Articles by Adam Thierer 
Senior Fellow in Technology & Innovation at the R Street Institute in Washington, DC. Formerly a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, President of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, Director of Telecommunications Studies at the Cato Institute, and a Fellow in Economic Policy at the Heritage Foundation.
Don’t judge a book by its cover (or its title, for that matter). I’m usually faithful to that maxim, but I must admit that when I first saw the title and cover of “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Theft-Childhood-Surprising-Violent/dp/0743299515/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208179493&sr=8-1″>Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do,” I rolled my eyes and thought to myself, “here we go again.” I figured that I was in for another tedious anti-gaming screed full of myths and hysteria about games and gamers. Boy, was I wrong. Massively wrong.
Lawrence Kutner, PhD, and Cheryl K. Olson, ScD, cofounders and directors of the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media, have written the most thoroughly balanced and refreshingly open-minded book about video games ever penned. They cut through the stereotypes and fear-mongering that have thus far pervaded the debate over the impact of video games and offer parents and policymakers common-sense advice about how to approach these issues in a more level-headed fashion. They argue that:
Today, an amalgam of politicians, health professionals, religious leaders and children’s advocates are voicing concerns about video games that are identical to the concerns raised one, two and three generations ago with the introduction of other new media. Most of these people have the best of intentions. They really want to protect children from evil influences. As in the past, a few have different agendas and are using the issue manipulatively. Unfortunately, many of their claims are based on scanty evidence, inaccurate assumptions, and pseudoscience. Much of the current research on violent video games is both simplistic and agenda driven. (p. 55)
They note that these groups, “probably worry too much about the wrong things and too little about more subtle issues and complex effects that are much more likely to affect our children.” They continue:
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I swear I’m not trying to pick on Jonathan Zittrain, but I continue to find examples that create problems for his thesis from The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It that the whole world is going to hell because of the rise of what he contemptuously calls “sterile, tethered devices.” Again, in his provocative book, Zittrain argues that, for a variety of reasons, the glorious days of the generative, open Internet and general-purpose PCs are supposedly giving way to closed networks and closed devices. In my lengthy review of his book, I argued that Zittrain was over-stating things and creating a false choice of possible futures from which we must choose. I see no reason why we can’t have the best of both worlds–a world full of plenty of tethered appliances, but also plenty of generativity and openness. In a follow-up essay, I pointed out how Apple’s products create a particular problem for Zittrain’s thesis because even though they are “sterile and tethered,” there is no doubt that the company’s approach has produced some wonderful results. As I said..
Personally… I prefer all those “general purpose” devices that Zittrain lionizes. But, again, we can have both. Let Steve Jobs be a control freak and keep those walls around Apple’s digital garden high and tight if he wants. There are plenty of other wide open gardens for the rest of us to play in.
In my original review, I briefly mentioned another problem for the Zittrain thesis: old people! I was reminded about this when I was reading this
New York Times article today entitled, “At a Certain Age, Simplicity Sells in High-Tech Gadgets,” by Alina Tugend. Tugend argues:
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I have just released a new PFF white paper on “The Perils of Mandatory Parental Controls and Restrictive Defaults.” It points out the dangers of government mandating that parental controls be defaulted to their most restrictive position. I’ve gone ahead and just pasted the entire text below (but without the footnotes):
During ongoing debates about parental controls, ratings, and online child safety, there have occasionally been rumblings about the possibility of requiring that media, computing and communications devices: (1) be shipped to market with parental controls embedded, and possibly, (2) those controls being defaulted to their most restrictive position, forcing users to opt out of the controls later if they wanted to consume media rated above a certain threshold.
Imagine, for example, a law requiring that every television, TV set-top box, and video game console be shipped with on-board screening technologies that were set to block any content rated above “G” for movies, “TV-Y” for television, or “E” for video games, which are the most restrictive rating designations for each type of media. Similarly, all personal computers or portable media devices sold to the public could be forced to have filters embedded that were set to block all “objectionable” content, however defined.
If “default” requirements such as this were mandated by law, parents would be forced to opt out of the restrictions by granting their children selective permission to media content or online services. In theory, this might help limit underage access to objectionable media or online content. Such a mandate might be viewed as less intrusive than direct government censorship and, therefore, less likely to run afoul of the constitution.
For these reasons, such a proposal would likely have great appeal among some policymakers, “family” groups, child safety advocates, and parents. But mandating parental controls and restrictive defaults is a dangerous and elitist idea that must be rejected because it will have many unintended consequences and not likely achieve the goal of better protecting our kids.
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I’m teaching my 6-year old daughter how to read right now. It’s slow going; she’s struggling. So, I’ve been trying a variety of techniques and approaches. One strategy that seems to be working is what we call “the newspaper game.” Each night before she goes to bed, we practice with word cards and a dry erase board. We drill though about 20-25 words at a time; I help her sound them out and then she writes them on the board. The following morning, when I bring in the morning newspapers, I ask her to search through the headlines in the Washington Post for words we might have practiced the night before. She is very excited when she recognizes one, and that helps reinforce what she has learned. We have been doing this a lot lately and she now even rushes out some mornings to get the papers for me so we can do this together. (I’m hoping it instills within her a love of fine journalism, too!)
Anyway, this morning she picked up the
Washington Post and—not seeing any words she recognized on A1—flipped the page and spotted the word “Out” on pg. A3. She was very happy because that was one of the “O” words we had practiced a few nights before. So I walked over to praise her and to look at the article she was examining in a search for other familiar words. The full title of the article was: “The D.C. Madam Case, All Sordid Out.” Yikes!
