Final Blog Post: My Relationship with Technology; Health or Unhealthy

    Everyone should look at our relationship with technology to see how technology affects them. It is important to think about the role it plays in our lives. The relationships that we form with it are similar to how we form relationships with others around us. These relationships can be healthy or unhealthy depending on the person.  The best way to look at our relationship with technology is to first look at those two different kinds of relationships.  
    We have two general relationships with technology: healthy and unhealthy ones. The first kind of relationship is a healthy one. A healthy relationship is one that makes you feel good about yourself.  I never thought about how a relationship with technology could be healthy. After reading some articles about creating a healthy relationship, I thought there were a couple of different ways to have one. The first way that I saw was by having an awareness of your feeling about social media, which is when every time you go on a social media app, you identify a reason for going on and set a goal. Another way I saw it was. It is good to look at everything technology has allowed us to do, like being connected anywhere and providing a new way to learn. It has also just made us as people free to do what we want. I found this video about the positive effects that social media can have.

A healthy relationship with technology it's something that I think everyone needs to work on because it can lead to less of the bad that comes from technology, like depression and unhealthy body image. 

     The other kind of relationship we can have with technology is an unhealthy one. An unhealthy relationship makes you unhappy and can lead to you feeling insecure.  Many things could make someone have a negative relationship with technology, like cyberbullying or losing connections. Most people talk about this type of relationship when it comes to this topic. There is also the fact that technology can make you less sociable and unable to have face-to-face contact. There are a lot of harmful things that technology and, more specifically, social media can cause. I found a study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison talking about teens' relationship with technology. The study had the statistic that teens that did not have good roles model for social media had higher rates of depression (56%), anxiety (69%), unhealthy body image (84%), and fear of missing out (85%). I have always seen these issues discussed in relation to technology. For example, FOMO (or the fear of missing out) is something that can stem from you seeing pictures of people close to you doing something that seems fun, and you are not there. While I feel that FOMO has always been an issue, the use of social media has just made it a bigger issue; people are always posting pictures or videos on apps like Instagram and Snapchat, where everyone can see it, which can lead to more FOMO.    

    Though I am specifically talking about relationships with technology, it is not hard to see that those relationships are similar to those we have with people in our lives. Like those relationships, even though there are two big categories that they can fall into, people’s relationships tend to be more diverse and are usually a mixture of the two. As people grow up, their relationships can change, meaning that someone can go from having a bad relationship to a good one or vice versa. There can also be ups and downs in a relationship, so that has to be considered.
        My own relationship with technology is complicated. Because technology has been in my life for such a long time, it is hard to see the effects it has had, but overall my relationship with technology has its ups and downs. I believe technology has done both good and bad things in my life. For example, technology has allowed me to be able to be in contact with my best friend and parent from college. I went to college out of state, so it is hard not seeing them all the time, but since I can call or text them anytime, it does not always feel so bad. Though a bad thing that has come from my relationship with technology is that I have such a short attention span because of all the time I spend online watching short videos. It has caused a lot of problems because I have been unable to focus on things for long periods of time now. 

I found a couple of other sources that I thought included good information, so I am linking them here.

1. Examining how technological advancements affect the future of human rights.
2. Teens, technology, and Cyberstalking: The Domestic Violence Wave of the Future
3. Technological Influence on Society
4. How the internet and technology shaped Americans’ personal experiences amid COVID-19
5. Social Benefit versus Technological Risk
6. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Technology Transfer Competence, Rent-Seeking, and Bargaining Power
7. Technology: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Blog Post #11: Age of AI

    The documentary "In the Age of AI" was a deep dive into the effects of AI in the world.   After watching the documentary, it made me think about the different impacts that AI has on the planet. After watching this documentary, I remember one story that stuck with me: the story of the game Go. The fact that a machine could beat the best player of Go through machine learning has implications that are truly scary and impressive at the same time. After watching the entire documentary, it was organized into different parts about different advancements in AI. There was one of these big stories that I remember the best, and that is because this story was very interesting. This part was The Surveillance Capitalists. This part interested me because it is very concerning and shows a global change in AI. 

   The Surveillance Capitalists was a section of the documentary that was all about how the private human experience is claimed as a free source of raw material to predict human behavior. This means that large companies and ad companies are using data from online to predict how people will behave online. One of the first people that is talked to in this part is Pedro Domingos, who wrote a book called Master Algerims, and he spoke about the fact that everywhere you create data and some computers are taking that data and learning everything about you. This is terrifying; everything you do online is being kept as data for large companies such as Facebook and Google to use as they please. One thing that is said in this story is that we think that we are using social media, and we never consider the fact that social media is using us. That line sent chills down my spine the first time I heard it because it's true we never really think about the fact that when we are using social media, it is also using us. It is taking the data of the thing we search and look at and use it for one reason or another. 

