Posts

My Toxic Relationship With Technology

-
Image
I will admit I have a very bad relationship with technology. Growing up while I was that kid no one wanted to play with I turned to technology. I remember spending tons of time on my family computer doing First In Math courses or practicing my reading skills on Starfall. And I guess since technology was newer to my parents I had a lack of cybersecurity, Which led me to go on websites and apps that a middle schooler shouldn’t have. I remember when Kik, snapchat  and instagram were super popular in my school. We would create group chats and post “selfies” etc. Looking back on it I did make good memories on snapchat and such but I became very self critical of myself and became addicted to getting validation from others. Now I don’t use those apps as much when it comes to posting myself but I do use filters on snapchat. There always has to be one on. I don’t know why but I just don’t like posting anything without this specific one.  The Horrors of Kik Messenger.. When it comes to technolog
Post a Comment
Read more

EOTO Presentations

-
Image
One thing I learned from the EOTO presentations was that people get famous for the most dumbest things sometimes. Like I remember during the pandemic a lot of people got famous on Tik Tok for stealing african american trends, or mannerisms (AAVE) and getting tons of likes and followers while black creators were being “Shadowbanned” on the app. Now since Tik Tok personalizes the content you see of course they are going to also have a say in what content they want you to see. Shadowbanning is when they specifically neglect to push your content to your followers and sometimes even “force” your followers to unfollow you. Like one of the examples in the presentation was Jeffree Star. Jeffree Star is a beauty influencer who makes his own cosmetics. Now when he would review beauty products he seemed like a strong advocate for diversity in the industry and trying to have more variety of skin tones. However Jeffree Star has a very racist past. He even called a black beauty influencer a “goril
Post a Comment
Read more

Age of AI

-
Image
I think the Age of AI video really brought things to perspective when it comes to automation and privacy in our society. I thought it was very nice for that group to try to help families in need and make sure they have food for the holidays. What really hit me was that losing your job to automation or offshoring can affect your health. Like the video said they are at higher risk for cardiovascular disease, depression, suicide. Furthermore their children have lower education attainment. I mean yes I like to online shop and automation has been making things more efficient but at what cost? Society is declining and people are suffering all for some online grocery shopping? Also when it comes to privacy I think that it has gone way too far. Everything is being tracked and people aren't really thinking about how it affects them. People in China don't even have to use physical cards to pay for things anymore. I didn't even realize the impact of the I Voted button on facebook and
Post a Comment
Read more

EOTO: Misinformation (Fake News)

-
Image
If you look back to my first blog post we talked about where we got our news from. But are those sources accurate? Misinformation is false information that is spread, regardless of whether there is intent to mislead. Like the game we used to play as children "telephone". Or when someone started a rumor about you in high school. You never knew how it started but somehow it began to spread like wildfire.  Disinformation however is deliberately misleading or biased information; manipulated narrative or facts; propaganda.  Like when people say that Tupac and Biggie are still alive and living it up in Cuba. Or that Jonbenet Ramsey is actually Katy Perry is very wild. It can also be photoshopped pictures to show someone as a traitor to their country. For example making it look like someone is burning the American Flag or trying to say a person hates animals by making them look like they are abusing one to damage their character.  Lastly we have fake news. Fake news is purposefully
Post a Comment
Read more

Online Privacy

-
Image
One of the things I found bizarre from the TED talks was the camera that captures your license plate numbers. Because I only thought of it as a system that is only used when you do something wrong like running a red light. I thought that’s when the picture was taken and they mailed you the ticket once they found out who you are. I think having that type of surveillance all the time is truly overstepping and is a prime example of a good application of technology being abused to watch people’s every move. I also thought it was very weird with the toy/gadgets listening in while you are relaxing at home. I remember talking about this a couple years ago when Alexa got popular for this “Hide and Seek” feature. This makes me feel very uneasy especially since other people were hacking into these devices and using it to lure children outside. Luckily with VPNs we can protect ourselves when it comes to online safety. I can honestly say that my problem is not looking at all the terms and conditio
Post a Comment
Read more

Diffusion of Innovations

-
Image
I think the diffusion of innovations theory is an amazing way to explain why things got popular. I think Twitter became popular because it gave a new meaning to blogging. As stated in my EOTO project Twitter’s main purpose was to give people a way to update their status. The first adapters were the Odeo employees whose SMS bills were skyrocketing due them being obsessed with the app. I think since the app has a character limit it makes people think about what they want to say. I know I've been frustrated sometimes because I’m going on a rant on Twitter and I run out of characters. But now there are things called Threads! So now it's okay to compile a rant or a bunch of tweets under one post.  I honestly think people go through all this trouble because they want to feel heard. They want to relate to people and some people just like the attention. It’s why there is so much fake news and misinformation being spread. Which also leads to why some people just refuse to get Twitter. T
Post a Comment
Read more

Anti-War Blog Post

-
Image
The government really doesn’t like to hear people's opinions. If you were to go back in time and see when “Honest Abe” was suppressing anti-war voices to the government trying to distract us from what’s really going on in the world you would see a pattern. I also think the title of The American Conservative can be very off putting. For instance the way our society is now they normally match conservatives with racists, homophobes, trump supporters etc. So generally people wouldn't want to read information from that site if they are on the opposing side. Nowadays everything is very cut and dry when it comes to politics and people are making their political beliefs their personality. It’s considered too risky to say their opinion. Like we said in class prior restraint is almost always unconstitutional but subsequent punishment is okay. Lots of people have lost everything for speaking out about heavy topics like politics, religion, sex/gender, etc. Another reason is due to the fact
Post a Comment
Read more