Phones have Become Clothing....... Almost

Posts

April 20, 2018

This past week in class we have hit hard on the slacktivism of social media, and discussing if and when it is appropriate. Many of the Facebook posts have focused on memes showing what slacktivism is and how it is actually ineffective for the most part. My views on slacktivism keep going back and forth between totally useless to best thing ever. On one side I can see how people think that it is pointless and that it really just encourages lazy people to change statuses and act like they are changing the world. I believe this view is true when there are local issues at hand that you can have an impact on personally. But as we spoke of in class what about the times when the job or issue at hand requires government intervention and as a single individual we can’t do anything except speak out on social media to try and rile up enough people to force our government to get involved. The best quote I read this week came from my Facebook post and it said that Slacktivism should be the begi...

April 13, 2018

The internet can help humanity This past week we began talking about some positives of social media and the Internet that is a completely different direction than most of this course has taken. For the past several weeks we have delved into the study of the dark side of the Internet. Articles about the dark web, trolls, bots, and shaming have all been discussed and shared. All of these things show the darkest side of humanity with some of these even causing the death of people, although usually indirectly. Until this week I had started to honestly believe that social media offered few if any benefits to humans, and that we would most likely be better off without it. I mean the mere fact that it can change the way you think should be enough to determine that it is not normal or completely healthy for you. But a little faith was restored this week with the talk about crowd sourcing being a viabl...

April 06, 2018

Be careful who your friends are they may shame you. This past week’s discussion was about public shaming and its role in ruining people’s lives in a number of ways. Numerous tales exist online about how people who have been publicly have had their lives ruined, to the extent that some were willing to end their lives over these events. One of the best quotes that I read from the Facebook posts this week was that people need to stop and think about whether the joke they are about to say or post is worth a lifetime of humiliation if someone takes it the wrong way or intentionally twists it so that they can portray you as a horrible person for whatever reason they choose. Another good piece of advice that goes along with the above scenario is to always assume that you are not with friends due to the nature of social media connecting more and more people that previously would have never spoken more than a few times. To counteract this you can be more conscious or you can be more care...

March 30, 2018

Online Accusations can have far greater consequences than we could imagine. Without class this past week I am going to use this blog to reflect on some of the new information that I have gained about the internet from this class over this semester. In the past I had always thought of the Internet as a tool that was only used for good and that only a few people misused it to do wrong. Now I know that there are dangers that I could only have ever imagined. In recent weeks we have talked about how the Internet changes the very way our brain thinks and how it can change the way we attack people. The Internet is changing the very essence of our society and making us more and more divided as it goes. The readings from this past week have highlighted this with the creation of trolls and Internet shaming. There have always been people that like to hurt people and not care, but in the past there were social consequences and it was...

March 16, 2018

Privacy is dictated by what you share. This past week we talked a lot about what privacy is and how it is managed on the internet. Many of the Facebook posts talked about the ignorance of people and what they feel they should post and how it can affect them professionally and socially. While this has never been a personal issue it is easy to see from the numerous reports over the years of people losing scholarships and even the example used in class where the girl cost her father over $80000 because her post violated the non-disclosure agreement and voided the settlement that they had paid out. One of the more interesting things that I read was in my article and they stated that the internet had a hard time determining privacy levels because many different cultures halve different standards and the internet is where they all meet, so it is difficult to know which standard to go off of. We a...

March 09, 2018

Good impressions are easier to make online. This past week in class we had a discussion about how the Internet has a good quality that you can look past someone’s appearance and see that their interests are the same as yours. This means that people are able to connect based on shared interests across a multitude of socioeconomic classes that you would not normally meet in real life without this jumpstart. Another aspect that this property opens up is online dating. Based on many of the Facebook articles from this week and some peoples comments and personal experience it is a viable way to meet someone that shares similar interests and life goals as you. With this increased exposure comes the increase of people who know more about your personal life and could potentially try to exploit them. For instance if someone knows that you’ve recently experienced some form of personal struggle then it is easy for someone to play on ...