My Relationship with Technology

 

My Relationship with Technology

    How many times a day do you think you look at your phone, whether it's for a message notification or to search for something? According to Zippia, Americans check their phone an average of 96 times per day and spend about 5 and a half hours on their mobile device a day. The amount of cell phone users has doubled from 2016 to 2023 having about 6.92 billion users in the world. 

Aren't these stats crazy to think about? And this is just for cell phones, I didn't even get into laptops, PCs, television, and gaming devices. Technology is such a huge part of our everyday life, I mean I'm using a computer right now just to write this up. But what effect does it have on me, you, and our society? Should we be worried about how technology will affect our future?

Technology and myself

    Growing up, my family used a lot of technology, but to a healthy extent. We would watch tv, and play video games together, however, we would have our family time with board games or going out on walks. I've noticed though, the older I got the more technology has taken over my attention. I catch myself staying locked up in my room to play video games to sit on TikTok for hours. My mental health was at an all-time bottom as the effects of social media got to me. I would compare everything about myself, from my looks, friends, family, and life to all the girls I would see on my Instagram or Tiktok. So I would stay in my dorm and lock myself away from the world. My social life had plummeted and everyone was worried about me.  This is when I knew I had a very unhealthy relationship with technology. 

    I knew I needed to do something to fix it, so I decided to delete social media apps such as Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram. And for a couple of months, I also deleted TikTok. I read a story titled, "I'm 14, and I quit social media", and I realized I wish I had done what this girl did so much sooner. This girl discuss how when she got social media at the age of 13 she learned how her mom had basically been sharing her entire life publicly on that app. She then goes on to explain why she decided against social media and how that decision has affected her. I feel like this article connects to the article "How Facebook users don't know how Facebook Works".  It shows how we truly don't know how social media platforms use our data and yet we still post so much of our life into them. 

    After deleting social media, I realized how free I felt from the judgment of the world. I felt like I could dress and do the things I wanted without wondering if I would get a lot of likes or compliments on an outfit. Today I only use Instagram and TikTok, and I try to limit my time on both apps. I probably get on Instagram once a day for like 10 minutes. While I am on TikTok for about 2-3 hours a day, which is still way too much. I'm still learning and trying my best to grow so hopefully soon my TikTok usage will decrease. My Social media presence is well put together. I post once every other month on Instagram and always keep it appropriate so if any future employers search for me I give a good first impression. While my TikTok is actually promoting my content creation as I am trying to grow as a Twitch streamer right now. I have my own personal website that I made so if I am ever googled that will be the first thing that pops up. It has my work experience, a bit about me, and some writing portfolios. So while technology has so many negative side effects, I feel sometimes we do overlook the positive. It is all about how we use technology and if we let it control us or we control it. We should always stay informed of our digital footprint and how our data can be used online. A great article about how our data is used in this article titled "I left the ad industry because our use of data tracking terrified me". It talks of how ads are specialized to our interests based on the data these ads get from our cell phones. From our locations to our conversations, our phones track more than we think and we just let them. 

Technology and My Family

With the knowledge, experiences, and lessons I have learned personally with technology. I make it a priority to teach my younger sister about it as well as my parents. My sisters are 9 and 4 years old and I have noticed how they use technology way more than I did when I was their age. From television to the Xbox and even their own personal tablets, they are engulfed in the technology world. Even my parents have become more and more reliant on technology as my mom works from home and my dad has started to become more interested in video games. While right now, their use of technology is pretty positive and helps them in many aspects, I can see where the negative will happen soon. We try to take time away from technology and all spend time together just like we did when I was little. However, as my sisters get older they will experience the negatives I went through as a young teenager. I plan to teach my family more and more about technology as learn myself and encourage them to learn how to maintain a healthy relationship with it as we should all learn this, especially with how quickly technology is growing.

The AI Takeover

 

The AI Takeover

AI has been on a constant rise for the past decade as it can do jobs that would take multiple individuals hours in just minutes. Frontline PBS shared a documentary on AI and I was able to learn so much about it. 

