Final Blog Post

 

Technology has evolved a ton over the years. It is now evolving insanely quick as well. I received my first iPhone in third grade. Thinking back to it now, I have no idea what my parents were thinking, I was so little! It was called an "iPhone 3G" and although it didn't have a SIM card, I could basically use it just like normal as long as I was connected to WIFI. I already had Instagram and I would post pictures of my friends and myself all of the time. Skipping to our current time period, I now have the "iPhone 12 Pro Max." The growth in technology during the past decade is truly mind blowing. Now, you can log onto your phone with the Face ID aspect, your phone can track how fast you are going in your car, it has a QR code scanner, a measuring app, tracks your steps and anything else you may need in just one device. 

  Although I have had an iPhone for as long as I can remember, I think my relationship with technology has always been pretty healthy. I mean it could definitely be healthier, but compared to the rest of college students who are locked in on TikToks 24/7 I think I’m doing pretty good. When I’m with my friends or family I honestly forget I have a phone a lot of the time. I love spending quality time with people and enjoy spending time in the moment rather than being suffocated by social media. Now don’t get me wrong, in my alone time I love watching YouTube videos of people vlogging their daily lives. Something about watching someone else live their day and viewing life from a different perspective is so intriguing to me. That may seem pretty stalker-ish now that I think about it… 

  I think my relationship of technology could be a lot better. My screen time when I’m with family or friends is usually around 2-4 hours a day, but being in college and being in a long distance relationship, my screen time can get up to 10 HOURS. That is insanity to me, I go almost the entire day sometimes just staring at a screen. I can’t even begin to imagine how bad that is to not only my eyesight and brain, but to my overall mental health too. Recently I have realized how much I love to read. I’ve always thought I hated reading until I actually picked up a book about 8 months ago. It was the first book that I have read cover to cover because I had to, and I challenged myself to actually read it instead of looking up summaries (which is what I used to always do, and it would bite me in the butt for assignments still.) Now, what does this have to do with technology? Well, every time I put down a book, I end up forgetting about it, and once I do remember, I’m usually on my phone and I can’t seem to pick up the book instead of watching videos on my phone. This is where the toxic relationship comes into play. I have about 30 pages left in my current book and I am itching to find out what happens in the end, but my phone just continues to suffocate me in my free time. I am going to try my best though to fix this problem, because nothing is more relaxing than to chill out and read a book in your free time. 

  You hear over and over again how bad technology is for you, and I do agree for the reasons I listed before such as mental health. Medical News also expresses that it has effects such as isolation, depression/anxiety, reduced physical activity, poor sleep and so much more. However, it also helps you learn and become smarter. The internet has endless learning opportunities from, ebooks, news, “How to” videos, and google where you can search anything up, and you are bound to find information about the topic. It can be the best way to learn about things you never would have heard about without technology, but if you’re not careful, technology will take a turn for the worse.

MediLexicon International. (n.d.). Negative effects of technology: Psychological, social, and health. Medical News Today. Retrieved April 27, 2023, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/negative-effects-of-technology#:~:text=Overuse%20of%20social%20media%20and,and%20its%20overuse%2C%20as%20well. 

EOTO Presentations PT. 2

  Cancel culture is a huge term that is constantly going on in our world. the term "Cancel Culture" is when a group of people rejects and stops supporting a public figure or anyone for that matter, due to something the have said or done. Many have mixed opinions on this. Some believe that cancel culture is good and healthy as it teaches the person who got "canceled" to do better and think before they say/act. They believe it holds these people accountable for their behavior and it will change them around for the better. 

On the other hand, many are against cancel culture. They believe it is too excessive and very rude to bash someone based on one thing they did or said. We all make mistakes, why do some people feel the need to take it to the extreme and stop supporting this person or say hateful comments about them? It is also believed that cancel culture has had a major, negative impact on their mental health. A person who gets canceled is not only left in the dark feeling alone, but they are bombarded with hate comments saying things with bad language or even telling them that it would be better if they just weren't alive! Think about how much that must get into someone's head. These people are attacked over and over again leaving them to only be able to feel worthless and many times they stay hidden and don't go out because they are too terrified for the crazy people out there and what they will not only say, but do to them.  

Famous figures such as J.K. Rowling, James Charles, and Kanye West have all been canceled in cancel culture. Brands also like Gucci and Balenciaga have received a lot of hate toward the things they have done as well. Balenciaga was just recently canceled towards the end of 2022. They put out images for their holiday gift series of children holding teddy bears dressed in bondage gear! Five days later, they posted about their 2023 spring collection with pictures of a handbag on top of a pile of papers. These papers included references to a U.S. Supreme Court case about child pornography. The brand was flooded with backlash from these events and their fans turned into their enemies. Everyone could not stop expressing rude remarks toward this brand. Rightfully so, but then came in the real canceling towards individuals. If a public figure was seen at the store or wearing garments from Balenciaga, even if it was purchased before the vicious outbreak, hundreds and thousands of people would attack them with disrespectful comments and even death threats. 

