FINAL POST

A World Overthrown By Devices

Impact of Devices

Every day is another day to walk by thousands of people completely consumed by their devices. Whether their face is directly in their phone or they are casually checking text messages on their fancy Apple Watch, or whether it is students in a classroom using a laptop or iPad at all times, the world revolves around devices. To ask a person to go a full day without a single technology would, to most people, be like asking someone to give up their identity for a day. People aren’t sure how to function normally without their cell phones. There has been a major increase in depression and suicide among young people because of the addiction of their cell phones and its created a scary world to live in.

There was a song written called "Don't Ever Let Your Children Grow Up"  by Maddie Pope and the verse of this song that truly captures the most terrifying parts of the world reads: 

..."When you walked up to school and everyone there was your best friend

When you learned your numbers and shapes and played pretend

You didn't mind that your hair was a mess, you were so carefree

You didn't know how cold and cruel this world would one day be

We were just so young

We should have known

We should have known

That one day we'd hate our bodies and we'd orbit around buttons on a phone

We should have known

That one day we'd pluck our eyebrow hairs and wonder why the cool kids stared at me

Oh why'd it have to be

Our imaginations have run dry

We hate ourselves and have a nightly cry

And then we act like we're fine

It's alcohol and bombs and drugs, don't ever let your children grow up”

The song continues on after this verse, but highlighted are the parts that directly apply to what technology has done to our society as a whole. Though there are parts of this song that may not seem to link directly to “buttons on a phone”, every single part does. Teenagers’ lives at school are all centered around “the latest posts” or “whose with who this weekend”. It’s an endless web of heartbreak on the internet and this song depicts that absolutely perfectly. 

Healthy or Unhealthy Time Commitment?

Cell phones are not all bad, I will repeat, cell phones are not ALL bad. Having said that, when it comes to the “healthiness” of the time spent on cell phones, it is shocking and a bit disgusting how much time is spent on devices every single day. Looking at many different studies, the average screen time teenagers today have spent each day doubled to 8 hours during the pandemic, and alarmingly stayed this way even after the pandemic. On a personal note, there were times that my screen time told me I averaged 12-15 hours a day on my phone. That is the majority of every day spent on my screen instead of living my life. THAT IS CRAZY!

The world has changed to completely remote in these past couple of years. For adults, they are constantly having to add technology into their workplaces and needing to be on practically every social media platform just to be successful in their careers. For young adults, their generation was part of the group that made technology so common in the social media realm in the first place, but had some time in their lives before the media spike where they could have fun without it. For teenagers… their whole lives are consumed by their cell phones. Some will go hours on end sitting next to a friend without saying a single word, forgetting there is another person in the room. That is just a norm for them, a norm that older generations look at and are instantly concerned. They have also perfected how to edit a photo to be a completely different version of themselves without a single person being able to tell that there were changes made. Today, it’s hard to tell whether someone is 13 years old or 18 years old on social media or even in person because that age group feels the need to grow up so quickly due to the influencers they are watching daily. They feel obligated to wear the smallest, showiest clothing they can find and learned before middle school how to do the perfect face of makeup any time they leave the house. The teen generation is this way, though, because those older than them did not reassure them that it is better to live the “embarrassing” childhood times. The days where kids would make Dubsmashes (short video clips to do “dumb” things) and share them with everybody because they were funny and entertaining, not because they looked good and needed to prove themselves to the world. Dubsmash has been replaced by TikTok, where the goal is to get the most views for looking a certain way as opposed to laughs and fun of other video-based apps.

Conclusion

Social media truly has had a positive impact on the world in millions of ways, but social media has also changed the world in scary ways as well. There are millions of songs written about the difference in the world and how much harder it is to live today than it used to be. Another music example would be the song "Breaking Up Was Easy in the 90's" by Sam Hunt. The premise of the song is that social media throws the person who broke his heart in his face every single day. He talks about how before social media he could live his life and move on in a healthy way, whereas with social media being everywhere he goes he cannot move on with his life the way he wished he could. This is another major problem with cell phones and why there is such a high depression rate nowadays. Breakups are one of the hardest things a person can go through, and with the advancement of technology there is no way to cope without getting hurt even worse by the cell phone.  

This also ties into the false realities that social media puts out there. Not only does this happen in relation to breakups, but it connects to the song in the sense that people only put their best foot forward online. Every day it takes one scroll of Instagram or one passing through Snapchat to see hundreds of people posting the biggest smile they can put on, making everyone think they are living their best lives when the reality is most of those people are not. Some of those people are posting a smile just to deflect people from knowing how they are actually doing, that is horrifying. This was also seen in the Mad World Remix video where the whole world of people was so consumed in commenting happy emojis on people's photos and posting their own smiling pictures, when the reality was they were frowning, crying, and hurt behind the screen.

