Final Post

Our Relationship with Technology - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I do believe that everyone today has a relationship with technology. I also believe that everyone has a good and a bad relationship with it. Most of the time I would like to think I have a healthy relationship with technology. Although, there are sometimes I find myself scrolling through Instagram comparing myself and my life to other influencers or celebrities. I recognize this to be one of the unhealthy sides of technology. The only good thing is that I have recognized this to be unhealthy and stop myself when I find myself doing that. Unfortunately, not everyone can take themselves away from the unhealthy sides of technology. From technology there has been cyberbullying which has resulted in people taking their own lives. When doing some research I found that 34% of students will experience cyberbullying and that 18% of the youth report having self-harmed themselves at least once because of this. This is unfortunately a big downside to the mass amounts of technology we have these days and people not using it for good. This is something I worry about with technology only getting more advanced and one day I will have to protect my children from these things. 

There is also a lot of amazing things that come from technology. A lot of these things I have been realizing during this quarantine. I think it is amazing we have programs like Zoom that allow us to learn at home in a time like this. If this quarantine were to occur when I was younger and in school I would not be able to do school at home. I think it is crazy how much technology has changed in just a few years. I also think technology continues to inform me in so many ways. I am writing a paper for my media law and ethics class on cyberbullying and I am learning so much from the internet. I have access to so many articles. I would not be able to walk in to a library and have access to that amount of articles at the tip of my fingers. These are the things that make me grateful for technology and the good it does bring to us. Being able to talk and see my friends online while we have been in isolation for over six weeks now is also a plus. Thank you technology!

Everyone has different experiences with technology. Some use it too much, some find themselves getting caught up in the unrealistic side that celebrities show online, some use it as a platform to attack others and some solely use it just to learn. I think everyone needs to work on limiting their time online and staying away from anything that can be harmful. I know it can be hard but if you don't let things tempt you and stick to only finding the good in technology it can only benefit you. I can't wait to see how much further we will come with technology in the next years and all the exciting things it will continue to bring us!

Websites Used:

https://meganmeierfoundation.org/statistics

Face Masks and Corona Virus

Face Masks and Corona Virus

Since the outbreak of corona virus everyone has been desperately trying to get their hands on face masks. Who would've thought thats what we would have a shortage on, face masks. People have started to make their own face masks out of the most unique things. Some people have even got so good at it they have started to donate them to workers on the front lines. Another example of how this crazy virus has brought us Americans together. Recently certain business has required face masks or else you would be denied entry. I still am not able to wrap my head around this new normal. Yesterday I got on a flight back home after staying six weeks in Florida. Although there were only about twenty people on my flight, every single one of them had a face mask on. Some were bandanas, scarves, pillow cases or just the original face mask. The whole time I was on the flight I couldn't help but look around and think how weird this all is. Two months ago I never would have expected to see this or even consider it normal. Costco and other grocery stores have recently announced that it is mandatory to have a mask before entering their store. I knew this was going to happen yet I still can't get over it. I do know that it is important for us to protect the people that are continuing to stay open and work hard for us and this is just their efforts in doing so. 

Websites Used:

https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/costco-start-requiring-face-masks-shoppers-coronavirus

Social Media and Corona Virus

People Using Social Media to Show Their Responses to Corona Virus

As I'm sure you have seen, people have been using social media in all sorts of different ways in response to the corona virus. I have seen many people using TikTok to lighten the mood and make fun of the virus. Even viral trends have been started. On Instagram, Facebook and Twitter there have even been memes posted about the virus. Social Media has also been used to spread awareness about the virus. For example, certain celebrities have used their platform to urge their followers to stay home and have made it a priority to warn them about the dangers of this virus. In a time like this I think we have really been seeing the positive effects of social media. There has also been a lot of misinformation about the virus on social media right now. People have been very quick to spread the first thing they read and believe it and it can be dangerous when it involved the virus. People have also tried to use social media to "over hype" the virus and scare people which I have not been a fan of. I think people get how serious this virus is and are already scared enough so we should not be using social media to make it even worse. It is our job to really read through the different articles and posts before we share them so we don't contribute to any misinformation about the virus. At the end of the day I think the good outweighs the bad and social media has been very helpful and entertaining while we have all been in isolation.

Website Used: https://time.com/5802802/social-media-coronavirus/

Week 16

    

How Covid-19 has Impacted Media Consumption

Since this virus has changed our lives and caused us to be stuck in our homes for several weeks now media consumption has greatly increased. I mean, what else is there for us to be doing besides staring at our phones and watching the news. During the quarantine Gen Z, which is 16-23 year olds, have been largely watching online videos, video games and online TV streaming. 31% comes from video games, 51% comes from online videos ad 31% comes from online TV. These numbers did not shock me at all and I have also been consuming a lot of media in each of these different categories during the quarantine. For the millennials, ages 24-37 year olds, they have had similar consumption along with a few other things. 35% are watching broadcast TV, 31% are playing video games, 44% are watching online videos, 20% are listening to podcasts and reading books, 41% are watching online TV, 36% are looking at online press, 26% are listening to the radio and 35% are streaming music. As you can see millennials are using a lot of different media categories. I also find it interesting that so many different forms of media are being used. If there was not a pandemic going on we would not have time to use all these different types of media. From the data they have found that over half of the Gen Z age group is consuming significantly more online video than before. They found that millennials started or are consuming more content across several different types like online video, online TV and broadcast TV. I found this information to be very interesting! Overall, everyones consumption of media has changed no matter their age group due to this pandemic. It is amazing how they have already collected this data and have been able to see what everyone is doing in their spare time during this quarantine.