    The documentary then goes in about the different big companies that have been a part of this idea of surveillance capitalism. The first company that came up was Google, and how when it began as a company, the creators disliked advertising. They believed that advertising would lead to the distortion of the internet. There was no want in the creator’s mind to ever sell the data they had been collecting. That was until they realized the value that would come from them selling and collecting this data. They realized that they could use machine learning algorithms to learn users' interests and then use that surplus data to come up with fine-grained predictions of what a person would click. When Google realized this and started to use this, there would be a 3,590% increase in their revenue line, and that was just from 2000 to 2004. Google kept this a search from the public for a long so that no one would know what they were doing. Now, Google was not the only company that did this; Facebook would see what Google was doing and follow it. Roger McNamee, a major investor in Facebook, talked about his worry about how large companies like Google and Facebook have been casting out wide nets for data. He talks about how this new way of predicting behavior takes the uncertainty out of things like marketing and how we gave tech a place in our lives it did not earn. The overall model of these companies is that they provide a free service, and in exchange, they collect the data of the millions of people who use it. 

     The documentary moves into a part about how Facebook realized that they could use cues in the online environment to affect real life. They showed this through different social contagion experiments that they ran. The big one talked about was done during the 2010 midterm elections and was trying to see if they could get more people to the polls. They offered users the "I voted" button on their accounts if they voted. They claimed to have nudged 40,000 people to have voted due to their experiment. This is one of many sketchy things that companies are doing; the other is a form of corporate surveillance which private companies have built without our permission or awareness. This comes with the introduction of technology like Alexa or Google Home. These things are putting surveillance in rooms where there would not normally be, though these companies say that they are not using these to target ads but helping AI improve the user experience.

    The only saving light in this part of the documentary came from a man named Alastair Mactaggart, who was a Real estate agent in California. He began campaigning for a California ballot initiative that would make a law to give consumers control over their Digital Data. of course, the big companies that this would affect, like Google, Facebook, and AT&T, all opposed this. He needed 500,000 signatures to get this law on the ballot to be voted on, and he ended up with well over 600,000. After it was on the ballot, polls show that there was an 80% once for this new Privacy Law, and this made politicians in Sacramento pay attention. MacTaggart and the politicians negotiated, and this is when the new law would come together and be able to be sent to Senate. Once it got to Senate, it passed unanimously. Now that the law is in place, people in California have the right to ask what information companies have and the right to ask companies not to sell their data. There is also the third-party opt-out, in which people can hit once “don’t sell my information,” and it will go to every website. 

     This part of the documentary stood out to me because it hits so close to home. I speak for most people when I say that social media and the internet are a big part of my life, and I use them daily. I wrote this blog post on the internet. The idea that companies like Google and Facebook are selling our data is not something new to me; I have heard that for a very long time. What is new to me is this fleshed-out version which goes in-depth on what is really going on. Like I said earlier, at one point, one of the Interviewees said we think we're just using social media, but we never considered the fact that social media is also using us. That is a terrifying thought to have, and then after hearing everything about Google selling data for revenue. You never realize how precious your online exhaust is until you hear the fact that it increased Google’s revenue line by 3,590% that is crazy. 

      Overall, the advancements being made in machine learning have terrifying implications. At one point in the documentary, a great point was made that A.I. are a tool, and it will serve those who use them no matter the user's motivations. This is the scariest part of the whole thing that AI is able to learn so much about us, and big companies can use that information for anything.

Blog Post #10: EOTO Reactions (Misinformation and Disinformation)

    Awareness is a huge part of being in the media field. Being aware of things that could lead you wrong, like misinformation and propaganda, is an important thing that everyone should do. In my opinion, misinformation and disinformation are the big things to be aware of. 

    The difference between misinformation and disinformation is something that is important for everyone to know because it helps you understand the different ways that false information is spread. Misinformation is just false or inaccurate information that does not have any intention behind it. At the same time, disinformation is false information that is distributed with the intention to harm or mislead another person. Misformation is something that a lot of people do without meaning to. It is usually when people go around saying some information that is wrong, but they are presenting it as fact. The people who spread misinformation either get it from wrong or biased source or never looked at sources and got it from word of mouth. 

    The dangers of misinformation are that it leads to unnecessary fear, wrong interpretations of people, and misleading society. These are all important things that someone should be watching out for. Misinformation leads to unnecessary fear because when you share scary information, like peanut butter, it leads to arthritis. This could make people panicky because they are scared that peanut butter could hurt them. Another thing is that it leads to wrong interpretations of people that come from spreading misinformation. This is because someone who spreads misinformation can be seen as dumb or malicious. After all, they did spread this misinformation. They can be seen as dumb because they didn’t check their sources or look to see if what they said was correct. A person could be seen as malicious because people can see that person as someone who is trying to spread insufficient information and lead people in the wrong way. The last thing is that misinformation can lead to misleading society
. Misinformation can mislead society because it could cause a lot of people to follow inaccurate information. After all, they think it is correct.  

