Final Post

 

    

The world today is very scary yet wonderful at the same time due to the advances in technology we get every day. Technology is evolving so fast that people don’t have the time to sit down and think of the pros and cons of these new advances that seem to amaze the majority of earth's population. In the World's Fair Futurama video, it shows the amazing advances that could be possible in the future and how great our world would be. What they didn’t show were smartphones and laptops, because no one really knew about them or pictured them. Smartphone technology grew so rapidly that no one knew how bad it really was and still continues to get worse. In the Mad World Remix video, it showed everyone being so engrossed in their phones that no one was even paying attention to each other or the child who was the only one without a device in his hand. The part that really got me was when it showed a Disney Prince and Princess, on the balcony but on their phones not even facing each other. When we think of fairytales and watch the old Disney princess movies, we don’t even see a phone or electronic device anywhere. Little children dream to have a fairytale of their own finding a prince or princess for themselves. With all of this technology, people aren’t as present with each other, and these fairytale dreams seem a lot farther from reality than they already were in the first place. just like in the Remix video, the people were falling off the side of the world and into holes because they weren’t paying attention to their surroundings due to the small handheld device we like to call a ‘smartphone’. I personally believe the device itself is smart but it just makes people become clueless and not observant which isn’t smart or safe to any extent at all.

  

I am personally a victim of the whole technological advances trend, including phones, laptops, iPads, you name it I probably have some kind of version of it. I believe I am using technology too much and could lessen my phone usage some. On the other hand, I need technology to get in touch with my family and friends at home as well as do schoolwork. If I didn't have any access to Blackboard, I would not be able to get any of my work done for classes and would eventually fail them. If I didn’t have my laptop connected to wifi I wouldn’t be able to do any work for this class either as all the assignments are to be posted on Blogger. In this day and age, there really isn’t any way around using technology to a great extent, especially for college kids. Since this is the case, colleges and jobs are able to look up anyone's online footprint which I believe is a little invasive and scary. When I look up my name on google, the first thing to pop up is my LinkdIn, which is very important for the job search and for potential employers to see. I don’t post much on any social media which makes my footprint not that large for people to find information about me which is good for my privacy. As for my friends and family, they are all addicted to their phones and other devices as well even my parents are always on their phones. Yes, that isn’t healthy, but since I'm away at school, I am grateful that when I text and call my parents they usually answer right away due to them always having their phones near them or are on them. Overall, technology has made a huge impact on how everyone goes about their daily lives. It has many bad consequences including privacy, but at the same time, it really keeps people connected and makes education easier with the school websites and being able to look at any question anyone has about anything on the internet. Technology is amazing and scary at the same time. I really give the people who are the backbones of all of these devices credit, I'm still amazed by all of these products and how much they have made my life so easy.

Blog #10: Echo Chamber

 

   One of the interesting topics that we learned about during the EOTO presentations was the Echo Chamber. This is where a person only encounters information that reflects or reinforces their own opinions or likes. This can cause misinformation since there are not any different ideas being shared it's just one of the few that a person believes in. Being a part of an echo chamber can be dangerous because it causes distrust of any outsiders and their views. This is very scary, especially on social media and with all of the tracking of information going on, the biased opinions of echo chambers will be very prominent in people's feeds because that is what they want to hear. This can cause huge issues with people from a mental standpoint because people need to be aware of different ideas and thoughts that are in the world so they can be aware of what's going on around them. The problem with an echo chamber is that it is so biased to one opinion regardless of what it is, it blocks anything else out of people's view so they can't even see what else is going on around them. Echo chambers can also be considered a part of polarization, because now with new social media technologies, they won't even let people see the other side anymore, it is all just completely one-sided. For example, if a person who tends to look up more liberal thoughts on Google versus and person who looks up conservative thoughts, if they look up the same sentence on Google, it will give them the sites that tend to sway more to their side.

Blog #9: Diffusion Theory

 

    

    Throughout time, all products and ideas go through the Diffusion of Innovations theory of the stages they are in their lifecycle of time. When it comes to iPhones, they have been at their peak for so long in the United States, that they have to fight to stay at the top or at Critical Mass. Sales of the product has stayed stagnant since 2015, still fighting to stay on top. Although Apple has released new phones and multiple versions of the same line of product, the 'wow' factor of the iPhone just isn't there anymore.  They will soon probably start going down the maturation slope and get to saturation pretty soon after that. After they get that far, it is highly unlikely they will be able to come back from there. In 2016, the news was released that Apple was purposely slowing down their phones after over a year of use so consumers would buy new phones more frequently.  This slowdown helped to keep the iPhone sales increasing throughout the year. This is why after 2016, the sales weren't increasing as they did years prior because Apple stopped slowing down their phones which made consumers be able to keep their phones for more years. As Apple is still the number one selling phone in America, there's some worry about competition with Teslas' new Pi phone that was released. People are still iffy on the new product as Apple has been a trusted company for many years, but Teslas' new phone is an introduction to the future as the iPhone was back in 2007. Due to that maturation stage of theory coming into full swing soon, Apple is already focusing their iPhones in different parts of the world including China.  In a matter of 2 years, iPhone sales in China have increased dramatically. In 2019 they were at the bottom of the list of top-selling smartphones and in September of 2021, they climbed to be the top-selling phones in the whole country. This shows that iPhones in China have climbed close to the peak, at Critical Mass point of their life. In a few years they will catch up to America and be in the maturation stage and be fighting to stay on top of them game in the phone industry.

