• by brian.w , December 15, 2010

The Honest to God Truth

Two words: Delicious and Diigo. Now that I'm in my fourth year of college, I realize that I don't need Facebook, I don't need Twitter, LinkedIn, an iTouch or an iPad. I just don't need that stuff. In all my years in school, I found that I use Delicious and Diigo bookmarking the most. It's true, I don't necessarily need Delicious or Diigo either, but I'm trying to be realistic as a real college student.

That's Tasty Good

Delicious and Diigo allow me to reach sites I visit often faster, making research a less stressful ordeal. I can mark sites on my Delicious sidebar (which for some reason isn't compatible with Google chrome) that I know are credible sources for potential research topics. Diigo does similar things. I can highlight text with Diigo, and send all my highlighted content to one place, providing an excellent pool for references when preparing for research assignments.

How About Some Constructive Purpose for Once?

I find these tools useful when focusing on school work. It's not often I'll use Facebook for anything other than a temporary distraction from studying, or Twitter to utilize credible sources. I don't know why some marketing strategies don't emphasize tools like Delicious and Diigo more often. It seems marketers exploit college students more than they actually listen to them. Not all college students are technologically gifted, however most of us are most likely digitally literate in the most basic sense.

Our Technology is Good, but Oh so distracting

I use Google, Delicious, Diigo, our school library's online databases, email and an always handy dictionary application to help me with my homework and studies. All the other social networking stuff is nothing but sugar coating to young people who are always interested in their peers. I would like to see more work being done towards making research methods easier by optimizing search engines, interactive diagramming such as a three dimensional Prezi or faster ways to organize your information to where the research you are interested in comes directly to you.