    The way to avoid misinformation is by doing a couple of things to check your sources as well as yourself. You should check the author or writer of the sources to see if they are creditable, basically checking to see if the whole source is creditable. You should watch that you are putting out the right information by double-checking what you are saying. 

Blog Post #9: EOTO 2 (Cord Cutting)

    Cord cutting is the practice of canceling a cable revision subscription or landline phone connection in favor of an alternative internet-based or wireless service. This could be like someone who gets rid of cable to use streaming sites such as Netflix and Amazon Prime as their primary access to TV. Cord cutting really started in 2007- 2008 because of the big three of streaming sites being released. In 2008 Amazon Unbox rebranded to Amazon Video, and that would become very popular. In 2007 Netflix launched, and Hulu became available to the public in 2008. The reasons people do this can vary, but most people agree that the cable price is the biggest reason they cut the cord. An article I read averaged that the average some were paying for a bundle that had cable in it was $217.42 per month. So it is not surprising that people want to cut that bill down. Though this is the main reason, there are others, like the fact that people saw cable as lower valued because it does not have as much stuff as streaming sites have. 

    The biggest implication of cording cutting is the end of traditional TV as we know it. This can be seen in the fact that there is an effect on the revenue that is coming in from cable TV. One article I read talked about how streaming will have a dramatic effect on U.S. pay TV revenues by 2025. The article says that the industry will lose around $33 billion by the time 2025 rolls around. That is a large amount of profit, and it could show a slow beginning to the end of cable television as we know it. I think you can look at this implication of cord-cutting as good or bad, depending on how you feel. You can see the end of cable television as a good thing because you support streaming sites more and you find it more valuable, but then there's a side that cable television is a huge industry, and it would be a huge loss.

    There are two major groups that cord-cutting affects: the TV industry and the consumers. The first group is the TV industry because cable TV was once one of the biggest money makes in the industry, and now it is slowly dying out. There was an article I read that talked about the slow fade of cable. It talked about how is one point, cable was the big thing in the market, and now it is streaming platforms. The exact wording was “media companies that once relied on cable TV are chasing streaming dollars instead.” The best example I read about was Disney and the changes they have made over the years in the TV industry. In 2001, Disney brought the Fox Family Channel for $5.3 billion, and now last year, in 2021, Disney spent around $3.2 billion on their streaming site Disney plus. This shows a change in where the money is going in the industry, which could lead to the end of cable television as we know it. 

     The second group is the consumers of cable TV, and the biggest effect that cord cutting has on them has to do with money, and it is both positive and negative. The positive is the more prominent effect, which is that people can cut their cable bills in half. People who would be paying upwards of $100 a month for the service can get something like YouTube TV, which gives the same amount of access to cable channels but for only $25 a month. This is huge, and it could mean a lot of good things for people who can't pay a lot for access to TV. The negative was a small percentage of people talking about how having to pay for so many different services to get what you could end up costing you as much as cable does. 

Blog Post #8: Is There Really Any Privacy

    The question that we find ourselves asking nowadays is whether there is such a thing as privacy online. It is scary t think that you can never truly have your privacy if you are on the internet. I watch a couple of TED Talks about privacy on the internet. It makes you nervous about going on the internet and doing anything. The one TED Talk that made me the most nervous was one by Juan Enriquez about the similarity between your internet life and tattoos because it really made me think about how permanent what you do on the internet is. The comparison is pretty scary because you do not think about it when you are on the internet, but anything you do is forever out there, and it's really hard, if not impossible, to get back. Though this was not the only issue raised in these TED Talks, there was a talk about how the police can track you using special cameras, which is also terrifying. Overall watching these different  TED Talks, you really put in perspective different kinds of security issues and privacy issues that come from the internet.

    The effect of these issues is the same for everyone, and that is a lack of trust in the internet and fear of what could happen. I believe that now that these issues are becoming more talked about, it seems to be causing a lot of fear among people about the internet. I say talked about because I think these issues have always been there, but it just seems that nowadays, we talk about it more. I was reading an article about Americans and privacy, But it's all about how Americans are more fearful of their lack of privacy on the internet. A graph in the article says that 62% of Americans believe that companies are collecting their data, and 63% believe that the government collects their data every time they go on the internet. This article says of her all this level of distrust that is becoming more prevalent in people nowadays.

