Ted Talk

 

    In the Ted Talks we were instructed to watch, the common theme was privacy on the internet. Many companies claim that your data is safe and can be deleted when asked to. This can be false. These companies can track almost everything we do and can somehow manipulate our phones into presenting us ads that seem appealing and for us. How would technology know to do this if someone or something is not gathering our somewhat private data. You may think what you search on the web is considered private to you and only your device. This is proven false when you all the sudden receive an ad for something you searched in a completely different browser. Sometimes, it is not just the internet and certain companies. The government can also track your every move. They can acquire all your data from a simple license plate. Just from one scan, they can learn your name, where you live, what you look like, and any other past data you have on file. Nothing seems to be private these days. As mentioned in one of the videos, there is such thing as an online tattoo. As we all know, tattoos are permanent. Just like a tattoo, some things you may put out socially will never go away. You have left a permanent mark with just a single post. Unfortunately, the internet is no place to seek privacy, that is why it is important to learn to be safe on it. 

Final Blog Post

    As someone who is apart of Generation Z, I grew up with technology all around me. As I have gotten older, new technologies pop up all around me. Personally, I think my generation has a horrible relationship with technology. The coming generations have it even worse. These days, parents often offer iPads to their children to occupy them. The children become attached to these things. You'll see them at a restaurant, in the mall, or at a park on their iPad. According to the parents, it is the only thing that keeps them sane and distracted. The problem with this is, the internet is billions of layers deep. These children may be getting exposed to things they are too young to view. Childhood is meant for innocent fun. There are so many predators out there trying to take advantage of kids because they are so young and in a vulnerable state. This is so easy to do because parents will often leave their children unsupervised with this technology. Who knows what websites these kids are accessing? Young children are communicating with predators and are being sent photos and videos that they should not be exposed to. This can cause later trauma in a child's life. The iPad kid generation is not even old enough to comprehend what has happened to them yet. Click HERE to read more about the negative impacts technology is having on children. It is so much more than just being exposed to inappropriate content. 

    Going back to my generation, Gen Z, our relationship with technology has never been worse. There are so many applications to keep us distracted and we take advantage of this. Sometimes, it feels like nobody is living in the moment. People are so much more absorbed it what other people are doing than actually living for themselves. You can't even go to dinner without looking around the table and seeing everyone on their phones. My generation is also the same generation that started the Cyberbullying phenomenon. I personally know several people that have been impacted by this. There was even a whole film called "Cyberbully" where the main character tries to take her own life due to the bullying on the internet she endured. (Read more about this movie HERE.) This movie is the sad truth of our generation. Some teens and kids take things too far, causing the victim to feel so down on themselves that they do not even want to live anymore. HERE is a research article on the statistics and correlation of cyberbullying and teen suicide. 

    There are several problems when it comes to our generation and our relationship with the internet. I just believe that cyberbullying is one of the biggest ones. Aside from that, there are tons of other problems. The addiction, the influences, they are huge. I fully believe that people can become addicted to their mobile devices. I am even a victim of this. I rely on my iPhone and I tend to lose my mind when it is not working. All of my friends are the same way. I would love to improve on this and become more content with not being on my phone 23 hours of the day. I think my generation and many others have things to improve on when it comes to technology, it is up to us to take the first steps. 

Whistleblowing EOTO 2

 

