Final Blog Post

 Final Blog Post 

                                      Technology - Is it second nature?

   Technology, something everyone in the world uses today whether you are 1 years old or if you are 85 years old. The question that has been on my mind about our use with technology is; is technology second nature to us? My answer to that question would be, yes. Regardless if you want to admit it or not, we are all addicted to our phones, including myself. We check them every morning, afternoon, night, or when we get the chance to during the day. Most people like to say "social media is addicting" which is true, but the phone itself has people attached. Waiting for a text all day, or stalking your email account to see if anything has popped up is being addicted. With that being said, the smartphone is one of the worlds greatest inventions. It allows us to figure out so much going on in the world, work, or literally whatever you want to know. People now work off technology and the world has evolved with this invention, but is it positive or negative? 

Personally, I feel technology has impacted the world in both positive and negative ways, and I can't seem to figure out which one outweighs the other. Within my generation, Gen Z,  we are the only ones that have access to 24/7 technology our whole lives. This means that once all the children in our generation grow up to be teenagers, we will be the most tech - advanced generation the world has ever seen. This can cause children to grow up in a world glued to the smartphone or computers, which to me is not a good sign. Some very negative aspects of this happening is kids being introduced too explicit or damaging sights online that is not right for them to know now. I have seen young children being exposed to things that they should not be learning about yet, or even them being exposed to the internet without them even knowing because they do not know how to use it correctly, yet, still use it. On the website "Fast Company," an article by a 14-year old girl by the name of Sarah Kendzior explains how and why she gave up social media at the age of 14.  Kendzior explains how she felt everyone knew her whole entire life, and that all she cared about was using these apps like Facebook and Twitter. She says "For my generation, being anonymous is no longer an option," which is what I have been saying from the beginning. We can be placed on the internet in such a negative way, and now not even knowing it is going on. One key action jobs now do before hiring anyone is looking them up on the internet and trying to find all their accounts, which really shows how we have changed. 

With that being said, having an online presence can also have many benefits towards pursuing a certain career or job. Online influencing has now had a major growth within the past couple of years as technology and social media advanced.  Now, with just having instagram or TikTok downloaded, you can gain millions of followers and create a brand for yourself that is your job for the future. As with that though, comes many opportunities. One person that is now famous for using her platform is 

Charlie Damelio. She gained millions of followers just from posting with her sister sometimes on the app TikTok, and from there she has gained so many connections. She even went on to start a clothing and makeup brand with her sister, Dixie Damelio. Even though the internet can cause damage with early on sights, connections are being made on their everyday by different platforms, big name companies, and celebrities. From companies like Duolingo, Nike, and even food places like Subway have started social media accounts and use those as connections to others and an outreach for their company to gain more of the younger audiences. 

From all of the positives and negatives with technology, I do think there is a healthy way to use it. In the animated music video by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules named "Are you lost in the world like me," the boy in the story is surrounded in a world with people who are addicted to their phones. No one is paying attention to anything that is going on and only staring at their screens. One scene in particular that stands out to me is when there are planes crashing and buildings falling in the background, but in front of that seems to be an "influencer" just showing off her makeup and not giving any mind to what is going on. This reminds me of what people think when they hear "social media affects our reality." When we are on technology, specifically social media, we get addicted to the world of Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, or whatever you are currently on. We all have moments where we get trapped in the world of technology and feel like we can not come back out, but, we can all learn how to come out of that trapped feeling. If you ask me how I use technology in a healthy way, I honestly do not have just one answer for you. People have different ways of disconnecting themselves from technology, but I try to make sure I stay active and not just physically, but mentally and socially. I will take time to see friends and family in person, read a book, take a fitness class, or whatever sparks your interest outside of the phone or computer. 

