Now (http://usnowfilm.com/) is a film that tries to determine how the increased worldwide flow and availability of information and the heightened awareness of one's own power and abilities to get involved into decision processes could alter the way we are governed. We have only seen the trailer so far, but it seems like a very interesting movie to watch. You can find the trailer in the respective Amazee blog entry: http://blog.amazee.com/us_now_by_gregory_gerhardt_2009_02_01

The German Blogpiloten web magazine pointed me to an enlightening study by the Washington-based Pew Research Center, a non-profit self-proclaimed "fact tank". The study is about how American adults use social networks. It recounts a couple of well-known facts like: most users connect with people they already know and the most common reason to use a social network in the first place is to keep in touch with friends: "Overall, personal use of social networks seems to be more prevalent than professional use of networks."

But it also has some interesting findings: The percentage of adult (18+ yrs.) users of social networks has risen from 8% in 2005 to 35% in 2008. That 35% counts the total number of adults who ever set up an online profile. Overall, 19% of the American adult population uses a social network on a daily basis. Although most adult users are on social platforms to keep in touch, still half of them are also there to make new friends. The adult user is more privacy conscious than under age users, the study says: 60% of them restricts access to their online profiles.

While network usage still depends on ethnicity and educational background, it is no longer a question of gender. Males and females alike use social networking sites. African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to have an online profile, so do those with a higher education. The most popular social network still is Myspace, followed by Facebook and LinkedIn.

And then, at the end of the survey, there are some findings about the use of social networks and politics. It says that 29% of the respondents stated that they "discovered their friends’ political interests or affiliations" via a social network, with special regards to online campaigning during the 2008 US presidential race. - So, are the elderly taking over the net? Not really, because "at its core, use of online social networks is still a phenomenon of the young."

If you are interested in reading the whole study, you'll find it in the "Files" section to download.

I just read a very interesting article in last weekend's Basler Zeitung (BaZ) on hunger worldwide, titled "Die 'andere Krise' ist nicht vorbei" ("The 'other crisis' is not over") by Christian Mihatsch. He generally states that we shouldn't forget the worldwide hunger crisis over the economical one, especially since they are somewhat intertwined. And he gives some interesting figures. Here's the shortcut:

Although food prices fell all over the world in 2008, the number of people without a sufficient supply of food rose about 40 million to 963 million, which is about 15% of the world's population. 40 milion is roughly the size of Spain or a little more than the state of California.

By 2050, the world population will grow from the current 6.7 billion to the estimated 8.9 to 9.2 billion. This means that the current world production of food will have to be doubled in order to be able to feed everybody. The FAO, who runs the UN's world food programme, estimates that in order to reach this goal, 30 billion US Dollars have to be invested each year into agriculture, mainly in developing countries. Because of the economical crisis, it is very hard for farmers to get loans. Ironically, 30 billion USD is only 1/12 of the sum of subsidies that the industrialized nations give to the agricultural industries each year.

Mihatsch concludes with the grim outlook that 2009 will probably the year in which one billion people worldwide will be starving.

(There doesn't seem to be an online version of the article.)