Social media, cell phones, and technology are an incredible invention. There is no denying that without the advancements made there would be many things in the world that just weren’t done as well. Having said that, society needs to do a check in and see that they are beginning to use it wrong and it is time to make social media the fun, positive connection that it used to be. 

EOTO #2 response blog

Net Neutrality

Overview

Net neutrality is the idea that all service providers treat all content flow equally. In other terms, this is a way to make sure that some streams are not sent through at a faster pace than others and that there is overall less discrimination among platforms. Some companies will attempt to make your services take a long time to load in hopes that you will switch to a different platform, but the purpose of net neutrality is to stop that. 

“Net neutrality  advocates have long argued that keeping the internet an open playing field is crucial for innovation,”states Wired. This protection is the way that people can stay diverse in the platforms they use, the information they take in, and the entertainment they engage in. Without this protection, applications such as Spotify, that millions of people use every single day would not function the same way, hence they’d lose millions of their users due to the fact they are a third party platform. They would not be able to control what they were allowed to provide. Spotify expressed many worries under the realm of losing their users to other vendors,also, because they felt they would be silenced/ given parameters of the content they were allowed to give access to on their platform. 

Conclusion

Overall, the internet would not be the open, free experience that it is today without net neutrality. This has given entrepreneurs the opportunity to create platforms that can flourish the same way that some of the biggest platforms have. It is a completely even playing field for each media and seeing this positive change in the internet world is exactly what we needed.

Sources: 

Wired 

Free Press

Presentation

Privacy online & off (cancelled class blog)

Are We Safe At All??

General 

The big question to ask ourselves today is are we safe at all? The answer is no. After watching TedTalk after TedTalk, I have learned no one is safe. Any person who has ever used a social media platform or online resource is in danger. Whether it seems like the simplest thing such as google asking you to put in your phone number for “verification” or the most extreme of situations, you send a risky photo/ video to another person, you have been “found”. The government sees you, robots see you, everyone sees you. This is terrifying. 

When watching the Ted Talk “How Revenge Porn Turns Lives Upside Down”, it was a horrifying experience. To know that people are so willing to use the internet as a negative, public place for something that is supposed to be personal, intimate, and special is just horrible. It shows that there is no security in this world at all and that anyone can post anything. The internet is supposed to “monitor” what you post for your safety, when the reality of the matter is they are monitoring everything for their own scary, disgusting pleasures. 

Facebook and Privacy

Since Facebook was created it has been known for its lack of privacy. Recently though, matters have gotten worse. One of the most recent incidents was during election time. Donald Trump's campaign leaders were able to hack into and collect the data of over 50 million Facebook users. They did this through a quiz app that was connected. This caused the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg to make a grand apology to the world and promise that things would be changed for the media in the future. 

Another issue occurred in 2011 where charges were made against Facebook for now following through on that promise that all of their information would be kept private and safe. Peoples’ personal information was being leaked left and right and was fully published out to the public. 

Conclusion

Social media/ the internet is a scary place. If I have learned anything from being a user, it is to be careful of anything and everything I do because someone is always watching and you never know what information might get into the wrong person's hands.    

8 values of free expression

 Promote Tolerance & Stable Change

8 Freedoms of Expression

The 8 Freedoms of Expression are used every day in society. Each of the 8 values has a different importance, without them it is hard to determine whether or not your speech is protected by the first amendment. The 8 values include: marketplace of ideas, participation in self-government, stable change, individual self fulfillment, check on governmental power, promote tolerance, promote innovation, and protect dissent. Each of these cover very different forms of speech but have the same outcome, protection. They have a goal to allow people in society to speak their minds and speak their truths without punishment by those above them. 

Promote Tolerance

All 8 freedoms of expression  are incredibly important as it was just stated, but two stand out among the others in our society today. It seems that people are expected to say or not say certain things under the beliefs of the government. The first speech that does this well is “promote tolerance”. Under this value of free expression, it is believed by Lee C. Bollinger, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School in his new book that “"a more tolerant society is a better society." To perform this, the expectation is that people will continue to have things that are upsetting or hateful protected from them. This will make them more tolerant in the other aspects of their life. This is also said to "spread the norm" of how people should be acting and speaking out. He also believes that this is a way to practice self restraint for those with extremist speech without using a direct "chilling effect".    