AI has opened up so many opportunities for our society, however, it has taken so many as well. As described in the documentary, our society is a scale of capital and labor, and AI aids the capital side of the scale. It will cause the rich to only be richer as AI will save them money from salary pay because of how it takes jobs from lower-income individuals. From factories to more, so many jobs are being lost to AI technology as we grow our advances in it. 

Not only is Ai taking away our jobs, but it's also taking away our privacy as well. Companies like Facebook and Google keep hold of our data and can analyze each of us individually with the power of AI. I learned about surveillance capitalism, which is when our private human experience can be sold and purchased as AI can keep track of all of it. Guessing what we will do or search by using our data on what we have done before. However, it isn't all bad as AI allows us to have to world at our fingertips. We have opportunities that weren't available a decade ago and we should use that to our advantage. 

It's terrifying to think that Facebook and Google can use our data to predict and gain so much knowledge about the millions of users. From women's menstrual cycles to important days in your life, they know it all. I also got to learn about their experiments, for example, they people the "I voted" badge on Facebook to encourage voting and also would change the feed of an individual to see how it would affect their emotions. It is insane to see how technology has such a hold on our society today. One of the biggest issues is how our data can be sold to anyone who is rich enough to buy it. This danger to our identity and online security is growing every day as we make technology and AI have more and more control in our everyday life. 

News Deserts

 

News Deserts

What is it?

Before the EOTO presentations, I have never heard of news deserts. My classmate Cailee shared her presentation on them and I learned so much from her. News deserts are areas in the country or other places around the world that don't have access to news coverage. While of course, they can have online service from radio stations and their phone, the overall news coverage is not there. Cailee shared a quote from the Center of Innovation that defined news deserts as, "a community, either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level." 

Why is this a Problem?

I learned how news deserts have been around for a while now, as there are always parts of the country that don't have news coverage. A big issue is how these deserts are growing around the country. Meaning fewer and fewer people are receiving the information they need. A huge part of this issue is how newspapers are becoming less popular. This could be a big part of the growth of news deserts. Cailee had shared how if we continue at this rate the United States could lose around 1/3 of all of its newspapers by 2025. That fact really stood out to me as I always remember how popular newspapers were when I was younger as my parents and grandparents would always receive them and read them all the time. 

What can we do?

Cailee talked about a good amount of solutions to this problem. From adding back more newspapers to focusing on the funding of news stations. She mentioned how there are many possible solutions, however, with these solutions come challenges. One solution that really stuck out to me was turning to digital media. I feel this solution is the way our society is heading, however, there are so many issues with this solution. A lot of the areas that are victims of news deserts don't have high-speed internet. As well as the fact that these individuals in these areas would have to have electronic devices that can allow them to see news. This is becoming more and more popular with smartphones, older generations may not be up to date with this and suffer because of it.

Diffusion Theory on Virtual Reality

 

Virtual Reality, we have all heard of it and know some of what it is capable of, however, do we understand why the spread of this invention happened the way it did? According to Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations Theory, there is a reason and process behind the spread of inventions. Before going into 3-D printing, let's look at this theory a bit more in-depth.

Diffusion Theory

    Everett Rogers created the diffusion theory to explain the spread of ideas and innovations through why and how. "Rogers argues that diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated over time among the participants in a social system." The theory explains that there are five main influences on this spread: " the innovation itself, adopters, communication channels, time, and a social system." He also explains how there are "adopters" that all play different roles. These adapters are categorized into five different categories as well: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards.

The Start

    Now that we have the main idea of diffusion theory, let us connect it to the spread of virtual reality. VR was first created in 1956 by cinematographer Morton Heilig. The machine was called the "Sensorama" which combined a "3D video, audio, vibrations, smell, and atmospheric effects, such as wind." Ever since this, VR has grown and never stopped and is expected to grow even more in the future.

