It would probably look like a big Venn diagram; each topic would be a circle and within each circle you would have many pages so there would be overlapping circles
I imagine the Internet as a big city; individual web sites are grouped together in grids of city blocks. Important sites that are linked to many other sites are skyscrapers whereas houses represent sites that have the least importance or popularity
It’s like these little bits of information floating in the air and then when you call them onto your computer screen they are all pieced together in the right order and appear magically on your screen
I can’t imagine the Internet. It is such a complex thing that has no parallel to anything else. The Internet just is.
Pages are points or nodes that are linked by edges and lines; it would end up being this massive interlinked thing with each page having links to other pages. You would get big clusters where there is a lot of interlinking…
I imagine it as a map; regions on the map are like major categories. If you click on a region, you see hundreds of thousands of subject categories and millions of Web sites
The Internet is a massive interlinked thing; it is a Web of Webs
It is an urban landscape of skyscrapers of pulsing information and computer circuitry
You could think of it in terms of an absolute enormous hierarchy; pages related to one another either through links through pages or the pages being grouped according to content.
The Internet is pretty amorphous. It’s very dynamic, constantly changing, like a gaseous cloud; there’s nothing rigid or formal there
I see it as structured lines, like the information travelling down the wires
I imagine it as my computer with this ring of things around me; these are access points to the Internet, like portals that I use to get into the Internet
The Internet is just these monstrous computers holding vast amounts of information just like a big hard drive
It’s a mass of coloured lines, like a ball of string
The Internet is like a nervous system. It has a central spinal cord where all the information is controlled and where it comes from. Then, the information is sent like nerve signals back and forth in all different directions
I imagine it as a more ethereal abstract thing, that plucks bits of information out of the atmosphere
It has a chaotic randomness like pixels in the sky, which is always changing, growing and morphing
I see it as a number of layers; your top layers feed into or distribute to lower levels. Its like a complex tree diagram breaking down from the top
It’s just a maze because there is no beginning and no end and totally interconnected
It would be like a tree diagram; the bottom of the trunk would be your home page and then it would spark off to different Web sites, or different pages within a Web site. It would keep branching out as far as it could
Like a molecule, which has a central starting point and a ring, which surrounds it and has stuff flying out from it
It is just unique; a complex, interlinking entity
It’s like leafing through a filing cabinet. You look for the information and pull out the file, look through it and if its got what you want you photocopy it and if not, you put it back and try another drawer
It’s a train network where you can see all the routes and the stations; the station is where you pick up the information, the rail tracks form branches where you can go along each track and search for information.
The Internet is just a current of information in electrical form; like blue or green lights shooting down the wires
The Internet has structures; like lots of little tree diagrams that are interconnected rather that one big tree diagram that represents the whole thing

 

 

 

  

INSTRUCTIONS:
This task should take between 10 -15 minutes. It has three short sections you need to complete.

 TASK 1: RANK THE STATEMENTS!

Sort these statements according to how un/like they are in relation to your own mental image of the Internet.

1. Below are 26 descriptions of the Internet. Click and hold each thumbnail to move them around the page. Click to enlarge them, double click to shrink. You can also hover your mouse over each thumbnail for the full description.
2. Sort the statements into 3 piles: those UNLIKE, those LIKE and a NOT SURE pile

** Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, it make take up to 1-3 minutes for the thumbnails to download - please be patient ** CLICK HERE to open Part 2 in a separate window which you can complete whilst waiting for Part 1. Please remember to come back and finish this task.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UNLIKE
my own mental image
NOT SURE
LIKE
my own mental image


TASK 2:
Below is a grid that helps you to sort your statements in a little more detail. There are 26 slots for each of the statements to be placed into. The left hand side of the grid is for the statements MOST UNLIKE your own mental image, the right hand side is for those MOST LIKE your own mental image.

1. Sort the statements from your 'UNLIKE' pile above into the left hand side of the grid. Remember to put the one you MOST dislike at the very far left (The -4 slot).

2. Sort the statements from your 'LIKE' pile above into the right hand side of the grid. Remember to put the one you MOST like at the very far right (The +4 slot).

3. Finally, sort the statements from your 'NOT SURE' pile above into the middle of the grid.

4. Alter the placement of the statements until you feel that the distribution represents your views.

 

 Most Unlike
Not Sure
Most Like
- 4
- 3
- 2
- 1
0
+1
+2
+3
+4
                 
                 
                
              
            
          

 


TASK 3:  This is the easy bit!
In this final section, put each statement number in the corresponding grid slot below.

1. Each statement has a number in the bottom right hand corner. Click the statement above to enlarge it and view its number.

2. In its corresponding grid slot below, select the statement number from the pull down menu.

3. Complete step 2 for ALL the statements and then press submit!


 Most Unlike
Not Sure
Most Like
- 4
- 3
- 2
- 1
0
+1
+2
+3
+4
  
  
 
 
   
    
    

Please contact me if you wish to use this Q tool for your own research.
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University of Bath | Department of Psychology
Department of Psychology, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY
E-mail: AmyLHogan@gmail.com
 
This page is created and maintained by Amy Hogan. Last Updated: May 11, 2006
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