Stable Change

Stable change is the second of the 8 freedoms of expression that I find extremely important. This value tackles the idea that people who have the ability to speak all of their feelings out (rant) will be less violent and therefore be more stable. This is the case because they are able to verbally get their anger out. There is no built-up rage about a topic to get out so therefore there is less violence. This is also said to allow those who are less likely to be connected with society to speak out freely. This is beneficial to the government who can then get a better idea of what people are feeling. Being in a “rant” situation can sometimes lead a person to slip up their words or say too much. If this occurs, the government has the ability to monitor what those people are saying and get to the bottom of their true feelings (especially if they are dangerous remarks).  

Conclusion 

Each of the 8 freedoms of expression are beneficial to society, and the majority are beneficial for the government. They all give the government the opportunity to more easily monitor the people around them and though the citizens are protected by the first amendment, having these freedoms of expression outlined makes it hard to get around the law if there does come a case where a person slips up their words.

Progressive Era

 Progressive Era Blog

Knowing the government's political views and their feelings about going to war, it is not surprising that certain websites are pushed to be hidden from the public in order to protect their opinions. This meaning, they want only their opinions to be the ones read by the people. The government would do anything to keep everyone on board with their beliefs, but my personal opinion is this is not fair. The government is taking away everybody’s first amendment rights with legal loopholes for people thinking differently than they do. Not everyone should need to feel the same way about every topic, especially when it comes to the war. The government knows not everyone supports going to war, but instead of allowing people to be educated on both sides of the matter they do not allow people to know the benefits of not going to war. The American Conservative is a site that is in efforts to be hidden from the public with its anti war aspects and harsh opinions that happen to be very good points. Another site where this tends to be the case is antiwar.com. This, to say the least, is a brutally-honest site about why war is not the answer. The site has tons of extremely valid resources that could go against the beliefs of the government in every way. 

All of this being said, what the government is doing is wrong. Making it incredibly hard to find sources on topics they do not agree with is not constitutional and though this fits into the first amendment rights in some ways, this should not be allowed. Giving one group of people (the government) as much power as we do as a society is scary and allowing them to limit our beliefs needs to be put to an end immediately. 

How can we do that? How do we as people get our opinions out there and heard as much as the government’s? The answer is we stay educated on what they are doing to hide others’ opinions and we fight for what is right. 

EOTO #2: Citizen Journalism

 Citizen Journalism

Citizen journalism used to be praised for many different reasons. Some of the best photos of an investigation have been developed from citizen journalism due to sometimes-accidental captures. Not every shot is accidental, but many are captured from a person videoing and photographing something completely unrelated but having the investigation evidence right there in the back corner of their shot. There are many examples of this that I can get into, but first, what is citizen journalism exactly? 

The definition given by tate.org states that it is “the collection, dissemination, and analysis of news and information by the general public, especially by means of the internet”. In shorter, less-complex terms, this is a form of journalism where any person walking along a road at any given time who is able to capture a moment on their mobile device is a data journalist. 

One of the first times that data journalism was used as an entire news source was in South Korea. This site was called "OhMyNews". This was a place where the sources were people who were actually present on the scene of the crime each time as opposed to having a professional come in and write the story as a secondary person. This platform was where someone could not only be a reader of the content, but could be a creator of content.  There were so many positives to having this type of news around such as some additional components of each story, up-close-and-personal stories, and much more. This was not only positive, though. As one can imagine, when anyone can develop a story and post what they would like to, it is not guaranteed that all users will be considered credible. This is a huge issue where people will take their “power” to post and post things that were either reworded from the truth or maybe a photo was posted that got edited to look a certain way that it was not in real life.  Another negative was that this was too good of an opportunity for too many people. Meaning, citizen journalism was a scary form of media for the government because they lost a sense of power over what information got out into the public. The security of themselves and other people was jeopardized more than it had ever been before. This was also a way for professional journalists to get pushed aside and ultimately start losing their occupation because “anyone could do it”. 

There are millions of examples where citizen journalists were the ones who found the “dirt” on a very large investigation through their photographs, but there is one in particular that stands out when I look at the impact that occurred due to the story/photo. The footage that I find the most fascinating is from JFK's assassination.  To the right is the photograph taken at his rally that was sent straight  to investigators. Though this was a blurry photo that was “inexpert", this singular photograph brought a whole new level of evidence into the investigation of what happened.

That is the beauty of citizen journalism, the blurriest, simplest photo could end up being the evidence investigators need to solve a case. 