    The real question that I think should be asked is what we can do and what should be done now. For the part about what we can do, I think it's just being more careful with what kind of information we are giving out on the internet and to who we are giving that information. It's also very similar to what we talked about in class; just be careful with small things like clearing your internet history. I think we can look to the government and what they should do to keep our information more private online. Even though we know it's not entirely possible, I think what they should do is stop collecting data on people without the knowledge of the people that they are collecting the data. I read a piece by Cameron Kerry on the adoption of a baseline privacy framework for consumers in the U.S. He proposes making something called the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. One of the things it would state was that “have a right to expect that companies will collect, use, and disclose personal data in ways that are consistent with the context in which consumers provide the data.” I think this sort of thinking would lead us in the right direction to wear privacy needs to go, especially on the internet.

     I think privacy is an issue that needs to be discussed more, especially in terms of the internet, and I think we as a people need to do a lot more about it. 

Blog Post #7: Diffusion of Innovation

What is Diffusion of Innovation?

The Diffusion of Innovation Theory was created in 1962 by a sociologist named Evertt M. Rogers. This theory tries to explain how over time, innovations or ideas are spread through a certain population. The diffusion of innovation is usually shown in a graph where you can see that there are five different groups that people can be split into when it comes to the spread of ideas or innovation. These groups are innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggers, each of which means show a different part of the spread.

Now let's look at innovation through the lens of the Diffusion of Innovation Theory. The innovation I want to look at is PC or personal computers. A short history of the PC is that the first PC came out in 1975 with the release of the Altair 8800, the company that made the Altair 8800 coined the term “personal computer.” Though it would be in 1976 that the first of the well-known apple computers were made by Steve Wozniak and then only a year later released, the Apple II was the most advanced PC to date. The pioneers in the Diffusion of Innovation Theory are described as the first to try these new inventions or come up with these ideas, and they are usually described as risk takers. The innovators make up 2.5% of the population. For the PC, the pioneers would be the inventors of the early forms of the PC, like Apple and Commodore, who were all the competitors in this field at the time.     The next group of people would be the early adopters, who are the opinion leaders of the group or trendsetters who are comfortable with new technologies or ideas. The early adopter makes up 13.5% of the population. The early adopters of the PC were described as college-educated workers that lived in metropolitan areas and whose jobs probably had to do with IT or computers in some way.

    The early majority is described as those who adopt these new technologies after it was been proven to work by others, and they make up 34% of the population. By the time 1982 rolled around, PC would be in more homes than ever. A magazine article from the year after estimated that 1 million PC were bought in 1982, in the U.S alone. Also in the 90s the iMac would be a be huge selling around 800,000 to people within the first five months. These seem to be two of the first big waves of PC buying in the U.S.

    The next group of people is those who are wary of change and only tend to adopt it after a majority of people have; this is the late majority. This would be anyone who got a PC past these two waves when it moved into the 2000s with the release of the Macbook Air in 2008 because this is passed those initial PCs.     The final group of people is the laggers, who are the hardest group to get to adopt new technology or idea; they tend to be very skeptical and unwilling to change. This group, for the PC, are those who still don’t have PCs, or if they do, they do not use them very frequently. I think this of people is very small because it's kind of hard not to use computers at all in this day in age, but there are definitely people out there that refuse to use the internet and PC by proxy.

Blog Post #6: EOTO (The Printing Press)

    The printing press is one of the most significant inventions ever made in the communications field, and it helped to do a lot within that field. The original printing press that everyone knows about was created in 1450 in Germany by Johannes Gutenberg, but there was one made earlier. The first printing press-like object was actually made in China in 868 AD, and it was a fundamental form of printing a book called block printing. The first book ever made in this style was called the Diamond Sutra. Though, as I said earlier, the printing press was truly created until 1450 by Johannes Gutenberg. The first book that was ever printed from this print was a Bible, and it was called the Gutenberg Bible, published in 1452. The inventions of the printing press would spread around Europe, and by 1491 Italy, Spain, and England had the printing press set up. The spread of the printing press around Europe led to the creation of the first-ever official newspaper called Relations from a German publisher in 1602

The impact of the printing press is something that is kind of obvious. First, it led to widespread literacy because publishing books became more accessible, so they became more popular. The easier it was to publish and print books, the more people could get their hands on books and learn how to read. The next way the print press changed the world was through the global news network that it helped to start. The fact that news could now be put on a piece of paper and shipped anywhere was a new concept, one that the people of the time learned to use so that news was able to be spread. The last way it changed the world was the ability to spread ideas; very similar to the new network, anyone could put their thoughts down on a piece of paper and have it move, and the world with people reading. The printing press was able to lead to ideas being able to be adapted from anywhere in the world.

    The printing press was a very important invention and one that led to a lot of good in the world who knows what the world would look like if it never existed. I think that it helped shape the modern communication field as well because, without it, that field most likely would not exist.