    One of the things I seemed to gather new knowledge about was whistleblowing. In fact, we are currently talking about whistleblowing in my ethics class so the presentation given gave me the more insight I needed. I learned that whistleblowing happens when a company or person is committing a fraudulent activity or even crime. Whistleblowers are the ones who call these people out or bring the issue to the attention of law enforcement and the public. There are several messed up cases where people came about to address the problems. One of the cases discussed was one where a man conducted a social experiment with LSD. He was trying to see how it reacted with body movement. Several people were put into partied with the drug and examined. LSD is a very harsh drug and it is not for everyone. In fact, it is not even legal. So why is this study even happening? Eventually, someone saw the flaws in this and blew the whistle on it. This brought this case to the attention of law enforcement who obviously did not agree with this activity. We were not told what happened to the conductor of this study, but I am sure they were put into some sort of jail for what they did. One of my favorite whistleblowers is Tyler Shultz. He blew the whistle on Elizabeth Holmes' company, Theranos. HERE you can read the full story. Theranos was a medical company that claimed to be able to help patients by testing their blood and gaining readings and information from it. Turns out, this entire company was a fraud and a lie. Shultz noticed that this technology was not real nor functioning. He blew the whistle on this company and the founder has been sent to jail and is awaiting sentencing. Whistleblowing is not only crucial in business, but also the media. Many people do not know the ins and outs of the media and it can be easy to get tossed up and fooled. In order to prevent these things from happening, we have to rely on good people to bring these problems to public attention. 

Diffusion of Innovations: Facebook

 

    Facebook was one of the first of many popular social medias. After its launch in 2004, some ran to make accounts and join in on the fun with their friends. Others were weary of this website and were unsure if creating an account was a good idea. 

    Facebook was so popular because for a while, it was one of the only social media sites that almost everyone you knew used. It was new territory for most. Gradually, people started to gain knowledge on how to use this site and on how to get as many people as you can to react to your posts. This was especially appealing to teenagers. Teenagers love attention and they love keeping up with what their friends are doing. I am personally a victim of this. People often became early adopters of facebook, especially the younger generations. With something so new, many young people wanted to give it a try. Facebook was a new, fun way to know what your peers were doing without having to know these people in real life. It started new relationships and people started to bond over their common interests. To most of the public, this was appealing. To some, there was still suspicion. 

    Why wouldn't someone want to follow what the rest of their friends are doing? What makes people adopt these sites late- or not even adopt them at all? For one, my father is one of those people that refused to ever adopt Facebook. Why he insists in this? He says people get too attached to it and that there is too much drama on there. He is mostly referring to my extended family members who post every moment of their lives on there. Some people in this generation actually want privacy, but that is clearly not most. Facebook is not just about sharing your life and hobbies with everyone, it also prompts you to share lots of personal information upon signup. This may seem unusual to those like my father who grew up without social media. He questions why anybody would want to share that much personal info just to register to a site. It also does not help that Facebook has proved itself to be untrustworthy. Several sources have come out saying that Facebook often gets hacked and tons of personal account information is stolen. This can be unsafe because companies may distribute this data to the wrong people. This is how hackers, scammers, and identity thieves come to be. 

    Facebook can be a very negative technology, but it can also be very beneficial. As i explained before, Facebook has multiple problems with information leaking. This is a very negative downside of the app. Nobody wants all of their personal information out there, especially if they trusted a site not to give it out. Although that is a very negative downside, Facebook has also done a lot of great things. It has helped bring our society together and promote the positive things in life. It causes a large outreach and can bring attention to crucial things that we should be educated on. Although these are all positives, I am unsure if they outweigh the negatives. I feel that the theft and leaking of information is more crucial than sharing your life and personal opinions with your online friends. Some may believe different. From an ethical standpoint, I would much rather protect myself from the scary people that are online. 

The Age of A.I.

