Final Post: My Relationship with Technology

    As many people would agree, technology has become a big part of our lives (for good or for worse). For me, technology is a necessity, but only because of the way the world is today. I like to think I am not addicted to technology. The only social media I have is Snapchat and Pinterest. I don't really watch Netflix or own any other streaming services. I don't read blogs or follow influencers. The only thing I am probably guilty of is taking too many pictures and scrolling through YouTube and Pinterest for hours. I love taking pictures of things, but that is so I can keep a memory of things and I actually do things with those pictures besides store them on my phone forever. I make scrapbooks of my years, so those pictures come in handy. And when I scroll, it's not for hours and hours on end, it is usually for an hour at most. On Pinterest, the type of things I have on my feed is art stuff or content from my favorite movies/tv shows. I usually just use Pinterest for finding inspiration for art references, DIY projects, or to find cool pictures. My YouTube short feed is equally filled with art content, pop culture content, and the occasional random video. 

   

    The main thing I use technology for is schoolwork. I use my laptop in almost every class for usually the entirety of the class. That is mainly for note-taking because I type faster than I write and a lot of teachers lecture too fast for me to write everything down by hand. Many teachers also have a slideshow for their notes, so I like to download that and add anything they say onto the slide, but that is not really feasible to do by hand and it would be way too many sheets of paper to keep up with. Almost every assignment I have to do for a class also requires me to use my computer for. Assignments are posted on Blackboard, which means I have to access them through the site and I also have to turn them in digitally, so I am required to use my laptop to get work done. Any research I might have to do is also usually done online since I have access to more sources that way and can do it at any time of the day. Libraries are great, but they are not always easily accessible either because of their location or hours. In college, it can get more difficult because of the niche subjects being researched and the library may not have books on those subjects. The internet is truly the best place for research because it gives you access to everything, no matter how specific the subject matter is.

    

    This reliance on technology I don't think is entirely my fault though. It is mainly because of the way society, especially education is run today. When I was in high school, there were only a few teachers who handed out paper assignments, information, or anything. Since I arrived in college, that number has dwindled down even further. I have only had one teacher who hands out paper and that is for my acting class because we use paper scripts. In all the rest of my classes, everything is provided to us digitally. Even textbooks can be purchased and accessed online now. Assignments too are another place where I can't escape from technology. Every paper I have had to write was required to be written in either Microsoft Word or Google Docs. Or if I have to answer questions for a class, those are done through a digital platform like Blackboard where I have to write and submit my answers through a post. 

   

    Ironically enough, I prefer to do things in a physical form. I prefer reading physical books, especially for class purposes. Reading large paragraphs of text online just does nothing for me and I enjoy making notes in my book like highlighting and marking pages, which is something you can't replicate well digitally. And when I do research papers, I like having all my articles around me printed out so I can look through them as opposed to having to click through 10 different tabs on my computer. I also prefer having physical projects like posters or models that I can actually work on with my hands. I would rather color with markers and glue pictures than make a digital poster. I just enjoy doing work with my hands more than anything. I love creating something from nothing. But maybe that is just a personal preference. I know a lot of my generation is split on this topic.

    This is not to say that I hate technology. I enjoy using technology. I love being able to watch movies everywhere or play games with friends or the ease of having the world at my fingertips. I love not having to carry huge binders full of documents around everywhere or haul huge textbooks to every class. It is all so great and I would hate to lose it, but I know technology has its downsides too, which can't be ignored either. It is a hard balance that I think we as a society are still learning to contend with. With the rise of AI and machines, we are going to have to figure that balance out soon. We can't keep doing things the way we always have. Things are changing too fast and we need to adapt now before it is too late. 

   

     I think my relationship with technology comes down to how I was raised. Since my generation was the transition generation, I am more used to not having technology around and maybe that's why I prefer physical things too. When I was little I did not have a lot of technology in my home or school. But the newest generation will not experience this. They will be raised during an era where technology is everywhere. They won't know what it was like before, which is not inherently a good or bad thing, it is just something we as a society are going to have to realize. I will admit, I am a little worried for the youngest generation and the ones to come after. Kids will never have the same childhood that I did or even that their parents did. By the time I have kids, everyone could be attending school through virtual reality. There are just so many unknowns. My only hope is that we learn to be more careful with technology and don't completely lose our humanity to it.