Overall, technology has created major impacts to the world we live in today no question about that. To answer my first question though; is it second nature? Yes. With the way we use technology today and the advances it has had to all of our lives and how much we use it for jobs, school, communication, and so much more. Most of us give more attention to technology than we should, but that is just the way the world has accustomed too. There are definitely different sides to stories on how individuals feel it is taking over there life, but the world keeps changing everyday, so we have to too. 

Living in the Age of AI

 Blog post #10 

Living in the Age of AI

    Artificial intelligence has taken over our world more ways than we think. Technology has now been adjusted to recognize faces, voices, gestures, and even the tone in peoples voice. While watching the video "In the Age of AI", it really opened my eyes into what we have to watch out for when purchasing or owning some of the products that we do. Yes, there are many benefits to owning devices like a cell phone, computer, laptop, television, and more, but, there are many dangers that I do not think many of us realize. 

Shoshana Zuboff, one of the women that spoke in the video shown, had said something that really struck me. She described social media, google, and the internet as "searching us instead of us searching them." When hearing this at first you might think to yourself, "thats not true, I'm searching things up all the time," while that is true, underneath all you're searches the computer or website is going deeper into your search. An example we can use is let's say one day you look up a pair of dance shoes on google, the next few weeks, google will bring you adds for dance studios, clothes, and more shoes. While using the internet and shopping websites, social media, things of that sort, people behind those screens that you are using are always watching and making sure they know everything you want. 

Face recognition is now even more complex than ever before. With all of these additions to different devices, people now can pretend or take other peoples personalities. Within the recent years, companies have been created to protect all individuals from this happening. Sadly though, even with all these installments, hackers know how to get into people's accounts, devices, and social media accounts which make others to be very cautious when getting certain applications for jobs or situations like that. 

With the escalation of technology and AI, privacy matters have become more advance to assure people that they are safe when using these types of websites. Whenever opening a new app, or downloading a new browser like Chrome onto your laptop, there are always security questions. Of course, not everyone reads those and just presses okay to get the process over with. 

Privacy, On and Off the Internet

 Blog #8

Privacy, on and off the internet

    When it comes to our safety with technology, it is not as safe as we might find it to be. Majority of the people who have cellphones, computers, or any other type of device do not realize the dangers that come with owning equipment as such. Companies pay these people to watch and look over us, without us even knowing or agreeing at times. 

When watching some of the TED Talk videos provided to us, the particular video that gave me the most interesting information was a talk done by Juan Enriquez. In this video, he mentions how computers, cellphones, and any personal technology we have takes "face tattoos" of us. Once our pictures or videos get put into the technology, it is 84 - 94% accurate of recognizing us. Recently in 2012, he shared that a company called Face.com, that has about 18 billion faces online, was sold to Facebook. This means that the app Facebook, has everyone of those faces on that site and there's in their systems to trace and recognize. 

Catherine Crump, one of the other speakers in the TED Talk videos mentions how we are not always safe even doing everyday things, like driving cars. She mentions how the newly programed license plate cameras take pictures of every car that passes by, and tracks that car to see how Americans interact. They can track wether you go to church, a certain restaurant, if you are picking up your kids from school, and anything else you might do that day. Yes, they have said that these cameras are to pick up the plates incase an emergency occurs, but now they are tracking peoples lives, which is not always safe for us. 

These issues can affect my family, friends, and other due to our safety in this country, or the world in fact. Most of the population these days in on social media, or on the internet somehow, and even if you do not have a social media account, your technology still knows who you are, and what you do everyday. In my opinion, the Government should not be allowing all of this to happen. There are some freighting people out in this world that can now find your face, location, hobbies; with just a few searches. In order to protect ourselves from invasions of privacy, we all just need to learn how to keep most things private and not share what we do not need to. As an example, if you post pictures on Instagram, no need to put the location of where you are, or take a picture in front of your house. Believe it or not, websites collect that data, and can find where you are, who you were with, and what were you doing, in seconds.    

