Blog Post #12 - Final Blog Post

There are a lot of pros and cons when it comes to technology. While technology can bring a ton of positives and help people in many ways, there are also concerns and times when it is not looked at in a positive way. Every upside also has a downside, and social media is definitely one of those things.

I personally think my relationship with social media is healthy. I started using technology in middle school, and it has never been a problem for me. I started using it to contact my parents when I needed to, which was always helpful and never became a problem. My social life became better as well because I was able to call and text my friends. Safari and Google have helped me be able to do research and look up questions, and easily get an answer. School work has also been online for awhile now, and I notice recently more and more assignments have started to be online, In high school we used Google Classroom, and now since being here we have used Blackboard. This makes things quick and easy for students, and I assume it does for teachers as well. Also being able to communicate through email, rather than only being able to talk to professors in person. 

As I started to get older, I started using social media, not only to post about myself, but also to communicate with my friends in other ways like through snapchat. Now, I use platforms such as Tik Tok, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and LinkedIn, which all are beneficial in different ways. LinkedIn is important to have as it can potentially get you a job or important connections. Instagram and Tik Tok are fun apps and can also be informational when used the correct way. LinkedIn is important to have as it can potentially get you a job or important connections. Instagram and Tik Tok are fun apps when used the correct way. I enjoy seeing what my friends are up to, and enjoy posting on the platforms as well. Sometimes these apps can have downsides though.

These are the apps that can start situations such as cyberbullying, hurtful comments, jealously, etc. As fun as it seems to see what your friends are always up to, it is common to also see things you do not wish to see which can turn in to a negative effect of technology. 

I think that for the most part, technology has been useful in my life, but there have definitely been times when something was posted and I felt jealous, anxious, or upset. Also, I notice myself spending too much time on my phone often. This can get in the way of completing school work, not getting things done, and finding yourself on your phone when out with friends or family or an important situation which does not require cell phone use. 

Technology is very useful when needing information. It is just a click away to find out the answer to a question which can be very helpful and help us learn a lot of important information. On the other hand, technology can also be misleading or give opinions instead of facts, making it easy for people to get confused or accept the wrong answer. 

I have always been careful of what I post online, because what you post stays with you forever. Because of this, if my employer was looking at my social media or looked me up online, there would not be any issues. When I google myself, it is not extremely easy to find me, but as you scroll a bit my LinkedIn pops up. 

I believe that as a society technology is important and can help us learn information, stay in touch, communicate, and improve education. It is often hard to have all positives  and no negatives, so I believe technology overall is important and helpful.

 Blog Post 11 - EOTO Reaction #2

While watching these presentations I learned a lot of information I previously had not known. They all were interesting to me, but one presentation that stood out to me, was learning about Net Neutrality and what it is. Before these presentations, I did not know that was a thing so I enjoyed learning about it.

What I learned is that large internet companies want extreme control over their networks, so try to claim that extra internet fees would improve internet service, charge websites extra for faster working speed, and argue that the governments rule interfere too much. This can cause issues because people are paying more money when in reality they should n to have to do that. 

Net Nuetrality is a way to fix that, because it ensures affordable and equal access to online services. It also encourages competition which is good for small companies, and is a way to help them out. This also is a way to let voices be heard and prevents censorship which is an issue in day to day life. It also is a way to support technological advancements without barriers.

The reason why Net Nutrality is important, is because many people can not afford to be paying extra for things that do not matter. This ensures equal and far internet access to everyone, and prevents internet providers from shutting down and slowing down internet just because they want power over everyone else. By doing this also all voices can be heard equally so it ensures free speech without certain things being blocked off because powerful big companies do not want some things to be heard by large audiences. This is because certain things that can hurt them or stop them from making as much money can be said or talked about so they do everything in their power to stop that.

 Blog Post #10 - Age of AI

AI can be helpful in a lot of ways, but in some can be a big concern. After watching the video, I learned new information I had no knowledge about previously. What I learned was that AI is developing human behaviors more and more as time goes on. This can have negative effects because people learn everything from AI nowadays, and get information way easier than they used to, leading people to have little knowledge in what they actually need to know.  Another point the video made is how AI is driving inequality, and making negative impacts on society. It was said it is making rich people more rich, and poor people more poor. With AI being able to do so much for people and help people in so many ways, it also is a concern that as more time goes on and more technological advances come in to play, it can become a worry as to if it will take peoples jobs away from them. Also, people studying topics that are extremely important to actually know the knowledge, this can be a concern. Nowadays people use AI as a recourse for answers to questions for work, without actually learning the information.

AI also has a lot of benefits, considering it can store data for people, and help people with questions they may have as well. While AI being able to give people the answers to important questions, make schedules for people, store information for people, and do may other things, this can still be a trust issue on the flip side. People worry that data being saved is not private, and is being kept online which can become a privacy issue. If you are not worried about privacy, or use it for simple answers or to do helpful things for you without it becoming personal, AI is a very helpful, innovative tool which expands its knowledge every day. It has helped a lot of people in various ways.

