Reading Reflections

While reading Henig, I kept being struck by the fact that they were only examining play in children. Of course, psychologically I suppose it makes sense, because of the relationship between brain growth and play. But play does not stop once you reach puberty. For many people I know (including myself), play is still a huge part of our lives. We get together to play (informal or formal) sports, board games (which are in fact often made specifically for mature people, not just children), video games... The list goes on. It just seemed astonishing to me that the article did not mention that play does not stop when the brain is developed.

Bloomberg's article on the other hand reminded me of the Statistics class I took last year, when we learned about the algorithms used to personalize things like Amazon suggestions and Facebook ads. I thought then, and still do, that it's a good idea, at least for ads. Companies are more likely to sell things if, for example, they advertise shoes instead of football gear to me. But doing the same thing for newspapers? I'm not quite sure I like that idea. One of my favorite things about newspapers is that you get a combination of all the news that's happening, not just one narrow field that you already happen to be interested in. I would never learn new things about the world if the newspaper only showed me articles on feminism or fashion, because I already keep up with those on websites made specifically for those topics. Newspapers should stay generalized, just to keep the world informed. It's what they're made for, after all.