Although it is important to speak up when people make a mistake or say/do something incorrect, it should never be taken to the extremity of cancel culture. This act is horrible to put on others and could leave them scarred forever with mental issues or even possibly un-aliving themselves.

(Cannot provide a reference because the person that wrote about cancel culture has not published their blog)

https://fashionmagazine.com/style/balenciaga-cancelled-scandal-sustainability/ 

In the age of AI 3 to 4 yrs old

 A.I. has been growing extremely quickly and many jobs are beginning to be lost. With self driving cars, A.I. machines that are packing your clothes that you buy online, even getting groceries together. People are at a high risk of mortality when out of work for 20 plus years.  Scientists explain that this new technology will also open many new jobs. However, they will be jobs that only young kids will grow up to understand because different skills will be needed for the future. Everyone else will be unable to work these jobs because they won't know how it works, and they won't have the experience and knowledge. In order for them to be able to get into these jobs is if they go back to college, but many of these people don't get time off of their current job to do this. 1/2 of Americans can't even afford it. Because of A.I., it is expected that the rich people who have access to put in money to this, or go back to college to learn these new ways, will become richer and the poor people who don't have access to do these things will become poorer. Many are scared for the future and believe that A.I. is going to ruin everything for us. Harry Cripps, a film writer, is one person out of many who worry about this new world revolving around A.I. He believes A.I. is on the verge of taking over everyone and everything. With all of this rapid growth of artificial intelligence he is scared for how much we will be negatively impacted.

  A.I. is a set of tools that objectifies a function. What is that function? Money. Everyday you are trailing data. Although A.I. adapting to you brings great things, companies who get this information of you may not have the same goals as you do such as selling your information etc. At the end of the day you aren't using social media, social media is using you.

  Alastair had no idea about this A.I. business until he was talking to a close friend who works for Google. His friend told him " oh you would be horrified if you knew how much we knew about you." Their business is to learn every single thing about each individual and mine everything on your device to your interests. Solo Eric Schmidt who also was a part of googles team said "We know where you are, where you've been and can probably make a great guess of what you're thinking."

  The invention and growth of A.I. is both fascinating and terrifying. We have everything we're interested in front of us 24/7, but is it worth being exposed and used?

YouTube. (2019, December 2). In the age of ai (full documentary) | frontline. YouTube. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dZ_lvDgevk 

EOTO Terms and concepts- NEWS DESERTS

 "News deserts, like food deserts, are the result of systemic failures to meet the needs of all communities"(Miller). Either urban or rural areas news deserts can occur. Limited access to certain, credible information that feeds to the democracies base. Inequity is caused due to an abundance of news coverage in one neighborhood and not equal coverage in the adjacent neighborhood. News deserts causes problems for both supply and demand. Metro papers are cutting back on their supply in rural areas creating a lack of coverage and circulation. For issues with demand, people in the areas of news availability decide to opt out and not subscribe to these local reduced news stations. Although we have the media to look up news articles, the cause of news depravity has affected some people in a negative way. People now don't have the vital source of information right at their front door every morning. Many workers have been laid off as well such as reporters. "Over 65 million Americans live in counties with only one local newspaper- or none at all" (Hendrickson, 2019). Everyday the number of news deserts increases. Many people don't see the point when everything is digital now, creating newspapers to disappear. Few newspapers make journalists go beyond and write news stories about public health issues, education, maintaining Washington Bureaus, etc. Because of the lack of investigating newsrooms for potential stories, the newspapers become less valuable and less valuable to their community. 

The effect of people turning their heads on local newspapers has resulted in less people running for election in communities with lost reporters. The turnout for the local and state election is also falling. This affects our world in such a negative way. No one is as interested in our government system and the news as much as they used to be. We are setting our government up for a huge downfall the more we focus on other things rather than real world problems. These News Deserts are creating citizens to be less involved as well. Instead of a paper being at our door every morning, reminding us to read about what is going on in our world each day, now we have the option. The option to search up news stories, and with these news stations decreasing, it creates our minds to view the local news and world news as less important as it used to be. Today, many people forget to look up news stories because it isn't being put straight in front of them anymore. 