Blog #8: Disinformation, Misinformation and Fake News

  

When it comes to disinformation, misinformation, and fake news, there are many similarities that make it hard to tell all three of them apart. Disinformation is false information that is deliberately spread to influence people. It is meant to purposely fool the public and people in general. Misinformation is false news being spread without the intent of it to mislead anyone. This can be accidental in some cases as rumors are spread around about certain topics and each person says the information slightly differently. Fake news is purposely created to invoke emotion and attention that mimics the form of mainstream news. This is used to sway people's opinions about certain topics. All three of these actions are bad because none of it is telling the truth and lying out of tricking people and putting fake information out is the wrong thing to do. All of this has been going on for many years as early as the Spanish-American war in 1898. After the ship called Maine blew up on February 15th, 1898, the papers at the time came up with a story that claimed the ship was hit by a Spanish torpedo, they even showed pictures of an explosion. This story was meant to make people think that the Spanish were the enemy and to spread lies about them to make them look bad. This was both disinformation and fake news because, the story was very much intentional to be spread and the papers wanted a reaction out of people and since it was from the papers reporting news, it was more likely to be believable since it was mimicking a trusted news source. This obviously affects society greatly as people want to trick people into thinking what they believe is right which can start major fights and problems. This can cause trusted news sources to not become trusted anymore and anger will cause people to do stupid things and divide as a whole which isn’t a good thing. 

  

 In more recent times, disinformation, misinformation, and fake news are still a huge part of the headlines. Especially in President Donald Trumps' presidency, he spoke about these topics greatly in an open manner. During the 2016 presidential election, there were claims being made that Trump was colluding with Russia and just involved with them in general. He kept claiming ‘fake news’ about the whole topic and said he did nothing of the sort. This ended up being true and the Steel Dossier got in trouble for lying to the FBI by claiming Trump was involved with Russia and that they had compromising material against Trump. This is disinformation and fake news due to the nature that people were spreading false information about President Trump to make him look bad so he wouldn’t get elected and even after that to get him impeached and in trouble. Spreading false information does end up backfiring later on as Mr. Steele got in huge trouble for lying to the FBI which is very serious. Also when it comes to Covid-19, as it is still new, it is easy to spread misinformation about it as well as be sneaky and spread disinformation about the serious topic. Some people spread misinformation or disinformation whichever way you want to think about it, that the U.S. government created the virus. Also, some people say sipping water every 15 minutes cures the virus which is not true. The person who starts the spreading is the source of disinformation, and after the news blows up, people who spread it after that are spreading misinformation. It can really get tricky when trying to separate the two terms and arguing if what was being spread was intentional or not. None of the three terms really affect different segments in a different way, it affects each individual person differently because no one thinks the same way therefore there will be different opinions about topics, and people will either take the information they hear seriously or lightly with a grain of salt. Especially with the newest generation being focused on social media, it is very easy to get disinformation, misinformation and fake news spread around everywhere. These things will never stop as they have been a problem since the 1800s, but it is very important to keep an eye out and not believe everything that is on social media and in the news as well. 

Blog #7: Privacy Policies

     

    The whole privacy conversation when it comes to the government and other companies being able to track everything we are doing is very scary. This affects everyone in my life including me because we are all being watched in similar ways. In the Ted Talk spoken by Catherine Crump, she spoke about how just use driving cars around, the government can see where we go. Even if you have an old car with no GPS or any other tracking system, there are automatic license readers that take pictures of your license plates while you're parked or driving or wherever. This is due to the low cost of the system nowadays and therefore the police departments have all of this data and can use it if they want to. Even if you're not a criminal being watched and tracked, your data of where they have tracked you is still in the system regardless of who you are. This is honestly so sickening to me the think my little baby cousins are being watched while they go to and from school or to and from sports practices while they are only 7 and 10 years old. I believe the police departments and the government really doesn't need information on little children going to school and just going anywhere regardless. The government should honestly be taking more initiative action in protecting our privacy. We are in this so-called "free" country for a reason, and we should be given that right to our privacy. When it comes to people committing crimes, the government and police departments should be tracking those people and the people who surround them for potential suspects. The government should not be allowed to track and family getting out of their car in their driveway about to go into their house as seen in the Ted Talk. That is their home, their property, they shouldn't be getting surveillanced for that it is ridiculous. In order to protect ourselves from the invasion of privacy, we can do research as to what ways there are to keep things private. Also, read the privacy policies on apps and on other things in order to understand what data will be shared with the companies and what can be shared with the government.  We can also have a privacy block called a VPN on our devices in order to protect us a little bit more from an online invasion of privacy. Invasion of privacy goes from online to in-person and back around again in a full circle. All we can do is protect ourselves the best way we can by learning different ways to keep our information private and acting immediately because privacy is a very important part of the freedoms we have in this country and just us in life in general.