Second EOTO

 Blog post #2 about EOTO

                                      Misinformation / Disinformation

    Personally, I believe each EOTO this time around was very interesting and they all tied together in some aspect, but the one that caught my eye the most was the conversation around misinformation and disinformation. In today's society, it is very common for people to believe things that are said because they want too or do not know everything on the topic. This is a problem because rarely anyone does deep research into issues anymore, and just uses what they see or hear as backup for their arguments. 

Disinformation is most knowingly heard as people hearing information that they know is not true, but say it to others or aloud anyway. There are many different ways disinformation appears to us and thats through fake news, theories, frauds, photoshops, and propaganda. What this does is spread fear and suspicion among everyone which messes with the peoples minds. Yes, we know that not everything you read online is true, but numerous people know that and still fall into the mind trick. Cruelty takes a toll on those who do spread disinformation because of the fact you know what you're saying, is not a fact. 

Misinformation also plays into the idea of mind tricking people with having false and inaccurate information be spread, even if the person or place spreading it does not mean to do that. Everyone experiences this because we all make mistakes. At some points in our lives we always think we are right about something and we happen to not be, and thats okay. It becomes a problem when it messes with people's lives, careers, and many other things. Commonly now, misinformation is now spread a lot throughout social media. A great deal of us do this, but with no intent to hurt anyone or cause any harm in general, but unfortunately it happens all the time. 

Ultimately, both disinformation and misinformation has affected society as a whole in numerous ways, in a not so positive light. The lesson people need to learn is how to really do your research before talking about a topic or believing a topic. It has happened too many times in the past years that information has come across wrong or hurt someones life, which is why we all need to be educated on these words and their meanings .

Online Influencers

 Blog #8

                                                Online Influencers....

    Now more than ever, online influencers have taken over the world. Ranging from the ages of 18 through 24 in 2019, those numbers have changed by a lot. There are now young children on the internet that are about 13 years old that are making millions from becoming an online influencer. It is never too late to become one though, as we are shown by many popular, older, influencers. Overall, online influencers have really done their job.... influenced many, many individuals with everything from makeup, purchases, jobs, and anything you can think of. 

When you think of an online influencer in these days, TikTok is what the majority of people's minds will go to, but, online influencers emerged originally from a launch called PayPerPost. In the year 2006, Ted Murphy created PayPerPost, which was the first online database that payed bloggers, at the time, to create content for brands.... which is exactly what influencers today do on other social media platforms. Controversy started around Murphy as people were "particularly concerned that this new sponsorship model would dilute the Internet with inauthentic content." This quote is important because that is a lot of the talk today surrounding influencers. When influencers get a brand deal, we all know they are getting paid. In some videos you can even see because it will say "payed sponsorship" at the bottom or the influencer will start the video by saying "thank you so much *the brand name* for sponsoring this video." 

When influencers post sponsorships online, we never know if they are really telling the truth on the product, and just want to get paid. With that comes danger because young kids will not do there research and just say "Look, my favorite influencer says to buy it, so I have to get it!" Personally, I went through that too. Growing up Youtube was a very popular area for online influencers. The website emerged in 2005 and had about 30,000 visitors on the site per day. By summer of 2006, 100 million videos were uploaded each day. 

Now taking a look at the growth of the job of being an online influencer in general. Many had never even thought of being an influencer, until the opportunities came there way and they were met with fame. One example of this is widely popular influencer Charli D'Amelio. Being a competitive dancer in Connecticut, she posted a couple videos on TikTok and grew over night fame. After just about 6 months on being online, she stared in a Super Bowl Commercial and danced with Jennifer Lopez. 

Anyone can become famous on the internet now, it just all depends on the attraction you gain from others. This can affect the minds of the younger generation, in some positive and negative ways. Some believe all they need to do when they are older is move to California and become famous, when it is much more than that. Parents are worried their children are going to become so involved in this idea and not have a plan for themselves. While that is worrisome, some of the individuals that plan to do this in the future do know how they will continue on this path and have the real passion for it. Positive outcomes can emerge from the thought of being an online influencer, but negative outcomes can also arise. 

