Relationship with Technology - 

Technology is something I feel like can be a love-hate relationship with some people, it can be extremely helpful and useful at times but also can turn into your worst enemy the next. It all depends on what kind of path you want it to take you on, good or bad. Whatever gets put on social media will stay on there forever and it could haunt you for the rest of your life. That is something that has always been emphasized to me, you always have to be careful of what you put out on the internet. It can not only hurt others but yourself as well everything that is put out there matters since it can always be traced back. But if you use it for good purposes then technology can be such a great thing. 

Like I said before there can be a lot of bad in technology, with kids bullying kids people cat fishing other people and lastly a lot of misinformation getting put out there. So it can be very frustrating to use technology and being able to trust it at some points. Especially with kids, when we let kids get a hold of the internet it can lead to bad things happening such as cyberbullying. 37% of 12 to 17 year old kids have been bullied online at least once, which is actually lower than I thought it would be but definitely higher than it should be. Kids shouldn’t be worried or nervous about going on the internet and having the feeling they are going to be bullied. It should be a positive place for everyone for learning and entertainment. 

With there being a lot of bad with technology it also has some good moments as well, people everyday use technology to live their everyday lives such as going to school, work etc. In January of 2021 4.6 billion people were active internet users which is 59% of the global population. It is pretty amazing that all of these people use the internet and other forms of technology on a daily basis, whether that be writing a paper, online shopping or texting and catching up with friends that all require technology. I know for me my life is surrounded by technology, with my phone, laptop and other devices I have I am always on them doing things. This is probably bad to say but I have become so dependent with technology I could probably not live without it at this point. Personally it has changed my life for the better and has definitely helped me a lot. 

The way society seems to be moving it seems to be technology heavy especially with Covid 19 and having everything shut down we have relied on technology to keep our daily lives moving. 87% of people in America moved to technology as their new normal, which is ¾ of the population having to adjust relying on technology for them to keep going with their daily lives. That was something I had to work on personally. I wasn't used to staring at screens all day and I would get headaches a lot more, and it changed things technology wise. It is crazy how much we have learned to adapt and learn just because of technology it is just mind blowing the direction it is going. 

I feel like I have learned a lot of technology over the past couple of months, the good, bad and everything in between. It has definitely changed the way I look at it and how I use it with all of the information that I’ve learned. You always have to be careful what you put out because it will always stay with you forever which is something to think about when leaving your “Online Footprint”. What you want the world to see of you and how you represent yourself because it is always important and for sure something I always think about. Something that should always be taken seriously.

EOTO: News Deserts

News Deserts - 

    

I have briefly learned about they word "News Deserts" but never had any idea this was still an issue in today's society. Personally I am from Des Moines, Iowa so I have seen small towns before since a majority of Iowa is made up of small farm towns, but they are still pretty developed. Meaning they have groceries stores, post offices and news stands, they might be small towns with not a lot of people. But these towns still have resources to keep them connected to the bigger world, so when I found out there are still many cities that don't have that kind of surprises me. Which made it a lot more interesting to learn more about the problem and how many cities actually face this issue of not getting any news. 

    There are so many counties in the United States that experience no weekly or daily news locally, so they don't have any idea what is going on within their state or city. Basically puts these people in a bubble having to get the information from another person, which can put the information in danger of being bias or false. It's simply like playing a game of telephone but with news information, we all know how unreliable that can be just playing with a group of friends. Imagine playing with with a whole city and news information they have heard, it can get very risky in the terms of knowing if it true or not. So there was a lot of new and interesting facts that I was able to take away from this project, and getting to learn more about a problem that I didn't even know that was still effecting many. It makes want to stay alert when I travel to new cities and seeing if they are a news desert or not. 

 

Free Flow of Information - 

    What we see on the news can be totally different of what is actually going on in today's world, the government is doing a whole lot of shady things but nobody is getting in trouble for it. More than half of the population doesn't even know because if Journalist or other news sources were to spill about what they are actually doing it could led to some serious punishment such as death or prison. Just look at Edward Snowden he has leaked a pretty big CIA scandal and is now forced to live in Russia because if he were to come back to America they would kill him or put him in Prison for life. He was someone who use to work for the CIA and was an inside scoop and when he started spilling the secrets they panic and went after him.  This isn't just happening to Edward Snowden though, he is the one of the only ones that was put on national TV. There are so many more whistleblowers that experience the same thing because they try to expose the United States but it is like a pit bull going after a chihuahua and they can't fight back. 

