Post Eleven: Final - Culture of Truth & Online Consumption

I have thoroughly enjoyed this class. I wish the class met twice a week and the schedule did not cut short and get all bent out of shape because of Covid as I really was interested in so much of what we learned throughout this semester. There are so many thoughts I wish to share on this final blog post to fully culminate this class and this really neat keepsake we get to keep from it, so bear with me as I hope to touch on all of the takeways.

What I love about this class is that it forced me to think about things deeper and things I hadn't really thought of through various perspectives prior. It made me look at my life through a different lens and brought closer to home some of the world's current events.

If you read the bio on the side of my blog, I mention "culture of truth." I coined this phrase years ago, as I was frustrated by the facades that surrounded both the media and my everyday life and interactions. Truth is a big principle of all I strive to seek, and if you head to my personal blog that I'm working to build, I've shared how I strive to create a culture of truth on and off the internet. 

When I coined this phrase though, I did not realize how 2020 would bring such a deeper need and call for my passion of truth. This year, we have been met with a pandemic, but even scarier than this ambiguous virus is a media and culture so quick to live and hide in immense fear. Where did this fear come from?  The media is the virus, as the media controls the behavior of the public. I'm not denying the gravity of this virus, but I do not believe fear is ever productive for a society and 2020 has proven the immense power of the media to control its people. Americans are being controlled by fear, and it's scary. That was a bit of tangent, but it touches on truth because emotions can sometimes prevent us from finding truth. Because emotions might be our reality, but they are not always the reality of the situation. I am firm in my belief that most individuals quarantined and scared to leave their house have trusted media sources for information without doing their own due diligence.

Prior to this course, I did not understand what a gift and blessing the First Amendment is to us and the gravity it holds for making America the "land of the free." And what a time in the world to take this course! During a pandemic and a pivotal election season! I have seen firsthand a slippery slope to censorship that is now occurring in this country. It's alarming how one party's voices have been silenced, and how media channels have "sold out" to biased and inauthentic reporting. 

Changing course, it is time to discuss the internet's role in my life... a profound and humbling question keeps surfacing as more and more of my time becomes consumed by my phone and social media: Do we consume technology or does technology consume us?

My online presence is not large by any means, but it consumes a large amount of my time. I use Instagram, snapchat, and Facebook, and I have dreams to grow my blog that I recently started. Besides my blog which anyone can access, my social media profiles are private. 

Social media consumes my life, which is sad to say, but the first step towards change is admitting the challenge. I allow my self-esteem and self-worth to be determined by a number of likes, and I allow comparison of myself and my life to others to rob me from joy. The grass is not green on the other side, it is green where you water it. If I spend more time watering my grass (my real life, offline) than investing energy into posting the perfect post or comparing my life to my followers or influencers, I think a profound change will occur within my self that will translate into all aspects of my life.

When I think about growing my blog, I see the double-edged sword of what seems like a too good to be true career path. This industry is called "influencers" and it's essentially turning your day to day life into a business and a brand. While I love to write and have a homemaker's desire to share all things from home decor, to travel, to fashion, to learning to adult, to chronicling my life, I don't want my personal life to be my professional life. 

I do not know where the line is drawn for the public vs. private balance in this industry and it makes it unappealing to me even though sharing my life seems like something I would desire to do! I follow many mom bloggers, and while I love so much of their content, I don't think the industry is fair to their kids. It's giving celebrity-like consequences to everyday people. While the benefit of truly "working from home" is appealing, I question if this sharing on the verge of oversharing is something I want for my life and my future family.

Thanks to this class, I'm making more intentional choices with my online presence and never again will I take for granted our First Amendment. I am more passionate than ever to pursue and cultivate a culture of truth, and this starts by advocating our First Amendment when threats of censorship are upon us and by committing to due diligence before forming stances on current issues. 