In the long run, online influencers will only grow. They are changing the game for many companies that people might not hear of, but once heard from an influencer, is expanded greatly with sales. I think this is a good thing for most companies and not negative just for the fact that they get more attraction, which is what I am sure most businesses want. Numerous individuals have a negative outlook on influencers, which there are many valid reasonings towards, but I feel they hold power for the future, and not all in negative ways. 

Diffusion of innovations

 Blog #7

                                TikTok + the Diffusion of innovations 

    TikTok, an app everyone around the world has heard about or is currently using. The app had launched in 2016, but began its popularity in February of 2019.  From watching videos to help you cook in the kitchen, to learning a new fifteen second dance, TikTok grew rapidly. Especially in 2020 when COVID-19 hit the world and forced us all to sit in our houses, and stare at screens. Many known TikToker's now had their rise to fame in that industry during March of 2020 due to being in the house and making videos to entertain others. 

Individuals saw this app, and took it as an opportunity to showcase skills they have and different talents people might enjoy. To understand the popularity of TikTok, it currently has 1 billion downloads.... which took instagram 7 years to conclude too. This fact ties into why people would become such early adopters of the app.. its growth. With this, comes many downsides. The number one negative connotation connected towards TikTok is the addiction that people, specially the younger generations have with it. Younger children, more than you think, have the app downloaded either with parents permission or without. Unfortunately, not that many parents or guardians watch over their kids on what they look up, who they are watching, or what they are consuming in general within the app. There are also many safety concerns surrounding social media in a whole. Anyone can find anybody on these apps, and even create fake names which is a fear when it comes to the younger generation using these and not knowing what's wrong or right. 

Some make the choice not to join the app, and that is okay. The reasoning to this is similar to the negative aspects of TikTok; false security, addiction, influences, and many more. When downloading a social media app, people are not doing it intentionally for others / strangers to find them and connect. Majority of us download it to connect with present friends or just to post and watch entertaining content. With that though, we gain some risks, specifically with security. The app itself collects a lot of data from all of our phones, which I don't think anyone genuinely wants, as well as who is using this data collected from your phone. Major concerns arise from that thought, which should be talked about more when downloading the applications. 

In the end, I think TikTok has done a lot of positive things for the community of people that are engaged on it. Many have found they're calling through the app, have been discovered for different talents, or even discovered a new hobby from learning it from others that showcase it publicly. Just like reading a book or going on a walk, for some people, TikTok is their way to escape the reality for a second and just enjoy these time learning and watching new things. Reality though does come into the app as there are content creators / influencers who their jobs are to educate us on real world problems through their 60 second videos. This is helpful to many who don't enjoy to watch the news or what-have-you, and can see what is happening to our world in this app. Everyone has their
opinions, but to me, I think TikTok has brought many smiles, laughs, and connections. 

EOTO Technology Presentations

 Blog #5 

                                                The start of movies 

    During our Each One Teach One presentations, I knew about all of the technologies that everyone had mentioned, but not the in depth details of it all. It was nice to learn more about the impacts and creation of topics like Netflix, social media, and even carrier pigeons. One topic of discussion that caught my eye was the start of movies - specifically, the creation of the Kinetoscope.

In the year 1890, William Dickenson had the idea for a machine that allowed numerous people to look through a peephole and watch moving pictures. The way Dickenson had this work was by inserting pieces of film and it was passed through rapidly between an electric bulb and lens. While this is going on, the person using the kinetoscope views the peephole. A man riding on a horse in a race was the first motion picture film put into the kinetoscope. 

Thomas Edison also helped with the creation of the kinetoscope, but both of the men did not think it would go as far as it did. After the release in the United States in 1984, it had created an immense sensation not only in New York City, but everywhere. Europe had sold the majority and had formed the basis of the first apparatus used to project motion picture film.