EOTO Awareness

    The EOTO group that had "Awareness" was of most interest to me because I did not know a lot of the terms they discussed. These terms also stood out the most to me because of how much impact they have in society today which I did not realize before.

    The first term was the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012. This act made it legal for the US government to directly target its citizens with propaganda. Before the act was put into place, the government was not allowed to push propaganda directly at citizens. It was only allowed to direct propaganda outwards to the rest of the world. This was set in place by the Educational Exchange Act of 1948 (aka the Smith-Mundt Act). But the modernization of that act loosened the restrictions on spreading media such as propaganda. The most common uses of this act are by the mainstream media/news outlets pushing the agendas of the government to the public. 

   

    The second term was propaganda. Propaganda was defined by the team as "information especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view". The use of propaganda is not a new thing and has actually been around since the Ancient Greeks. The invention of the printing press helped the influence of propaganda reach new heights. The most recognizable image of propaganda most people can think of is the classic Rosie the Riveter "We can do it!" poster. But there are also lots of more subtle examples that are present today such as what stories the mainstream media decides to cover.

    The next term was a false flag. A false flag is an operation (usually covert and politically motivated) that includes an intentional disguise of responsibility, pining blame on another party, and misrepresentation. A famous historical example of this is the sinking of the USS Marine. The USS Marine suck mysteriously due to some explosion and the blame was placed on Spain as the cause of this explosion. This caused the relations between Spain and the US to crumble, which then led to the Spanish-American War in 1898. The negative implications of false flags are that the government can tell the public whatever it wants, censor anyone with opposing opinions, pin blame, shift responsibility to achieve ulterior motives, and affect how we view different groups of people. This means that we as a society cannot wholly trust anything the government says and we must do our own research to make educated conclusions. 

    The following term was cancel culture. This was defined by the group as "the act of engaging in mass cancellation as a means of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure". The term to "cancel" first showed up in the 1980s as a sort of slang term meaning to "break up with someone". But over the years that definition has changed thanks to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. It is now seen as a way to hold people accountable and punish them for their actions that other people decide are wrong (for some reason). This can impact us today because while it can be a good way to punish those who have actually done something wrong, it can also be used just by people who don't like someone else. That person could be canceled for something even if what they did wasn't bad.

    The next terms were discussed together since they were all very similar. These terms were disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation.  Disinformation was defined as "a deliberate lie to purposefully mislead". The group gave an example of this being politicians worldwide. Misinformation was defined as "false information that is spread without the intent to mislead". An example of this was uneducated people discussing a topic and spreading wrong information about it, but these people had no clue they were wrong. Finally, malinformation was defined as "information that stems from the truth, but is often exaggerated in a way that misleads and causes potential harm". Examples of this that the group gave were hate speech and harassment. 

    The final term was Five Eyes. Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance between the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It is considered to be one of the most powerful intelligence-gathering and sharing organizations in the world. All of the countries involved have access to vast amounts of information that is gathered from satellite imagery, electronic communication interceptions, and human intelligence sources. By collecting all this data, each country can provide information on issues such as national security, counter-terrorism efforts, and cyber warfare. Because of this huge swath of information they have, they have been crucial in providing early warnings of potential global threats such as natural disasters, pandemics, and cyber-attacks. 

    

    But there are also dangers to this alliance. Many people are worried about their privacy and civil liberties that may have been violated by the alliance's information collection efforts. There have also been concerns that the countries may be engaging in mass surveillance and indiscriminate data collection, which has people questioning whether their methods are even legal or not. And of course, people are always worried about being mistakenly identified as a threat or what would happen if all that information was to fall into the wrong hands.

The Uncertain and Scary Future Ruled by AI

    After watching a documentary about AI by Frontline on PBS I learned some interesting, but also scary things about the future of our technology. Some of it I already knew, but a lot of it I never knew or never took into consideration before. 

    One of the first things I learned, but already sort of had an idea of was that AI has led to job loss. I had heard of this for years, but I never realized the extent of it. Automatization has led to the loss of over 60 million jobs in the US alone. That number is supposed to grow too. I also did not know this, but women are disproportionately at a higher risk of losing their jobs to automatization. This is because many of the jobs women have like clerical jobs are the easiest ones to be replaced with a machine. 