    Living in this day and age can be scary. Technology is getting smarter and breakthroughs are constantly being made. The impact made by AI and new technologies can be both negative and positive in several ways. In the short movie we watched called The Age of A.I., we learned how great this impact really is. I had no clue that people often lose their jobs to this technology. Multiple jobs that were once ran by people can now be taken over by technology. This causes people to lose their jobs and they often become depressed and ill from this outcome. This kind of news was scary to me. In the future when I get a job, I would be terrified if this happened. Jobs are soon going to become more and more limited. With such advanced technology, privacy can no longer be a thing. A.I. can figure out almost everything there is about you. A pro to this is having a phone or website that is almost specifically designed and adjusted to you. This can be extremely helpful to tech users. On the other hand, the data that A.I. holds can be terrifying. It probably knows things that you do not even know about yourself. Maybe even things that you thought nobody else knew. Nobody wants an invasion of privacy like this. Having all of this data out there and easy to reach can raise several concerns. National security and the government can hack into your files and figure out everything there is to know about you. Life is a very personal thing, why would we want these people who may have never met us in person to know every small detail of our lives. Along with easily accessible able data comes identity thieves. Horrible people out there are always looking to steal someones identity. This is beneficial to them because they often make money off of it. Although A.I. is very smart, that does not always mean it is very secure. Info is often mass leaked beyond anyones control. I think A.I. is an extremely smart and fascinating technology. That does not mean it is not extremely scary though. 

Bluetooth EOTO

The presentations in class helped me gain a better understanding of several technologies. In one presentation, I learned a lot about Bluetooth Technology. Bluetooth has always been a mystery to me, although several devices use this technology. I learned that Bluetooth was actually introduced in 1994. It was not made public until 2004. Even after almost 20 years in the public, adjustments and improvements are being made to this technology daily. As of recent, Bluetooth can only travel up to 30 feet. Of course, that seems to be a pretty far distance. People are still trying to figure out how they can make it go farther. Bluetooth is named after King Harald "Bluetooth"Gormsson. His nickname was Bluetooth because of a dark, dead tooth he had. The technology was named after this King because he united Scandinavia the same way Jaap Haarsten (the creator of bluetooth) wanted to unite PCs and cellphones. As pictured above, the Bluetooth logo is made from a Nordic H and Nordic B, the King's initials. These are facts about Bluetooth I had not known before and it was very intriguing to me. 

Someone in a separate group did a presentation on Instagram. In that presentation, I learned that the original name of Instagram was actually Burbn. The founder, Kevin Systrom, named it this after his love for whisky and bourbons. Burbn was more of a schedule and location sharing app. The photo sharing aspect made it unique and stand out compared to other social apps like Twitter or Facebook. After a lot of changes and shifts, Instagram launched in 2010. I though it was interesting how Instagram used to be so small and even had a different. There are billions if Instagram accounts and the app has greatly impacted the way we communicate. It more so allowed us to learn how to communicate using photos. 

The History of Youtube

     Before the year of 2005, there were not very many ways to share home videos with family members through the internet. Three employees at Paypal decided to create a way that we can all share videos with one other through our phones and computers. With the help and funding from Paypal, three of its employees; Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley, and Steve Chen, created Youtube. Youtube was originally created for families to share home videos with one another online. Email was an option as well but often, video files were too large to be shared through email. In no time, Youtube had millions of users and videos posted within its first year. With this fast growth and success, Youtube grabbed the attention of other large companies. In October of 2006, Google bought youtube for $1.65 billion.

    Ever since its release in 2005, Youtube has grown to have over 2 billion users in 2022. Keep in mind that not everyone who uses Youtube has an account. This site has brought almost nothing but success. It positively impacted the way we live and communicate in several ways. Youtube has several "how to" and educational videos. This is extremely beneficial and also shows that Youtube can teach us several things and is not something used just for fun. As far as communication goes, companies and individuals can create videos to share with large groups. This is a form of mass communication. Youtube does not have a limit on how long a video can be. Companies can share thousands of hours of video with their employees to inform them of new procedures or educate them about certain topics. This tactic is also utilized in the classroom. Teachers and professors often show educational videos to their class in order to assist the students in understanding a topic better. The original intent of Youtube was to share home videos, that is something that still happens today! Millions of funny and sentimental home videos are still shared on the site daily. It is also common for those who are in the spotlight to share information with their followers by posting a video on Youtube. Once again, another form of mass communication. 