Generation z is going to struggle with these news deserts the most. Very few young adults are up to date on what the government says and does now because they didn't really grow up with local newspapers. If we are already struggling now, imagine what this is going to do to our country in the future. We are going to end up having government officials who lack experience and knowledge. We are also going to suffer using our rights and speaking up because we don't know what is going on. I think it is very important that we try to inform ourselves more on what is going on in our world or we will continue to dig this country deep into a whole and it will be ruined.

https://www.cislm.org/what-exactly-is-a-news-desert/

https://dallasfreepress.com/whats-a-news-desert/

https://www.brookings.edu/research/local-journalism-in-crisis-why-america-must-revive-its-local-newsrooms/

Diffusion of Innovators

 

  Everrett Rodgers created the idea of "Diffusion of Innovators." This is an adoption process of new technology that is made up of five elements: Innovators, Early adopters, Early majority, Late majority, and Laggards. The critical mass is the point that an innovation eventually hits. Critical mass is defined as when the innovation idea has the highest amount of adopters. It is said by management consultants that the critical mass is usually found between the early adopters and early majority.  In order for an innovation to survive, it has to be widely adopted. People cling onto innovations that share: commonalities with the pre-existing system, if there is an advantage to having this innovation, if it's not too difficult to figure out, its testability, the potential of reinvention, and the known effects. Others are late adopters. These people don't see these aspects in the innovation. Usually they are older people who have lived so many years without this technology rather than young adults who are majority of the early adopters.

  The smartphone is a great example for the Diffusion of Innovators. This changed the lives of the entire world. People saw the advantage in having this technology because they could send messages or call their acquaintances within seconds, and search things up on the internet. It was so amazing because there was finally one piece of technology that had a bunch of resources and ways to communicate all in just one small device. It wasn't long before this technology skyrocketed. However, just like in all other innovations, there are late adopters and laggards too. Why would some not hop on this technology? Why would some not even bother to have one at all if it was this convenient? Well, to bring back my other point, many people have lived years and years without it so they can't help but push it off because they were doing just fine all these years without it. Another reason is that they may have felt like this technology was too difficult to figure out. Why spend time trying to figure out this technology when you are doing just fine without it and have all the same resources, just In a couple different innovations?  Another reason may be because they are too expensive and a waste of money. Lastly, the battery life only seemed to last an hour which was pretty short especially if you compare it to our screen time on our phones today.

EOTO Presentations post

During the EOTO Presentations, we learned a lot about different technologies history. Beginning with the Postal service, The first trace of mail was found in egypt around 2000 BC! Around 1477 the first comprehensive government postal system was created in France. Following 1477, in 1775 the first postmaster general was appointed by Ben Franklin. Then, in 1792 post office was created with the passage of the postal service act. The postal service had a ginormous impact on people as they were able to send sealed messages across the world. Today it contributes to an increase in literacy rates and there is a huge decline in using postal service. This is due to using email, text messages and so many more social media applications on our cell phones.

  In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell created the Telephone. This invention was a huge success. Now the people didn't have to send pigeons with messages, not knowing how long it would take for the message to get to the person. Instead, the telephone being created was a simple way to communicate with others long distance. It was much quicker, convenient and they didn't have to worry about if their message would make it. It also created a lot more jobs for the people to sell, repair and manage the telephones.

1992 was a huge mark for our world. The smartphone was born from IBM. This cell phone had a small screen and 1 hour battery! In todays day and age that is nothing! In 2001 the smartphone was able to connect to the internet through 3g connection. This opened up so many recourses for everyone. You were able to call, text and find out answers to any question you had with just a click of a button! Although this technology brought a lot of positivity to the world, it also created many problems such as it becoming a huge distraction, your privacy was at a high risk and it created many mental and physical health problems. it is truly insane to think about how quickly technology evolves and how big of an impact it has on our daily lives.

Today, messages can be sent in a matter of seconds to someone across the world and our cell phone batteries last hours upon hours. I cannot even begin to fathom the new technology that will come out and make a huge mark on this world.

The Progressive era

 

   We hardly ever hear about the strong Anti-war speakers and writers in the mainstream news for many reasons. First, starting off with the 1917 Espionage act. The government didn't want anyone to have the ability to voice their negative opinions on what the government wanted to do. People would get put in jail or even killed for talking about their opinions on why we should not intertwine ourselves with a certain war. The Espionage Act is still alive to this day and people will get thrown in jail for this. Originally, it was meant to be solely focused on those who worked for the government, but soon enough regular citizens began to be punished for these acts as well. So, in 1918 they created the Sedition act which was the third act making it a crime to criticize the Government. Following, in 1919, Schenk, Debs, Frohwerk and Abrams, who were all Anti-war people, got thrown in jail from the Sedition Act for criticizing the Government. When Abrams case began, Holmes came out with his famous dissent for how the first amendment should be treated. This was where he came up with "the marketplace of ideas" which expressed how we should be able to have our free speech and everyones thoughts and opinions should be able to be broadcasted so that the best ideas could rise. 

  I believe that we barely hear about these strong anti-war voices in the mainstream news because the Government is still continuing to push this right of ours away. They are not allowed to do as much as they could back then to people who speak out about these wars but they try to make sure that they can that stays within the law. They want to keep a good image of their decisions and don't want people voicing their negative opinions. I believe that maybe the Government is treating the mainstream news not a lot, but just enough to where they're scared to talk about these people and feel a bit threatened.