Post Ten: What I Learned From Others' EOTO - Disinformation

For my second EOTO, I discussed in class my topics of Confirmation Bias and Echo Chambers, and how these are slippery slopes to some pretty drastic consequences for societies. Learning about another group's topic of disinformation, I couldn't help but find a bit of a parallel between disinformation (which is intentionally false) and confirmation bias (which is sometimes a subconscious fallacy).

I'm not saying these are the same because they certainly are not, but they're both running rampant in society today. So what is disinformation?

Disinformation is false information that is spread to intentionally deceive. This is plaguing society today, as I firmly believe we are inundated with an abundance of false information. If you look at politics, disinformation is unreal. And regarding Covid-19, it's prevalent.

Disinformation is meant to purposely sway public opinion and attempt to cover up the truth. The line between true and false information is becoming quite ambiguous in modern society, as media networks try to create echo chambers within their organization's bias. 

I live in Nashville and our mayor has received national attention for supposedly lying about Coronavirus cases within the city to prevent restaurants and bars from opening. The mayor's deception was used to keep businesses go bankrupt and scare the public from going out in public. Now, more liberal sites are saying this narrative was made up by conservative media (which is leading into confirmation bias/echo chamber thinking). Our governor and mayor are on two different wavelengths of thinking when it comes to addressing coronavirus, and Nashville is the only city in TN that is still facing immense regulation and closures. Anyways, I digress. 

However, I have to look on the Mayor Lying Scandal with a bit of peace, as at least the issue was brought into light for citizens to be made aware of. I'm distressed thinking of things we hear and believe that are completely false every single day.

Post Nine: Privacy

My mom says about five times a day “they’re listening to us“. I think we’ve all felt this way at some point in time as we seem to talk or think about something and hours later, we’re bombarded with ads and content related to the thing we spoke about. It’s creepy and it feels like a violation, but it’s real. And I’m convinced that this is only the beginning and we are probably being tracked on the Internet in more ways than we can even begin to understand.

Whether it be from businesses trying to market and sell us their products to national or foreign government agencies trying to invade our personal data, I believe little privacy currently exists on the internet. 

This problem stems from society’s reliance on technology and the Internet. I took a really interesting course my freshman year of college. It was my first-year seminar focused on whether or not the American dream was still attainable in the modern world. We studied the concept of off the grid living and it was incredibly fascinating. 

Choosing to live in this way is a completely different way of life, but these are the people that refused to have a government or other interference in their lives and rejected the amenities brought forth through modern technologies. 

An article I read stated that 60% of United States adults believe it is impossible to go through daily life without having data collected online. That is insane. We are aware that it’s happening but we continue on without fighting it. Scary!

A few years back, I decided to give up social media for an entire month. At the time, I thought I was using it way too much and it would be a good way to get more connected with real life and ground myself in the present moment without being consumed by my media usage and overwhelmed by comparison in the negative effects that social media can bring. It was hard, but I stayed committed and made it the entire month without using social media. I will admit that in some ways it was freeing but outweighing this benefit were some drastic cons: I missed out on so much. I realize that I rely on Instagram and Facebook to keep me connected to the world, to my friends, to communication. I was so anxious not being able to access social media, but I approach that month thinking the lack of social media usage would alleviate so much of my anxiety. I think I was equally anxious because neither one leads to much peace. As with all things, I learned the importance of balance and attempted to move forward applying more balance to my technology and social media usage. We probably need to revisit this, but it was a valuable experience nonetheless. 

Complacency is the demise of society. We are aware of the threat to our personal freedom and the right to privacy, we are too complacent to fight it and we are too dependent on the benefits of the internet to protest. 

Read the article I referenced for some interesting insights: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-and-privacy-concerned-confused-and-feeling-lack-of-control-over-their-personal-information/

Post Eight: Innovation & Diffusion Theory

The diffusion of innovation theory is the theory that explains how technological advancements spread within cultures and adopt a wider audience than initially invented for. This theory attempts to explain how new practices evolve into societies and how individuals adapt to these innovations. 