    Unfortunately, there are many negatives and bad sides of Youtube. Cyber bullying has been an issue since the internet and social sites came to be. It is easy for someone who does not know a single thing about you to leave rude words below a post. A solution Youtube has to this is a feature to disable comments or block rude ones. Cyberbullying has driven several people over the edge. Most social media sites now have features to avoid that. Like any website, Youtube has its flaws. There are some things on Youtube that you may not want to see. Although there are several ways to block these videos, sometimes you watch them without realizing. Me and several others I know have been traumatized by some of the content on Youtube. This can be threatening to kids. Fortunately, Youtube has a kids only feature. This has been very beneficial in the Youtube video filtering aspect. 

    As someone who has grown up with Youtube, I have lots of love for this site. Although it has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, it has grown in several positive ways and still receives tons of traction to this day. It has changed the way we communicate and share things. 

Why don't we hear more strong antiwar voices?

    These days, it seems that several loud voices are silenced in the media. If the government does not agree with you, they are quick to shut you up. Why could this be?  The government seems to not like people who disagree with them. For example: a Youtube group referred to as The Nelk Boys did an interview with Donald Trump a couple weeks ago. This interview was was uploaded onto their Youtube and Full Send Podcast. In this video, the two hosts, Kyle Forgeard, Stephen Deleonardis, and friends sat down and spoke to President Trump about World War 3, Putin, and more. This video gained over 5 million views before it was taken down by Youtube. It had barely been 24 hours at the time that this video was blocked from public view. Why was this? Does this not contradict the freedom of speech amendment? I believe that one of the biggest issues was the conversation on war. Although it can be a touchy subject, why is it something so taboo to speak about? That is why sites like The American Conservative and Antiwar.com seem to be hidden behind closed doors. The government does not like this websites and they do not promote the words written on them. That is why these websites seem so obscure because they are mostly hidden from the public.

Self Fulfillment: A Speech Theory

     These days, it is not rare to hear shocking news almost everyday. One of the main topics in the world right now is the war between Russia and Ukraine. Of course, those of us in the United States should not be too bothered by this. You would be shocked to find out that we are. Like any war, this one has impacted us economically. One of the biggest impacts is the increase in gas prices. Americans are not too thrilled about this. Unfortunately, that is just one problem of the 7 billion other ones in the US.

    I think almost anyone under the age of 50 would tell you that they get their news from social media. Whether it be Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or Tiktok, we are often turning to these sites to learn about what is going on in the world. The problem with this is that social media is undoubtedly the most unreliable source to get real world news from. We often question why anyone would lie on these sites, but at the same time, why wouldn’t they? It is so easy to fool hundreds of people by making a simple post. Social media is the quickest way to obtain news, but the news is often never fact checked and mostly an assumption. We are relying on unreliable sources.

    This concept ties in with the Individual Self-Fulfillment speech theory. This theory states that free speech allows us to create an identity and find people who may relate to us or enjoy the same topics as us. One of the best places to do this is social media. Social media gives us a platform to post almost whatever we want and create a page dedicated to ourselves or whatever random hobby you may be into. Through this, it is likely we will find people with common interests and hobbies. This is how we gain followers. People will often follow you if your page is pleasing to them or they recognize that you both have similar interests. Of course, friends and people you already know following you is a separate reasoning. Nonetheless, you have something in common with probably every follower. If not that, they must admire something about you if they are wanting to keep up with your life. 

    Once someone has followed you for a while, it almost feels like they are starting to get to know you. Even if they have never spoken to you a day in their life. To them, you are a trustworthy person, mostly because over social media, you have shown no signs of being untruthful. Social media can become a vulnerable thing. A feature that most social media platforms utilize is the story feature. Most of the time, stories can be posted but only remain for 24 hours. After those 24 hours are up, the story no longer exists. One of the amazing features about Instagram stories is that they allow you to repost Instagram photos from any public account. 