Diffusion theory and VR Headsets

VR has many aspects to it that will catch the eye of individuals. Being considered an "escape" from reality, VR headsets have become extremely popular today. With VR headsets being released to the public in 2016, the early adopters were able to get their hands on some. Today we can say that VR headsets are much further than marked in the photo to the left. Metaverse describes that "VR offers several advantages over traditional gaming and entertainment experiences. First, VR allows players to immerse themselves in a game or other experience completely. This is thanks to headsets that block out distractions and create an immersive environment." However, VR headsets can be used for so much more than gaming. Training, education, increased productivity, escapism, social networking, and more are all examples of the benefits of this creation. While they are expensive as well, they are not outrageously expensive and hard to get. The reason some individuals are late majority or laggards would be because of price. 

    However, there are some individuals who don't have a headset, why is that? First, we need to understand there are disadvantages to VR headsets as well. These are health risks, social isolation, and expense. With this being said, the positive points of a VR headset heavily outway the negative. As most of these negative points can be prevented as long as you use the headset responsibly. And with the idea of how VR will grow and help our society in the future also pushes the spread of it. Making more and more individuals want to be a part of the growth by buying pieces of it. 

 

Framing Theory

    Framing theory is a theory that we probably all know about but didn't know its technical name. Framing theory can be defined as, "framing theory suggests that how something is presented to the audience (called “the frame”) influences the choices people make about how to process that information" The idea of framing theory was invented in 1974 by Erving Goffman who said, "we use in our day-to-day experience to make sense of the world." This theory has two different categories to it. Natural and Social. Natural framing theory is when the way you grew up and the experiences you've had will change how you view a situation. While social framing theory is when the media or an outside individual purposely will manipulate a situation so you will view it a certain way. 

The Use

    The news and media will use social framing every day and we don't even realize it the majority of the time. From crime stories, celebrities, politics, etc., the news uses this theory to make them agree with their side of the story. Politics is a great example of this. Between liberals and Republicans, each side uses social framing theory to convince you their candidate is better than the other. Making them look bad, taking something they say and turning it against them, or using photos of them doing an activity. When used strategically, this theory can bring out the best and the worst in people. 

To take a lighter note though, framing theory can also be used in advertisements. For example, the photo to the left shows very similar advertisements, however, the way the bottom one is framed will look better to the customers. This is a great example of a company using both natural and social framing theory to its advantage. Knowing this skill is a great advantage in the advertising industry.

The effect

    When looking at how framing theory affects our society we need to first look at how it affects individuals. The Decision Lab shared a lot of great opinions and facts about framing theories' effect on the individual and society as a whole. A great example they share states, "Think of someone who unwisely chooses a high-risk investment portfolio because their broker emphasized the upside instead of the potential downside, or a citizen who votes for a protectionist candidate because media coverage has only highlighted the negative repercussions of past trade agreements." 

    Looking at the effects it has on society, they used the example of climate change. Despite all of the facts and proof of climate change, there are still many individuals that do not believe it s really happening. Decision Lab shared that, "This may be because climate change has been framed as a scientifically contentious issue by some media outlets and politicians, who also often highlight the short-term financial costs of environmental policy." 

Why should we care? What can we do to avoid it?

    Framing theory can be used in both negative and positive ways, as discussed earlier. We do not want to let ourselves be fooled by the media because of framing theory. As a society, we should be educated and check sources, and research topics before forming an opinion, and stop the spread of false information. Being aware that the framing effect is real and is constantly used today is already educating us to improve the current situation. 

YouTube?

 YouTube is a site that we all have heard of and used at least once before. Whether it's to watch a "how to", gaming videos, or someone playing with dolls. YouTube has a video of almost anything and everything. But when did YouTube become a thing? Who created it? Why was it invented? These are all questions that I never knew the answer to before learning more about YouTube. Let's start at the very beginning.

Dating App?