For my diffusion of innovation theory post, I found Facebook to be a perfect example. Facebook was started for one purpose and evolved to eventually connect the entire globe. 

In its beginnings, Facebook was designed to be used on college campuses to connect students to each other, professors, and networking opportunities. Now, Facebook is used not only by college students, but by pretty much every demographic of individual and it’s even used for businesses. It’s become a platform for people to share their personal lives and their professional lives, and it has truly connected the world in an entirely new way.

Another remarkable thing about Facebook is that it really is the founding father of social media. While sites like MySpace came before it, these were used by pretty specific demographics and never really grew into a new technology. The invention of Facebook not only grew just the platform of Facebook, but created the entire concept of social media and from this invention, platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn have come about. 

I firmly believe that Facebook single-handedly changed the culture of the world. While it is not the only media and way to connect with others, it created the concept of sharing your life on the Internet as a societal norm. 

I really enjoyed reading about the history of Facebook on brandwatch.com. I had watched The Social Network movie all about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, so I was pretty familiar with kind of the formation of the site, but this article does a great job teaching all about Facebook and different challenges and scandals that ensued. 

It talked about an interesting aspect regarding the Facebook algorithm that changed in 2018 that directly affects all Facebook users. The algorithm focused on showcasing more of an individual's family and friends and less of companies, charities, and organizations, unless these businesses began paying for ads. I found this incredibly important to note in this blog post because this too was quite a diffusion of innovation. Now, on every social network platform, paying for ads has become remarkably mainstream. One can advocate for this being good or bad, but it’s real. This algorithm basically made organic advertising obsolete which drastically changes the way businesses move forward online. 

Source:

https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/history-of-facebook/

Post Seven: Other EOTO

 I thoroughly enjoyed the EOTO segments of class. It was such a cool way to learn about some fun technologies and issues that I only had relatively surface-level knowledge of prior. 

I found the presentation on cassette tapes to be so interesting to learn about. Someone from my generation only looks at cassette tapes from such an archaic thing, and we lack the understanding of how cassettes were such an innovative technology of their time.

As of the 2000s, cassette tapes are basically non-existent, but they were such a treasured and appreciated means of entertainment and education. 

Their major disadvantages are that they just were unable to compete with the innovative replacements. Now, we can access this type of information via the internet and do not even need tangible tapes or discs. Another disadvantage was that they only had about a 10-year life span, but that is pretty impressive if you look at it from that time frame's point of view.

Post Six: EOTO The Fax Machine

 

Since a young age, I have been fascinated by the fax machine. I am to this day mesmerized by how it works, even though they are basically archaic at this point. I know it's silly... there are so many newer, better, faster technologies but they don't boggle my mind in the same way. How can someone put a document in their machine and it print out somewhere far far away?! Not only is this piece of technology interesting to me, but I believe it is due some credit for where we are today when it comes to sending and receiving documents and data. 

via

This is an incredibly thorough infographic I found informing the transformation of the fax machine. (Click to enlarge to read.) 

Fax machines were designed to send information fast and relatively securely. While technology has far surpassed this today, we'd be remiss to ignore the impact the fax machine had on the way we communicate today. 

In 1843, Alexander Bain Was able to reproduce graphic symbols in lab experiments. He received a British patent calling this device the “Electric Printing Telegraph.” Following this, a man named Frederick Bakewell furthered on Bain’s designFurther on beans to create a “telefax machine.” This was innovated upon to create the “Panetelegraph” by Giovanni Caseilli. All of these advancements were roughly 11 years before the telephone was even invented. 

In 1880, Shelford Bidwell Instructed a scanning instructed a scanning photo telegraph which was the first device to scan a two dimensional piece of data without any plotting or drawing. This was followed by a few people advancing technology a bit further each time. 

In 1888, Alicia Gray further developed the faxing technology. Through the invention of the “telautograph.” This allowed individuals to send signatures long distances which was especially helpful for verification of identification in land ownership. 