    Job loss is not the only risk though. I also learned from the documentary that automatization is leading to a decreased standard of living. There has been a 10-15% decrease in living standards for all races and income classes in places where automatization has stolen jobs. People are also at a greater risk of mortality in 20 years following their job loss. The children of parents who have lost their jobs to automatization have been found to have a worse education. Those children are more likely to repeat a grade, to drop out of school, to be suspended from school, and to have a lower educational retainment So automatization could affect entire generations of families, which is really scary. 

    What is even scarier is the threat to privacy that AI poses. Everything we do online today leaves a digital trail of data. That data can be recorded, tracked, and analyzed. And with the help of AI, tech companies like Google can track everything you do and make predictions about you. This makes you a target for specific ads, but also a potential target of leaders. It has been proven that targeted online messaging has influenced real-life behavior. This is called social contagion and it is terrifying. Just by adjusting someone's feeds on any media site (like Twitter, YouTube, or even a news channel), that person can be influenced to do things in real life. It can be as harmless as getting people to vote, or as dangerous as starting riots. And the worst part is the tech companies that are using these AI algorithms are doing it in a way where consumers will never know it is happening. 

      There are a decent number of positives to AI for industries, but for everyday people are at greater amounts of risk all the time. Companies like AI because it makes things cheaper and more efficient for them. They can get rid of their human workers who are more prone to mistakes and take a long time to complete tasks and replace them with robots who can do things faster and without human error. But I think we should avoid using AI. It not only causes people to lose their livelihoods but could also lead to them losing their lives. And AI has too much power in our personal lives, watching our every move online and even in person. It is far too much risk without a good enough reward, so I would advise people to start fighting back against the rise of AI or one day our entire lives could be controlled by a robot. 

The Danger of News Deserts

    News deserts are becoming a bigger problem in this day and age, and if we don't do something about them, more and more communities will be at risk. But what exactly is a news desert? The Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media defines it 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." These communities are at a loss because they are missing out on quality news and information. This means they are uninformed and unaware of what is even going on around them in their area. 

    New deserts aren't a new issue. There have always been areas of the country that are too rural or had such a small population that they do not have news coverage. The problem is that now news deserts are growing. Since 2005, the US has lost more than 1/4 of its newspapers, which means 70 million people have been without local news. More are expected to close in the coming years. On average, newspapers are closing at a rate of two papers per week. At that rate, the US could lose at least 1/3 of all its newspapers by 2025. That are a lot of areas without coverage that do not have other means of getting information.

     What is making it worse? A couple of things have made news deserts more of an issue in recent years. For one, the disappearance of the paper/print newspaper business model has caused a significant loss in local newspapers. People are simply not as interested in buying a print newspaper anymore, so there is no incentive to create them. And with no one buying print papers anymore, those organizations are losing money, so they see no reason to stay in business. With no money and no audience, there is nothing to keep those organizations going. 

    Another thing that is making the situation worse is the digital age. More and more people are turning to social media or online news journals. Online sources are easier to access for most people, and most of the time they are free of charge. Many small and traditional news organizations have struggled to adapt. Many don't have digital options or even a website, so they are out of touch with the average audience today. Unfortunately, the new digital news sources are often not localized and are mostly focused on national issues, which still leaves small communities in the dark. 

    

    What is so bad about news deserts? Well, besides the fact that people are missing out on local news, there are also other negative consequences of news deserts. People in news deserts are less informed, and often that manifests in a lower rate of voting in those communities. With so many news sources out there on the Internet, people struggle with having too many choices and can't decide what to focus their attention on. This again leaves people to be uninformed about pressing issues in their communities because often it is the national news stories that have the most coverage. It has also been found that the decline of newspapers has led to people not seeking out political stories. This then causes people to be even less knowledgeable at the voting booth or prevents them from going at all.

    

    Other issues about news deserts are that the resulting sources are often less credible and of lower quality. Any remaining papers are often shells of their former selves in the sense that they are also producing lesser quality news and at a lesser quantity. So even if there are local papers still alive in some areas, those papers are not good and not really valuable. 