    This feature gives users free rein to repost whatever they want from other accounts. This includes news accounts. The problem with this is the news that is being distributed. Let's say you come across a news post on instagram and the headline is shocking. Perhaps, you repost this on your story. Now, that post is out there for all of your followers to see. How are we sure that this source of news is reliable? Unless research has been done prior, you can never be truly sure when you originally come into contact with these types of posts. You have reposted this to your story for thousands of followers to see. There is a great chance that this news may be fake. This common mistake fools so many people into believing things because the girl they followed on instagram posted some "breaking news". 

    Of course, the right to free speech and engagement will always be present. Sometimes though, this free speech can become misleading. The individual self-fulfillment theory supports creating a platform of your own and sharing your thoughts on it. This theory, however, is not meant to promote the release of false news. In a world like ours, although we have the right to write and post whatever we please, I believe that we should try to monitor the "news" we are posting in order to avoid misconceptions. The article i have linked HERE explains how false news can spread around social media like a wildfire. Taking this into account could help several of us avoid the mistake of posting false statements. 

The History and Workings of The US Supreme Court

 

        Originally, I knew the supreme court was the part of the justice system that made sure citizens are promised equal justice. The History Channel article helped me understand more of their role. Something funny I learned from this reading was that even though the US President is the one who elects the supreme court members, the supreme court members are always the ones to take on the presidential impeachment cases. I find this interesting because it is kind of like a stab in the back to the president, even though every president picks these justices knowing that they may have to take on this role. I think the most important takeaway point of the Supreme Court is that they work on our most important cases and often ensure that both sides of the case remain equal. I think equality is a detrimental part of the justice system. If we did not have the supreme court, I think several uproars and riots would be caused, especially if the court is not being equal. The most surprising thing I learned in this article is that the court did not receive any trials in its first term. I found this surprising because I figured the supreme court was something essential that was needed. If i were them, I would have given up by the end of the first term because of the lack of need for this court. Luckily, they remained. This article changed the way I see the supreme court in several ways. I had no clue that they are as important as they are. I then connected the dots and realized that they have worked on all large court cases. I am glad I was given the opportunity to learn more about their significance. 

My top 5 news sources

 

• Instagram 

As a teenager, I spend several hours of my day on social media. Often, people will post important news on their stories for other people to see. I gather most of my data from these stories. The thing about Instagram is that it is not an extremely reliable news source. Although I do follow reliable sources on the app like CNN and ABC News, it can be hard to tell the difference between truth and exaggeration. Social media is like a game of telephone. The more words that travel, the more they get messed up and confusing.  

 

 

• Apple News 

Apple news is very convenient, due to the fact that it sends direct notifications of breaking news to your phone right after it happens. Being someone who uses my phone a lot, I get these notifications very often. These notifications are often very intriguing and sometimes shocking. Apple News seems to be a reliable source in my eyes. I have never gathered Information from those notifications that was not true. 

  

• Snapchat 

Going along with being a teenager who spends oodles of time on social media, I also get a lot of my news from Snapchat. Often, these posts are click bate and exaggerated. It is clear that the people drafting these articles are making something out of nothing just for content and clicks. It is often celebrity drama and not real-world news. Snapchat is one of the most unreliable sources for news. They place titles that drag you in, but the article never lines up. It seems that everything written on there is a conspiracy.  

 

 

• Yahoo News 

The main email I use is a Yahoo email. Since I am logging onto Yahoo.com almost everyday to check it, I often come across news articles on the homepage. The good thing about Yahoo news is that it tracks your location, so it gives your information based on the state you are in. I often am shown news about what is going on in Greensboro and Charlotte. I find this website quite reliable because the stories are realistic and not always huge shocking news. I also really like that I can keep up to date on what is going on in my state. 

 

• My friend, Lucy Cush 

Lucy Cush is one of my best friends. She is extremely smart, and she is one of those people who wakes up every morning at 7am to read the news. Often, she will text me or call me about the breaking news of the day. She keeps me up to date and it is extremely helpful. I believe she gathers her news from NBC and New York Times. I find Lucy to be a reliable source because she is like a living broadcast system. She always checks her news sources and makes sure to pass on the correct information to me, her best friend.