Post #6: Invention of Netflix

   

   One of the inventions that we learned about in class from someone else was Netflix. I believe this company has transformed itself into what it is today very greatly and carefully. When they first came to be in 1997, they were renting out movies in DVD form and having the movies be mailed to people's houses. This was very innovative at the time because their competitor was Blockbuster which was a movie rental store and if you wanted a movie you had to go rent it out in person. A few years later in 1999 Netflix became a subscription site where people could subscribe and watch movies from a specified list, from the comfort of their own homes. In the first year of doing this, Netflix had 239,000 subscribers and by 2003 they had around 1 million subscribers. As the increase of Netflix's popularity continued to climb, Blockbuster was getting hit hard and people didn't like what the store had to offer as much anymore. Just subscribing to a website and getting movies from there was a lot easier than going out to the store to rent a movie and having to bring it back. I do remember those Blockbuster days and I personally thought it was a fun time to go and see the immense amount of movies they had. I believe this was the case though because I was a very small child like 3-7 years old and I wasn't the one doing the work of driving and paying for the movies. Blockbuster sadly declared bankruptcy in 2010 and all of their locations had closed down by 2014. If Netflix hadn't been so innovative and eaten them alive, then there's a possible chance they would still be successful today only if they kept up the technological trends. If there's one thing I've learned throughout the years is that if technology keeps improving and a technological company doesn't keep up with the new trends, they will end up dying out.  Technological advances and new and improved products and services are very important to consumers, so if a company stays at a standstill, it will continue to have some loyal customers but their numbers are likely to drop greatly if they don't change things up. As Netflix was the very first streaming site, they were already on top of their technological game when it came to competitors. This was until 2007, when Hulu came into the game and they offered subscriptions for people to watch TV shows. In 2008 was when Netflix completely switched to streaming but they were still focused on movies at the time with some TV shows, so technology wise Hulu came a bit first, but for target markets, Netflix was still on top when it came to movies. In today's times, I personally use both of these streaming sites because still today they offered different things which make consumers feel the need to have both of the streaming sites. In 2013, Netflix started streaming its first original content which was called 'House of Cards' which was very popular and people loved it. All throughout the years, Netflix has evolved to match the technological needs of consumers and to keep up with the advances necessary to stay on top of their game. In today's day in age, there are many more streaming sites including Disney Plus, HBO Max, Paramount Plus, and Prime Video which are just a few I could come up with from the top of my head. Netflix really started the trend of online streaming services and people even have gotten rid of their cable subscriptions due to the streaming sites having what they need rather than regular TV channels. Cable services are really on their way out as there is a streaming service for most things people need and like to watch. I personally think Netflix had a huge impact on the technological world of how we get out the movie and video content and they are successful and know what they are doing.

Post #5 Anti War

    

   Nowadays, the United States of America and countries all over the world have felt heightened tension due to statements in the media and careless choices that world leaders are making. Most news sites such as  CNN and MSNBC, have put things on the top of the news including Covid-19, which has been a popular and frequently publicized topic since early 2020. There are many conspiracy theories surrounding this topic and a lot of controversial political bias running around in circles over and over again.  In the next sentence I will be voicing my opinion and I am sorry if I offend anyone or upset anyone, these are just my thoughts about what is going on in our country right now. The media keeps Covid-19 on the top of their to speak about list, because they want to cover up what is really going on in the country behind closed doors. Covid-19 is a very important topic, but there are other equally important things going on including potential wars and conflicts that the mainstream media is putting on the back burner. Former President Trump, was the first president in around 50 years to not go to war with anyone, so the fact that Biden is now having conflict with Russia because of hid foreign policies with Ukraine it really makes him look bad as a president. He was so hyped up all throughout the election, that now he keeps making careless mistakes because of his policies, the mainstream media doesn't want him look bad. This is the way they shove other news into our faces, in order to make sure no one sees the damage this president is doing to our country. The mainstream media is so filtered and censored, because they don't want any opposing sides of their beliefs to be able to voice their opinions. The media really wants people to believe what they think is right and nothing else could possibly trump their opinion. These unheard of websites are sadly the only way people can express the way they feel about important topics including antiwar opinions which is extremely sad and disheartening. The first amendment, Freedom of Speech is really thrown out the window when it comes to anything spoken about in the mainstream media. As long as there are no threats being made or violence being initiated, anyones opinion should be valid and allowed to be shared with the public. People come from different backgrounds, with different experiences, therefore, will have different opinions. The mainstream media should not be one sided especially on important topics like war, there are obviously two sides to that, pro war or anti war. Nowadays the mainstream media decided pro war should be the way to go to anti war opinions are wrong in their eyes. They try to censor anyone talking about it, which goes against the First Amendment.