 

    Studies have also found that underserved populations are at higher risk and suffer more from new deserts. The disappearance of local stations often results in consolidation into larger new networks that are often out of touch with what is actually happening in communities. This has proven to be hurtful to minority communities who are often misrepresented in the media. For example, African American and Latinx people are two times more likely to be the subjects of stories about crime. These media often present people of color as aggressors in these situations and often ignore non-minorities or crime between groups. So, it is important that local and ethnic news sources remain open to provide a true insight into what is actually happening in those communities. 

    What can we do about it? There are a lot of possible solutions to this problem, but there are also a lot of challenges with those solutions. For example, trying to just add back more newspapers has its limitations based on geography and where people live/gather. As found by the US Census, more than 95% of the land mass in the US is rural, yet only 20% of the population lives outside urban areas. So it would be hard to add and maintain news organizations in all those rural areas. 

    

    Another proposed solution is to focus in on the issue of those news organizations unable to fund themselves. In the general sense, philanthropic funding to those smaller/local news organizations would be beneficial. In many cases, it could even help them stay in business and provide areas with the local news they are craving. The other option people have actually tried to get passed in the legislature is tax incentives for local newspapers and local digital outlets. This would help keep them open and again support those local organizations. But the problem with both of these is that that funding might not be enough for poorer regions that need a lot of help to support their news network.

    

    Another common solution is to turn to digital sources of media, but this is not an ideal situation for those who are most at risk by news deserts. News deserts usually occur in rural areas where high-speed internet access is equally as rare. According to the Federal Communications Commission, "between 40 percent and 60 percent of rural residents lack access to broadband or wireless internet, leaving people in these communities without many options.” So, even turning to the Internet for news can be a problem when people cannot even access the internet. 

    

    There is another problem with this too, which comes down to race. As found by Pew Research "White individuals were 72 percent likely to have broadband, while African Americans were 54 percent likely and Hispanic and Latino people were just 50 percent likely to have a broadband internet connection at their home”. This means that those minority groups that are most at risk are also the ones with the least amount of access to news. So, if print media sources disappear and those communities don't have Internet access then those communities are left in the dark. There is going to have to be another solution to help these communities that doesn't involve needing to access the internet.  

    

    What are people doing about it? In new desert communities, people are turning to other available new sources like broadcast/radio news and Facebook pages. In most of these communities, people are already familiar and connected socially with their neighbors and the town as a whole, so it is easy for them to create alternative media sources. The most used of these is local Facebook pages that are run and updated by members of the community. It has actually been found that misinformation in those posts are low (less than 1% to be exact), which cannot be said for any mainstream news source. Media Management even found in a survey of a news desert community that "35.9% of respondents reported getting information about their local community from social media “every day.” Social media represented the most frequently accessed source for local information”. It is clear that people are finding their own reliable workarounds for the issue. These solutions should be further considered when trying to fix the national problem of news deserts. 

    How does this affect me and my generation? My generation is already known for getting most of its information from the web, so this does not affect us as much. We are probably one of the reasons why news deserts are spreading because we are so dependent on the Internet/social media for our news. But this trend might increase the already huge mass of news information available online and make it harder for not just my generation, but everyone to find reliable trustworthy news. So if we want to protect the most vulnerable and valuable news sources, we need to as a society invest in protecting local news organizations.  

The Spread of Cloud Computing

    The Cloud seems to be everywhere today in every device and a part of every website (whether we see it or not). But this was not always the case. So how did cloud computing become so popular? According to Roger's Diffusion of Innovations Theory, there are a lot of factors that go into answering this question. 

    The most important factor is "relative advantage". What were the perceived advantages of the Cloud that made it spread to every sector of our tech society? For businesses, there are 12 relative advantages to cloud computing which include: cost savings, security, flexibility, mobility, insight, increased collaboration, quality control, disaster recovery, loss prevention, automatic software updates, competitive edge, and sustainability. These factors caused businesses to be the first adopters of this technology because it had so many advantages. It made almost every factor of a business more productive, more cost-effective, easier, and faster. 

