Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Folksonomies & Toddlers

Yes, that's right, I said toddlers. It seems like I learn more from my soon-to-be 2 year old daughter every day. Just the other day I asked her what my name was and she said daddy. Then I said "I'm Jason" to which she responded "No daddy". Then I asked her if daddy is a boy or a girl and she said "daddy".

With all this talk about foksonomies and bottom up classification I figured I'd try to bring it down to a 2 year old's perspective and see what comes of it.

From this little q & a session with Piper I was gleaned a fundamental truth. Throughout out entire lives we tend to classify information. During that classificaation process we tend to go deeper and deeper until we forget where we started the classification and organization to begin with. My 2 year old knows I'm her daddy and she knows my name is Jason but only calls me daddy. When I attenpted to better understand her depth of categorization by asking her if I was a boy or a girl I realized she just defaulted to daddy.

Piper can classify me logically in the following ways.

1. Daddy
2. Daddy = Jason
3. Daddy = fun (usually)

Piper can classify me emotionally in the following ways.

1. Love
2. Security (I'm her shelter when she's scared)

Piper can classify the Wiggles in the following ways.

1. Fun
2. Sing
3. Dance
4. Dorothy : Captain Feathersword : Wags : Big Red Car : etc...

From what I can tell about Piper so far (and what I can remember as I type this post) she's alreday beginning to classify me and everything else in ways that make sense to her. Seems like that's the most important part about the classification of information. Perspective. Without the proper perspective we'll be placing white elephants into the other white meats category and linux in the poultry category (since it's logo is a penguin).

Posted By Jason Dowdell at 10:29 AM
Permanent Link: Folksonomies & Toddlers | Comments (0)

Post a Comment

Name:
Email:
WebSite:
Comment:
Remember Me
Subscribe