Website Used:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/media-consumption-covid-19/

Week 15 EOTO 2

Illusory Truth Effect

The term I will be researching and discussing in this blog is the illusory truth effect. The illusory truth effect is the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure. This idea was identified in 1977 after studies at Villanova and Temple University. The illusory truth effect can also be called the validity effect, truth effect or the reiteration effect. With this effect, researchers found that people can know something is correct to begin with but after repetition they can be persuaded into thinking something different. I also found that the illusory truth effect can be used in election campaigns, advertising, news media and political propaganda. There are some good and bad things about this effect. If you ask an advertiser, to them this effect is good because you can get consumers to do what you want them to. For the consumers, if they find out this tactic was used it could be bad because they might not like that their decision making was altered. In an election the same thing goes. For the candidates they would take full advantage of the illusory truth effect and use it to get what they want. For the us, the people, we would look at this as a bad thing because we do not want anyone trying to change our views. This effect can affect society as a whole in many different ways for good and bad reasons. For example, with advertisements constantly playing about how smoking is bad for you and kills you it is very likely to get people to believe and understand this is true and in result they will quit smoking. This is an example of the illusory truth effect being used daily and I would say it definitely works for a lot of people. This would also be an example of how the illusory truth effect has affected me. When doing some research on the illusory truth effect I found an article that did some tests with this theory and they found that we encounter a lot of false claims daily and that our knowledge does not protect us against these false claims. This theory does prevail and is able to "trick" us no matter how knowledgable we may claim to be. If you ask me the illusory truth effect is a great marketing/advertising technique!

Websites Used: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect

https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/xge-0000098.pdf

https://twitter.com/samssecretalias/status/787339046418649088

Week 14

Privacy, Online and Off

When watching the Ted Talk videos there was a lot of information that I took and a few things that stuck out to me. The Ted Talk about the tattoos I found very interesting. The video said, what if from all our social media sites were like electronic tattoos and they provided as much information as a tattoo on your body did. This was an interesting comparison and one that I had not thought about before. That being said, social media sites can give so much information away about you that you weren't aware of and it makes all your information exposed just as it does when you have a tattoo on your body in plain sight for everyone to see. In the video it also mentions there is a face company that has a database of all the different faces that have been posted on the internet and Facebook actually bought this company in 2012. Things like this we don't even know exist are out there and we may not have as much privacy as we think we do.

After watching the Ted Talk about all the information police have about us without our knowledge was shocking to me. Apparently there is some software they can use that tells them everywhere you are going in you car and this can be accessed for no reason. They can have all this data just by your car plate. Some of the data includes where you are going and who you are even with and pictures of it all. To me this seems very absurd and is crazy how they can access that without a reason to. Even creepy how people are sitting around looking at this stuff without us even knowing it.

Linkes Used: http://medlawlit.blogspot.com/

Week 13: Audit your Online Presence

My Online Presence

I would say I have a decent online foot print. I do have a website that I created to use as a portfolio when I was applying to internships last summer. I also have an Instagram page, Facebook page, LinkedIn page, TikTok page, Sound Cloud, Spotify and Vsco account that I am very active on. I still have some sites out there that exist that I am not active on like Twitter and Pinterest. I have found that even just by typing in my name in Google all these different accounts/pages that I have made pop up. This is pretty cool for the pages I forgot about but also kind of weird at the same time. The sites I am most active on would be Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. On Instagram I usually just post pics when I am on a vacation or doing something fun. On Facebook I often find myself just re-posting funny videos, uploading some pictures to my albums or I am usually being tagged in lots of family photos. On LinkedIn a lot of the stuff is just me re-posting interesting articles that I found or liking different businesses. I do not use the personal website that I made as much but when I do use it I’m either uploading new content that I have made and putting it on there or uploading a revised resume. If someone was to visit one of these pages they could indirectly learn that I am most likely a student, attend college, like to travel and that I have a lot of family members. Most of the private information that I have given out would be found on my personal website and my LinkedIn page. On my LinkedIn page I have included my email, previous jobs, my phone number and the university I attend. I have done this so that when I apply to jobs they can easily get in touch with me or if someone scrolls across my page they can also easily get in touch with me. On my personal website I have posted my phone number, email and LinkedIn link. This is my professional portfolio so it is important to have this information on there so future employers can get in touch with me. If I didn’t have any of this information on there I could miss a job opportunity and not look like I’m as serious about wanting a job as I want to be.

I think social media can make people less lonely, lonely and depressed. I think this all depends on how you use social media and how much you use it. People can become depressed from social media if they are constantly comparing their lives to others just by looking at what others post. They can also become depressed by comments left on certain things they post. It is important to stay away from this stuff to maintain a healthy social media lifestyle. I also think social media can make you feel less lonely because it can give you so many opportunities to connect with other people.