    This same type of situation is happening with Julian Assange who is an Australian editor as well as the founder of WikiLeaks which exposes all different types of Countries such as the United States so everyone is trying to kill him or put him in maximum security prison just because he is leaking government secrets, if you were to tell that to just an average US citizen they would be shocked. What they are saying on the News makes it sound like this man has committed a mass murder but really he hasn't. Assange was just someone expressing his rights until the US saw it was making them look bad and immediately put a stop to it. He was arrested in the U.K and the US is trying to come up with a plan with Britain. 

    This topic should be something that everyone is knowledgeable about because it has became a pretty big issue with the United States as the years started to go by, it has been getting worse and worse. The US has been getting better at covering things so it doesn't get out to the public until the whistleblowers come around and publish a story about it getting the US fired up. Making that person the most wanted person like they just committed murder, when really it shouldn't be that way. It is something that everyone needs to be aware of since this people today think it is a normal thing when really it isn't and it should be stopped. 

 

    The Age Of AI - 

        Technology something that is developing fast, and beginning to take over our lives. Some say it is for the good but others claim it will ruin the economy if that happens, as well as the US not being to keep up fast enough. It has changed how a lot of things work especially in large factories and bigger corporations, they barley have any human workers in the factory anymore which probably sounds strange for older generations but for my self and peers we grew up in the evolution of technology so it is all we ever knew. But watching the The Age Of AI documentary I was able to learn more about what they are doing to make technology basically take over the world, as to comparing ourselves to other countries and what the US is doing. 

    

    In The Age of AI video we watched during our class, there were a lot of interesting and scary information that I was able take away from it. I knew that technology was becoming one of the biggest things to ever happen but I was very surprise to learn exactly how fast it is really moving, in China they have stores with no employees. Face ID options and basically relies on technology for everything, luckily that hasn't happened in the US yet but in the future I could see it happening. Which is personally a little worrying because it takes away opportunity for those who need to be earning money like the disable, teenagers or the elderly. Like it mentioned in the video Robots don't pay taxes which really stuck out to me, because it is such a true statement yet they are still are trying to fine ways to put technology in place of jobs. Even though China is moving at a way faster pace then the US I know that we aren't very far behind where they can get all of your information just by looking at your face. Where did the concept of privacy go? I feel like as technology gets to be more and more our privacy slowly has started to dissolve and soon they will be able to get anything they want, just like in China. 

    

    

Another interesting part I also noticed was the self driving truck, the fact that someone that young and smart could come up with truck that can transport fright is mind blowing. My dad is in the transportation business and has a lot of connections around that industry so to hear them starting to actually do that definitely sparks some questions in my mind. That must have taken a lot of time especially the part where they have to self dock the fright because that is a pretty hard job to do, so to make that part self operating is pretty amazing but also concerning. Overall this whole documentary was very interesting to me I felt like I learned a lot about The Age Of AI and what it actually is and some of the things it was doing to change today world, so it was something I enjoyed watching. 

    

 

EOTO: Illusory Truth Effect

Illusory Truth Effect -     

The Illusory Truth Effect is an interesting topic I was able to learn more about because of this project, at first I was very overwhelmed by the name but getting to learn what this actually is it made a lot more sense and this was something I have heard about before but never knew it had an actual name for it. Most people have probably learned something about it before as well but now that I know it has an actual name that was invented or any of the research done for this theory. This theory is described as false information getting pushed in your head over and over again, making you believe that it might actually be true when really it is still false and you now believe it. Which is exactly what social media and news sources the whole goal is to get you to believe false information. Where they use the Illusory Truth Effect to do so, most of the time succeeding. 

In 1977 these three researchers Lynn Hasher, David Goldstein, and Thomas Toppino first thought of the Illusory Truth Effect when they brought college students into a lab for them to read true and false statements. As they were reading the statements the students believed that both were accurate, so the researchers did more studies and thinking of this theory. It wasn’t until 2000 to 2010 where this theory started to grow and become a more popular subject for researchers, note this was also the time where the internet and social media became an everyday use. So as we look back on it today it isn’t a surprise that these two topics go hand and hand with each other.