Blog #6 Diffusion of Innovations

Snapchat

From a theoretical perspective, it is fully understandable why Snapchat is such a split technology among people today. Some were early to join this phenomenon as it was seen as fun, innovative, cool, and new. Others found this platform to be time-consuming and pointless. The reality of Snapchat is that it’s pointless. The benefits of the media are that this generation is so attached to it that it is an easy way to stay connected to someone without having to have a constant conversation going. The negative of this is that people are losing social skills. They are so used to being able to just send a photo of their face or their shoes all day long without forming any real conversation starters that when they reach the real world they forget how to function normally. They lack social skills that have been easily self-learned in every other generation. 

Another negative of the platform is that it gives off the feel that it is a “private” conversation. People will put anything and everything into the photos they send or the messages they type into the chat feature because “it’ll disappear”. What they do not realize is that it is not actually disappearing. It may be gone off of your personal device, but somewhere on the internet that photo or that conversation are being processed and seen by strangers all over. That risky photo you thought just a significant other saw, well… be prepared for the scare of them not being the only one. Or that text message where you spill all the secrets of your best friend's life or the party you all went to at age 16, surprise… The internet has saved it all. Snapchat has built a full platform on being secretive and private since the start, but those who chose to never indulge in the media know very well that this is not the case. This platform can be extremely dangerous for people of all ages and is taking your personal information constantly. Whether it is the scanning of your facial features for a silly filter, the “location” feature where anytime you enter the app all of your friends can see your exact location, or the messages where you can save a message in chat for 24 hours or permanently, this is just giving the system more time to save the messages you have been crafting. 

As an avid Snapchat user, I still enjoy this social media. I know the safety concerns of the platform and I understand the risk that comes with using it. Having said that, my generation is built on “FOMO”, fear of missing out. Without Snapchat, I would be missing out on things daily, even hourly because even with every safety factor, this is still the go-to media for my friends and family to use. It is also hard to stop using it once you have been using it for years. Those who never downloaded that little yellow app with the cute ghost icon never had the chance to get hooked to it. But us “veterans” are hooked and it is nearly impossible to stop using it now that we have begun.

Blog #2 Founding Era

 Importance and Making of the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has been around for what feels like an eternity, and in reality, its establishment was in 1789 . With this establishment there were no cases taken into hearing until two years later in 1791 , but its original date was when it all began. The members that made up the Supreme Court would stay in their positions for the entirety of their lifespan. These justices serving were/ are nominated by the president but voted in by the US Senate.

At the start, the Supreme Court did not have as many cases coming in, so they were accepting all major cases that they were given. The craziest thing I took away from learning about the Supreme Court is that today they receive a tremendous amount of cases per day but only take a very few. This is interesting to me because it shows just how deep these cases are that we now hear about getting taken to the Supreme Court. It also makes you wonder though, why did they turn down this case or that case? Or why was one case so much more important than another? Some are clear, but some are a little bit more interesting to dive into the meaning of. 

Among all of the new knowledge I have of the Supreme Court, the most surprising thing I came across was how many different “stages” the Supreme Court has gone through. There have been many different developments, changes, and improvements to the way that it functions and the process of how to decide on the cases that are being taken. Another surprising thing I learned was what each of the positions on the Court were responsible for. One example being the Chief Justice. The Chief Justice is responsible for the planning/ setting of the meetings they attend each week. 

In all, the Supreme court does so much more than I had ever realized. In addition, it has come so far from where it began in 1789 and will continue to grow as time goes on.

EOTO #1: Responding to Netflix

The Revolutionary “Netflix”

In 1998, a revolutionary streaming platform was born. Today, most people would say they can't imagine their lives without streaming networks, some saying they cannot believe there was a time in their life that they were "forced" to watch cable television with commercials and week-long waits per episode. Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph were the reason these things changed. Their idea started with the simplicity of renting DVDs and mailing them to peoples’ houses. During this era of Netflix, Marc Randolph stepped away to become an investor, mentor, and entrepreneur fulltime as opposed to putting all of his energy into Netflix.
From that point on, the streaming began. Beginning in 2007, it allowed people to watch any show or movie that they wanted within seconds. Netflix had it all. With this extraordinary step forward, in 2010 it made its way to Canada and then the UK in 2012. Moving back a bit, in 2011 there was a huge step for Netflix. On most television remotes today, there are buttons to directly take users to streaming platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, etc. At this time though, Netflix was the only platform around which meant it was the only one to appear on family remote controls. While this was extremely convenient for already-consistent users, this was also a pr opportunity for Netflix to reach users who had not begun their Netflix subscription yet. 

With the many steps in the right direction that Netflix took, in 2022, today, there are more than 200 million users of the platform and every single day this number grows and will continue to grow.