    But what about for individuals? How could the Cloud be helpful for personal use? Well, many of the factors that enticed businesses also apply to individuals. It allowed people to use software programs without having to download them onto their personal machines. It has also allowed people to create and manage their own technology or websites without having to have huge databases. And most important to the average person, it allowed people to store and view our content on the Internet from anywhere. This is what drove normal individuals to be the next adopters of this technology after major businesses. But this did not happen until around 2010 when private clouds were fully established. 

    The next couple of factors such as compatibility, complexity, and potential for reinvention can all be summed up shortly. Cloud computing was compatible became compatible with many systems as its popularity and use grew. Originally, cloud computing was running on its own systems, but over time cloud computing became integrated into existing systems without many users even knowing. Think of any autosave feature on a website, that is made possible because of the Cloud. And even when new systems were created especially for cloud services like Google Docs, those systems were similar enough to other systems, like Microsoft Word in this case, that users found the switch easy.    

    The Cloud has already been expanded and reinvented since its creation in the 1990s. The cloud started with just public servers and usage, mostly by businesses. But then around 2010, the cloud shifted to now having private cloud servers which could still be used by businesses, but also ordinary people. And now there are hybrid clouds, which have both public and private cloud servers and can be used in both areas effectively. 

    As for the effects of the Cloud, there are too many to count. The Cloud has entered nearly every area where technology is used today. It is in education, health, navigation, the economy, and even in our social circles. Students today are more educated because they can access data anywhere at any time. It has also specifically helped students in less developed countries because they have access to educational resources at a lower cost. It has allowed medical professionals to manage and share patient data with other medical institutions and the patients themselves with ease. Many patients can even get their results on their phones as soon as they are released. Almost all modern navigation systems use the cloud in some capacity, which allows them to update regularly and keep users on track. And the Cloud is part of why our world is so interconnected today. Most social media sites run on and use the Cloud for their systems. They have allowed people to reach across the globe and connect with others all from the comfort of their own homes. 

    There are so many positives to cloud computing, it is no wonder it caught on so well. There are really very few downsides to cloud computing. The one most people are worried about is security.  Because the Cloud can be accessed nearly anywhere with the Internet, it is reasonable for many people to assume that others could access their information anywhere too. No one wants their personal information to be known, or worse, used by someone else. The same applies to businesses that don't want their secrets and information getting out just because someone was able to view their stored data. The only other issue is that if something were to happen to the Cloud then most of our infrastructure today would be in danger because so much of it runs on the Cloud. In an age where hackers are getting better and tensions are higher, this is a very scary thought that could turn people away from using the Cloud. 

YouTube's History and Impact

    YouTube has become the website/app everyone goes to these days for watching videos. But interestingly enough, the website actually got its start as a dating site. In 2004, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim got the idea of creating a dating website where users could share videos of themselves. But the creators soon found that this idea wasn't very popular, so they pivoted their idea. Instead of a dating site, YouTube would be a place to share all kinds of videos. 

    The first video on this new website was called "Me at the Zoo", which was essentially a vlog of one of the creators' days at the zoo. This was used by the creators to test the site itself and with the success of that, YouTube officially launched in November 2005. The number of users exploded, and hundreds of videos were being uploaded every day. People couldn't get enough of this new site. 

    In the next couple of years, YouTube gained partnerships with tons of major companies like Verizon and Google. By the summer of 2006, YouTube was serving more than 100 million videos per day, and it has not stopped there. Today, YouTube has 1.7 billion unique monthly visitors and is the second most-visited website on the Internet, behind Google. It is safe to say that YouTube has become an integral part of our Internet-centric lives. 

    As mentioned in class, there are both positive and negative impacts to YouTube. One of the positives is that there is an endless amount of information on YouTube. Anything you could want to find out about can be found there. For that reason, it is an amazing site for learning new things. There are hundreds of videos on every topic imaginable that can help people learn skills they have always wanted to learn, pick up a new hobby, or just educate people. My dad once needed to figure out how to defog the front lights on his car, and he was able to figure that out just by searching on YouTube. 

    Another positive is that YouTube is free. Yes, there are ads, which can be annoying, but ads are everywhere, so that is not out of the ordinary to see. But the best part about the site is that all the videos are free (with some minor expectations because YouTube now rents movies). This means any music you want to listen to that has a music video is also free. YouTube is almost like a library, but instead of books, it has videos. This means anyone can access it, enjoy it, and learn new things. 