Now this is a serious article, written by one of the most respected (and prolific) journalists in America today, Dana Milbank. But Milbank’s description of the trial about the now infamous Beltway prostitution ring is not exactly the sort of stuff you want to have your 6-year old reading at the breakfast table before she goes off to school. Milbank’s article includes several references to various types of sexual encounters and even some talk about how some of the hookers were “inducing orgasms” for clients. Here’s one particularly steamy passage from the article:
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Thank God the FCC is there for us. Today, our benevolant regulatory knights imposed over $6 million in fines, mostly on various consumer electronics retailers, in the name of “protecting consumers from unknowingly buying televisions that will not allow consumers to enjoy the full benefits of the digital transition.”
We can all rest easier tonight knowing that the FCC is policing the aisles of Sears and WalMart looking for non-compliant television sets.
This essay by Josh Chasin over at the MediaPost’s Metrics Insider Blog is the best piece I’ve read on behavioral marketing & privacy in a long time. I like this analogy, in particular:
Let’s say you are a tall, dashing, smartly dressed Chief Research Officer at a major Internet audience measurement company, and you walk into Nordstrom’s. A sales clerk you recognize comes up to you and says, “Hey, your wife’s birthday is coming up in a few weeks, and we just got in those sweaters she likes. Should I put a couple of them away for you in her size and color?” Now let me ask you. Does this hypothetical Chief Research Officer perceive this to be: (a) an egregious violation of his privacy, causing him to immediately rush home and write his state assemblyman; or (b) another example of Nordstrom’s world-class customer service? If you answered (b), then you’re tracking with me so far.
So how come if this exact same thing happens on the other side of the screen, it stops being outstanding customer service and turns into a violation of privacy?
Great question! And yet some over-zealous privacy advocates make this stuff out to be the coming endtimes and call for comprehensive regulation using scare tactics and twisted logic, as Chasin notes:
If Big Brother barges into your home at midnight and takes you away because someone doesn’t like the books you’ve been reading, that’s an invasion of your privacy (and way worse.) But if the ads you see on Yahoo are increasingly relevant to your life, that’s not an invasion of privacy. That’s just the digital version of that nice lady at Nordstrom’s. Let’s not confuse the two.
Exactly.
I have generally agreed with Clay Shirky (and Tim) that micropayments either don’t work very well or just aren’t needed given other pricing options / business models. But my eBay activity over the past few years has made me reconsider. I was going back through some of my past eBay purchases tonight and leaving feedback and I realized that I have made dozens of micropayments in recent months for all sorts of nonsense (stickers, posters, small car parts, Legos for my kids, magazines, and much more). Most of these items are just a few bucks, and many don’t even break the 99-cent threshold. I think that qualifies as micropayment material. And certainly I am not the only one engaged in such micro-transactions because there are countless items on eBay for a couple of bucks or less.
Of course, just because micropayments and PayPal work marvelously in the context of the used junk and trinkets we find on eBay, that does not necessarily mean they will work as effectively for many forms of media content. Advertising or flat user fees are probably still preferable since consumers don’t like the hassles associated with micropayments. Still, they seem to be working fine on eBay, so it would be wrong to claim that they never work online.
Cass Sunstein has another new book out. The University of Chicago law school professor is so insanely prolific that it seems every time I finish reading one of his new books, a new title by him lands in my inbox. Seriously, either this man does not sleep or he is a robot. Anyway, his latest book is entitled, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
, and it was co-authored with Richard Thaler, an economist also residing at Univ. of Chicago.
Their thesis is that people sometimes make bad choices (no duh, right?), but that with a little helpful prodding (i.e., “the nudge”) we mere mortals might make better decisions. The way we get there is through what they call “libertarian paternalism.” Here’s how their official book page describes it: Continue reading →
Broadcasting & Cable notes that:
“The fraternity of the nation’s television critics at daily newspapers was once a thriving milieu, dominated by a great diversity of committed voices. The critics’ opinions were sought, revered — in many cases, even feared — and blurbed in network on-air promos. That reality has changed drastically of late as the ranks of critics have grown noticeably leaner. Caught in the financial turmoil roiling the newspaper industry, they have become a beleaguered lot, a growing part of the collateral damage of the digital revolution. In the past two years, more than one-dozen longtime critics at major-market dailies — including the Dallas Morning News, Seattle-Post Intelligencer, New York Newsday, New York Daily News and Houston Chronicle — have been either let go, shunted to different beats or been forced to take the ubiquitous buyout…”
This is not altogether surprising. I think there are three main culprits:
(1)
Growing outlet competition and audience fragmentation: There’s just a lot more to read, watch and listen to now, so something’s got to give.
(2)
Continued decline of newspaper business in general: For reason #1, newspapers are hurting and losing revenue. [see James Gattuso’s recent post on this]. That has meant ongoing staff cuts, and critics (TV, music, art, or otherwise) are likely to be the first with their heads on the chopping blocks.
(3)
Explosion of independent voice & critics via blogosphere: Finally, anyone can be a critic these days. That does not mean anyone can be a good critic–there are plenty of blithering idiots out there in the blogosphere when it comes to armchair media criticism–but there are many “amatuers” who do a fine job critiquing mass media programming (especially television).
So, while I am sad to seem some mainstream critics struggling, I just don’t see this newspaper beat surviving much longer.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.