The most significant year for the faxing technology was 1924. The first significant event in this year was on May 19 when the AT&T corporation was able to send 15 photographs by telephone from Cleveland to New York City through the process of transmitting pictures by electricity. This was the first instance of using a phone to send information and not a radio. Following this, the radio Corporation of America, known as the RCA, Developed the first wireless transmission of information. This was called the “TransOceanic Radio Facsimile” and through this they were able to transmit a photo from New York City to London.  This is not all that was accomplished for the faxing technology in 1924. The AT&T corporation was also able to develop the first color facsimile allowing photographs to be transmitted in color. By the end of 1924, it was possible to send a single page fax in only six minutes! Today, we are used to being able to send high volume and virtually seconds, but this was the first efficient medium to transmit information virtually. 

In 1960, the first satellite fax was used to send a photograph from the US Army for America to Puerto Rico. In 1964, the Xerox corporation patented what most of us know as the fax machine. What we understand as a fax machine is essentially telephone transmission of letter-sized documents. They perfected the technology over a few years and it became a widespread use machine. By the late 1970s, companies around the world had begun to use fax machines.  As the years pass the machines became more compact and even faster. In 1974, a single page fax to be sent in three minutes. Fax machines were still relatively expensive at this time even though they were decreasing in price and increasing in affordability. By 1980 to a fax machine cost around $20,000. By 1996, the Internet fax was released And this allowed the general public to send and receive facsimile via computer and became a household technology. 

Fax machines were still used into the 21st-century, and some people still use them today. However as computers have evolved and become even more innovative and the use of email is common place, faxing of information is not nearly as efficient as other modern means to communicate. 

I will never not be fascinated by the fax machine and it still boggles my mind how this crazy machine works. 

Did you guys grow up with a fax machine? I remember my brother and I would forget a homework assignment at school and we would call a classmate and have them fax us a picture of the worksheet so we could do it at our house and still be able to turn it in in the morning.

Post Five: Eight Values of Free Expression

 

The marketplace of ideas is something I would love to delve deeper into. My personal value is truth. I seek to find it in all things, and I aspire to cultivate a culture of truth in the world someday. I think in the past, journalism has had a strong reputation for truth, but today this is greatly tested. The truth is becoming seemingly harder to seek out in everyday life and if the truth is present, it is often buried beneath biases and opinion. 

The topic this week is very interesting because it pertains to some very critical aspects of the American lifestyle and the American government. The principle I find to resonate the most is due to the current climate of the world and the fact that we are just over a month away from a critical election. Participation in Self-Government is so incredibly important, and something that all Americans should honor and take very seriously. Democracy is great because it represents its people. Freedom of speech allows us the ability to have a voice in who leads our country.

Along with this is the next principle: stable change. As citizens, we are able to voice our distaste and opinions through speech, writing, and protest. This theory predicts that by allowing individuals to voice their stances, less violence will ensue. This is perhaps a bit questionable with the current state of the world, but I still believe that this is an important theory.

The theory of self-fulfillment and self-actualization is at the heart of our desires as people. We tend to flock to those who share our mindsets, and freedom of speech allows us to find likeminded people. Some people view this behavior as prejudicial or non-accepting, but I think it is human nature to prefer the company of those who share your values and beliefs. 

Check on governmental power is so important as this is what differentiates the United States government from other governments. We have the ability under the freedom of speech to question abuse of power and ensure the check-and-balance system of government is upheld.

The next theory is to promote tolerance. This theory teaches that through freedom of speech we are more tolerant of others. The freedom of speech protects hate speech with hopes that through understanding and learning from these actions, we become a more tolerant society.

Promote innovation, to me, is an obvious aspect of freedom of speech. Through the sharing of ideas, we all can become inspired and brainstorm off of one another. This is a great benefit of having an open forum of creativity.

Finally, protecting dissent is one of the most important aspects of the freedom of speech. Minorities have the right to voice opinions. Citizens have a right to voice distaste with the government. According to this definition, it is our duty to criticize the government if we disagree.