I feel as if this issue of people believing misinformation isn’t talked about enough, I know for me I was always on the outside of fake news or biased information I knew of it and that it was a problem. Never much detail about the topic like I have my first semester of college and it has really opened my eyes of what a real issue this is. A statistic from psychology today said that 70% of twitter posts that are shared were fake rather than real. Personally I think that is a big number. I mean it's over half of the people on twitter which is insane. I look at a lot of things on twitter and to find out that 70% of that could be fake blows my mind. If almost half of the population knew things like that this theory wouldn’t be as big of an issue as it is, because sources keep these things private. 

Which is why we need to make more people aware of the Illusory Truth Effect so they are more open minded, and be able to avoid when they have to face this problem first handedly. One big thing that people should start doing is fact checking their sources. I know a lot of people don’t have time or are too lazy to do so, but it will help big time when it comes to wondering if what we are researching is true or fake. Fact checking is something that I have learned a lot about in my English class so I have been able to understand what that is about, and using it. Another helpful tool would be using Critical Thinking, and that might be hard to do as well just because most people are lazy and don’t care that much, but as in the Illusory Truth Effect article starts it can be one of the best ways to help avoid the Illusory Truth Effect. 

There was a lot that I have learned when researching the Illusory Truth Effect. I found this topic very interesting and something that I hope to continue learning more about in the future in other classes. With that being said there is a lot of great information to be taken away from this theory that most people would be very knowledgeable of learning to help them get real facts from reliable sources. One of the biggest things is whether you know about the Illusory Truth Effect theory or not you still have to be careful of what you see on social media.

 

Anti- War in the News

Anti War - 

    All you ever hear in the news now a days is war, but have you noticed that you never hear about countries not wanting to go to war? That is because it is a topic that is never brought up they somehow always mange to keep it out of the daily newspapers, news stations and other sources. Why do they do that? It has always been a question that crosses my mind because as I was growing up I have always heard that all everyone wants is peace in the world. But now that I pay more attention and try to learn more about the news, it makes more sense. 

    

    I have noticed that when I watch the News that they try to make things a lot more dramatic then it actually is whether they do that by using fake news, spiking the stats, or changing the wording of things. So when gullible people who look at their typical news sources see something about countries going to war and things like that, they don't even question it. They just assume that the only way to fix the problem is go to war, people don't take into consideration that there is a bigger population of people who are anti-war then there is. There are people that trust the news and the information they are posting so much they will believe anything and not even go to check the facts or the opinions of other people.  Only people that like to do research and make sure they are reliable sources will go and search deeper, to where they can find articles like the "American Conservative" and "Anti War". 

    
This is just another reason why people should be more aware of the information they are reading, because as I have learned a lot in both this class as well as english you can never be so sure that the info you are reading is true or not. There are so many who are closed minded and only believe what they see but really they should be going out and exploring new articles not just listening to one source. There is so much out there and especially with the war and anti war argument people just need to branch out and realize that. 

 

EOTO: Netflix

EOTO about Netflix - 

    Everyone today has heard about Netflix, most people today even use it on the daily such as myself.  Have you actually learned the background and information and details of what makes Netflix, Netflix? Personally I haven't until we did these projects and I was able to learn more about the in and outs of Netflix. It was originally founded in 1977 as a DVD rental service but as it became more and more popular it eventually ran its biggest competitor, Blockbuster out of business. Now Netflix does streaming services all over the world and over 151 paid subscribers, being one of the most successful streaming companies in the nation. Like I said before I am a frequent user of Netflix, because it gives me access to watch a variety of different genres 24/7. It makes it very convenient to use, I also travel a lot and Netflix allows me to download movies/TV shows so I can watch them on the plane. It is all apart of that monthly subscription which gives you so much. 

    Without Netflix I feel as if a lot of people would be very lost, even though I am guilty of having days where I spend hours binging and watching shows from time to time. I don't do it daily or that often anymore but there are some who relay on Netflix that is all they do with their lives, like on the weekends and at night. Netflix has definitely changed the way we watch TV before we didn't have the opportunity to watch it from our phones, computers, and other devices. So for them to have come this far with the streaming network and the ability to do what we can today is just incredible, it has made things a lot more convenient. As well as gives people something do when they want a relaxing Friday night on the couch, overall making it a great addition to the 21st Century.