Personalization versus Customization. Is there a difference?

Personalization versus Customization. Is there a difference?

            When you first look at these two words, to the normal person they might not see a difference, but when talking about personalization and customization in technology they are very different.  From the color phone we choose, to picking out the right picture to make our Facebook picture, we make these choices based on our individuality. The Personalization of information process is when you as an individual are making your own page match your personality and tailoring it to yourself and making it your own identity. A perfect example of this would be your Netflix account, because when you watch Netflix it gives you options based off what you have watched in the past and gives your recommendations to shows and movies that are similar to that. Customization is when you express your interests and likings to people whom you networking with. An example of this would be the blogger pages we set up in class, with these blogger pages, we can change the themes of the page so it fits our personalities and shows who we are, some people might have more creative pages than others and some might have simple themes, but it is all based off who we are as individuals.

    

Power Users Prefer Personalization, while Non-Power Users Prefer Customization.

            A study that was done inside this article, it showed that non-power users had more positive attitudes toward content in the SIP condition than control UIC, while the power users showed a more positive attitude toward content in the UIC condition than control and SIP condition. This study defines non-power users as people who do not want to learn about the new technology because they lack the knowledge about this technology. While the power users are the people who would try the new technology and face some difficulties with the new technology but these people put more effort into learning how the new technology works rather than sticking with the old technology.
Results of the Test

            The participants in this study were use a Google website which had SIP, UIC, and the control conditions. They were asked “how well each of the following words described the news content on the site: accurate, believable, biased, clear, comprehensive, factual, fair, informative, important, objective, persuasive, sensationalistic, and well-written”— adapted from Sundar (1999). These items were calculated on the Likert-type scale, the choices were between “describes very poorly” and “describes very well”. After all the calculating was finished, the results were that the power users preferred the UIC to the SIP. While the non-power users was the opposite, which was they preferred the SIP to the UIC. This study showed the support towards the H2 hypothesis, which predicted a moderating effect of power usage.

            I found this study to be interesting because it showed the spilt in society when it comes to technology between power users and non-powers. This studied really dissected how people really like personalization and customization. The people who liked personalization were the power users because these are the people who like challenges when using technology and have to figure it out so they can find a way to use the technology and make it part of their life. While the non-power users like customization because they do not like change when it comes to technology because they like the way they are living and have gotten comfortable with the technology they using. People today have gotten used to a certain way of life and when something new that can help them come, instead of embracing it and changing their way of living, they stay within their comfort because they don’t want to face failure and challenges when they do not have to. These non-power users need to face these challenges because we are advancing in technology every year and with every new invention that comes out that they pass off, it just makes their way of living harder, while these supposed people are the ones who do not like challenges but before they know it, they will have made it so tough on themselves that they will have no choice but to upgrade in technology.