    There are also some negatives to the site though too. One of the more recent issues people have had with YouTube is that the company has been censoring videos. The issue is that some people don't think their videos should be censored for various reasons. Some people claim YouTube is censoring ideas it doesn't like or that there are "content warnings" in place when there is actually no sensitive content in the video. It has led a lot of people to be upset with the website. 

YouTube has also been known to lead to bad habits. A lot of young people spend their days watching videos on YouTube instead of focusing on schoolwork or other important tasks. It can lead to harmful levels of procrastination and laziness, which can then negatively affect people's lives. It is similar to the issues I brought up with Netflix and binge-watching, where doing this for too long can negatively impact people's health and mental state. 

    So, while YouTube has become its own video library open to the public and has many great aspects to it, it is not perfect. And just like how we have to be careful with other media websites, we need to be careful with our use of YouTube too. 

What is the Truth?

    Ever since the first war, there have been people who disagree with it. Some people are just morally opposed to violence or don't agree with the reasons why their leader has decided to engage in war in the first place. Whatever the reason may be, there have always been anti-war voices, and consequently, those with power have tried to silence those voices.  

    

    Even in this day and age, things haven't changed. As much as we don't want to believe it, the government is hiding information from us and silencing voices that it doesn't like. But the question is: why are they doing this? Why are they hiding the truth from American citizens? Why do they try to silence those who are actually telling people the truth?

    

    It all comes down to an agenda. Every government everywhere has an agenda. It usually depends on the party that has the most power or what the motives of the leader are. For example, in America, if the President is a Democrat, they are going to pass liberal laws and overall will try to do things to further the liberal agenda. The same thing would happen with any Republican leader. An agenda can also include other things besides what a party wants. It can especially be to benefit any group, whether that is wealthy businessmen or environmentalists. Anyone can have an agenda. 

   

    What the government is really doing is furthering its own agenda, while also trying to keep it secret from the average citizen. They don't want people to know what they are really doing, whether that is in our hometowns or across the seas. They don't want civilians to know their real actions and the intentions behind those actions. Because if we actually did know what was going on, most people wouldn't support our leaders anymore. They would fight back more. Sure, there are anti-war voices out there opposing what our government is doing, but there are not a lot of them. And the ones that do exist are often pushed into the background to put other representatives (those working for the agenda) up front in people's faces. The government is purposefully keeping everyday people naive so it can continue to do what it wants without our knowing about it. 

  How is the government achieving this? They control the media. By having control of the media, they can push whatever ideas they want and essentially control what opinions people have. Whatever picture they want to paint about their actions, they can paint it, or worse, they can completely cover their actions so everyday people never find out. Traditional media like newspapers, journals, blogs, and TV news have forever been controlled by those with an agenda on both a small and large scale. Of course, whoever runs that station or company has control and gets to push their agenda, but it is also bigger than that. Oftentimes, the managers of companies are also in on the bigger government agenda. So, people are being doubly scammed. 

    

    Social media is making it even easier. Social media is so widespread and so infested with technology that individual people can now be targeted instead of only groups of people. Even the most niche types of people with the most specific of interests can be found thanks to the Internet and social media. Social media is also linked to worse memory and recall. This means that people easily forget news stories they hear or read about. This allows the government to hide its actions even better. Because people easily forget things, they are less likely to remember a terrible thing the government has done. People will get distracted by the next trending story or simply forget what they have read a couple of days later. The less we remember, the more the government can get away with. 

    The government not only controls what is shown but also what is not shown. This happens through censorship. Even though a government cannot directly stop a person from saying something, a private company can. And like mentioned above, the government has its claws in private companies too. They have people working there that support their agenda and can and will censor people from expressing their views. This can happen on social media platforms like Twitter or in more traditional ways, like stopping a journalist from writing an article.

    

     So, if we want to find the real truth, we have to turn to independent sources for our media. We should also investigate multiple sources to get as many sides of the story as we can. This is the only way to see what is truly happening behind closed doors. And we should never fully trust what information the government is feeding us, because they are working for themselves, not for us.