 Blog Post #9 - EOTO #2

For my second EOTO post, I learned about News Deserts, and the impact they have on people. A News Desert is an area which has no news outlets, or not enough to be able to fill people in on what is going on in the world. Sometimes areas have news sources, but ones that are not credible or able to rely on for accurate information. This can cause issues, because it is important to be filled in on what is going on in the world. This is a supply issue because metro papers cut back rural circulation and it is also a demand issue, because readers in these areas opt out of subscribing to significantly diminished local newspapers. This leads to problems, when people are not getting the amount of news that they need, and not learning about relevant events going on in this world. This can be dangerous. Even though people in certain areas can have a much harder time being able to access news, there are still ways for them to gain knowledge and information. If they live in an area that does not have physical copies of news papers, they can stay up to date by reading social media, radio. etc. Problems arise when people do not have access to social media or the radio. Some people do not have a phone or even electronics. Some people can not afford them, or just do not like smart phones. When you are unable to get to a radio or social media, you can not hear what is going on. When there is no paper option, this is when it is worse because they have neither ways to find out information.

News Deserts are even more common now. More than one in five papers has closed in the last decade and a half. Half of the 3,143 counties in the country now have only one newspaper, usually a small weekly, attempting to cover its various communities. Out of the whole country, almost 200 counties do not have newspaper at all. This is a serious drop, and is something that needs to be looked at. Another issue that has happened that is effecting the newspapers is that private equity funds, hedge funds, and other newly formed investment partnerships have swooped in to buy and manage newspapers all over the country. Another issue as to why newspaper is not having as heavily of a production is because of new media. With so much social media and how popular it is these days and recently, people do not buy newspapers as much or make an effort to look at them because they rely on gaining information when they turn on their phone. This has decreased the production of the newspapers which is not an issue for some people but a serious issue for others. It is not a big issue to the people who only use social media and radios for this information anyway, but a more serious issue to the people who do not use social media or even have access to it and relied their whole lives on the physical copies.

 Blog Post #8 - Diffusion of Innovation

A technology that caught on quickly was the invention of the Smart Phone. This spread quickly and became popular because it was helpful in letting people communicate easier and more rationally. It was a good invention for not only making things easier in being able to contact people, but also in making things more safe and reasonable. In case of something important coming up, or even an emergency people have the convenience of being able to pick up a phone and contact someone immediately. A lot of people were early adaptors because when this invention came out they knew it would be a good purchase for being able to connect with people pretty much whenever they would like. When smart phones were not a thing, people would have to go to the same location, telephone booth, or wall whenever they wanted to call someone. When this became possible to do at any location people jumped at the idea. With flip phones, you could only text and call. Technology like iPhone has the advantages of apps like safari, and social medias as well.  People who were late adaptors, maybe had a hard time figuring out how to work a smart phone, or just did not want to over complicate things so decided to stick to the old fashioned way. Another reason for someone to be a late adaptor is if they have trouble affording a smart phone because they are a generous amount more money than using phones in other ways such as a telephone booth or a flip phone. Some older generations never became adaptors at all because of these reasons as well. 

I do see some negative sides, as social media can cause problems, and also the use of smart phones can become addictive. This can become dangerous if your head is always in your phone, and causing distractions. I think the positives outweigh the negatives though, so people can access easy communication whenever they need it.

 Blog Post #7- Anti War and The American Conservative

Social Media is biased, and commonly catered to a certain political view. Common news sources are Fox News, CNN, NewsMax, etc. These are common and easy to get information from, depending on your political views. These are all well known sources, even if they are not everyone's go to channels when watching the news or receiving information. When people want to listen to the news or get information they usually go to their news channel that they prefer, depending if they are conservative or liberal. Websites like Anti-War and The American Conservative are not the best channels to get information from. On Anti-War website, there are so many words that clash and it made me want to exit immediately. This does not draw viewers in, but only draws them out because it is confusing to look at and has too many links which is confusing to understand exactly which information you need.

When people see this it makes it hard to want to interact with the website and continue reading. I did not even know where to click or what to do next. With this many words, I will look at it and exit the page to find another website to get my information from. On The American Conservative, there is almost nothing to even read about. There is no main page, just a lot of links. This makes it confusing for readers and can steer away people looking for certain information. 

I also believe that with social media being biased, some stuff is not shown or made popular by the government because they do not want people to read about information they do not agree with. If the government does not want a website to be popular because they do not want it to be shown to the public, they easily are able to take things down or not make them known to the public to become popular.

Blog Post #6 - EOTO Reaction 

A technology that I learned about was the Invention of the iPhone. I found this to be very interesting, considering most people use iPhone on a daily basis, and a good amount of hours in that day. It sparked my attention when presented because of this. I learned that the iPhone was invented in 2007. This was very interesting to me considering I thought iPhones have been around for a decent amount of time longer. I was aware that they were a more recent invention, but I did not know that they weren't around until I was three years old. This was a shock to me. I learned that the features of the iPhone had an impact on people, and was a technological breakthrough. I also learned about the technological advancements, and how it helped simplify communication. The features of the iPhone were that it had a touch screen, videos, calls, texting ability, music, and internet access, which most other phones do not have. Some negatives I learned about were the fact that cyberbullying became more common after the invention of the iPhone, and since most people have one, there is a lack in face-to-face communication, because people have gotten used to using their phone to communicate instead of meeting in person.