Youtube was first created in 2004 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. But it wasn't invented to be what it is now, the idea of YouTube was to first be a dating app called "Tune in Hook Up". Somewhere where individuals could upload videos of themselves to meet others in a romantic way. However, this idea changed quickly when there was little interest in it. This is when the YouTube we know and love today came around. "YouTube' officially made its debut in 2005 and quickly took off. 

YouTube Today

My fellow classmate, Micheal Connelly, talked about how YouTube has become such a huge part of our society today and the positive and negative effects of this. YouTube's entertainment section is the most popular section with sports, video games, vlogs, and more. Youtubers can make millions while filming content for their subscribers, making this one of my dream careers next to acting. (This is a joke.) On a serious note, YouTube allows anyone to have a voice and share their creativity with the world. We can also now quickly access videos from various genres so quickly. When before YouTube the main forms of entertainment through technology were movies, shows, and sports. 

The Impact

While I mentioned a lot of great impacts YouTube has created, there are also some negatives. False information can be spread very quickly through the site. There are also multiple cases where hate has been brought to Youtube because of inappropriate content, hate speech, racism, and more. For any children using it, this can be a bad influence and promote these behaviors for the viewers. 

Eight Values of Free Expression

 I have never heard of the eight values of free expression before research. However, these are all the ideas of our fundamental freedom of speech and are important whether we realize it or not. This textbook titled, "Free Speech on Campus", states an amazing reason why free speech is important with this quote, "First, freedom of speech is essential to freedom of thought because a person cannot develop an independent point of view about the world unless he or she is exposed to different ideas about what is important and what beliefs are most meaningful, and is permitted to converse with others about their experiences or thoughts. " 

Here are the eight values of free expression:

1. Marketplace of Ideas
2. Participation in Self-Government
3. Stable Change
4.  Individual Self-Fulfillment
5. Check on Governmental Power
6. Promote Tolerance 
7. Promote Innovation
8. Protect Dissent 

My thoughts

After reading and learning more about each value and the importance behind each one, I found a few that I felt resonated with me personally. The first one is "individual self-fulfillment". This value can be understood when looking at C. Edwin Baker. This value is the idea that free speech allows everyone to express themselves and their identity. I grew up as a very creative individual, and the thought that I could not have the freedom to express myself scares me. The second value I felt close to is "promote innovation". This one relates closely to the one I just mentioned, "individual self-fulfillment". This value shares how communities can promote their citizens to be creative and find interesting and new ideas. I feel like these are so important when looking at the growth of a nation. Without creativity or allowing people to make new inventions, ideas, etc., a society will never grow or learn. 

As a society today I feel you see each and every value used to some of its fullest potentials. Whether it is protesting, making a post on TikTok, or creating clubs at schools. We see individuals using their freedoms every day. Some of the values that I feel we see most today have to be individual self-fulfillment, checking on government power, and protecting dissent. We already discussed what individual self-fulfillment is, but when looking at our society and how we use it it is so important. Social media and technology have become huge in our society and I feel their purpose and use will only grow. Online people can express themselves, their ideas, their thoughts and opinion, news, and more. It is incredible to think how it has changed. Checking on the government is something you can see daily at this point. When before it wasn't seen as much. Checking on the government is exactly how it sounds when citizens use their freedom of speech to check in and express their thoughts to the government. Again, you see this in a lot of social media platforms. Lastly, protecting dissent is protecting the idea that no matter how weird or unpopular someone's opinion may be, they are still allowed to share it and have the right to disagree with the government. 

Why should we be worried?

Twitter. After Elon Musk bought out Twitter we discovered some dark truth behind censorship. This article written by Jon Hersey explains how Twitter has been working with the government to censor certain journalists and political members, but then exposing others more. We should care about this as the government is disregarding our freedom of speech and all of the values I just shared with you are at risk because of this. As I said before, social media is going to only grow, and knowing that the government can be working with CEOs of social media platforms to silence certain individuals is scary. We should be calling the government out on its actions and sharing this information with everyone. Let us protect our freedom of speech and its values as well.