Post 11- Final Blog Post: My Online Presence

            

            You've heard about people becoming obsessed and falling in love with material things, but nowadays, people are falling in love and obsessing over the intangible. The intangible being the internet. How is it that the human race is so completely wrapped up and overtaken by something which isn't physical? It's the power behind online media that makes me scared for what the future will be like. Although I do have these concerns, I'm not immune to the social media obsession. I try not to spend time on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and Facebook, but it's hard. Growing up and having social media since the time I was 12 makes you addicted, and it's a system that perpetuates itself; as new apps and features are created and come in and out of style. The internet is always re-inventing itself, and that's part of what makes it so alluring. It's so hard to stay offline.

            If I'm honest, I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about my online footprint as a whole. However, I do spend a lot of time thinking about the content I share and upload. I do get a bit anxious about this lasting footprint I'm making for myself online, which transfers to the real world. People need to realize that there is no difference between the online world and the real world; it is all the same these days. What you upload online has tangible effects. Although I understand that you could argue that online media is false and fake content of people posing to be one thing or another, that is true. But, whatever facade you put of yourself online translates to the real world in other areas of your life, which you may be unaware of or not thinking about in the moment before you click "post."

So What is my Online Footprint? 

            Over my eight or so years in the online world, I've accumulated many different media platform accounts. My first social media account was on Instagram; this is my most used media platform even today. Following Instagram, I joined other platforms such as Snapchat, Facebook, Spotify, Pinterest, Twitter, Linked In, YouTube, and Tik Tok. An interesting thing to note about my online presence is some of these platforms I was "forced" to join. In high school, I was on many executive boards, which required me to create a Facebook account as that was their primary way of communicating. Similarly, I didn't have a Twitter until my high school teacher required my classmates and me to make one as we needed one to participate in a Twitter competition with our principal.

            When I use these platforms, I always make sure to have them set to "Private" to keep my account more secure and only have those that I accept to be able to view and follow my posts. But my username is my real name; this is something I changed when I got older. However, now I am considering changing it back after learning about all the privacy invasion that's done online through media platforms. Thankfully though, the content I share online is primarily of my friends and I having fun and hanging out, nothing inappropriate. After reading some of the articles you linked, I plan to be more careful with attaching locations to my post. It's not necessary and gives more information that no one needs to know. Now thinking about my professional media like Link-In, I typically share internship/job updates or content about my classwork and projects.

            Looking at my social media, one can tell that I am a college student at High Point University and am an avid concert go-er (pre- COVID). It also shows I am a member of the Co-ed service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega, a prior member of the FFA in high school, and someone who loves dogs and nature. This is typically common knowledge to people who meet me, so I'm not uncomfortable with that being the way I appear online. I find it interesting that the content that appears to you online is personally tailored based on your likes, comments, and searches. Sometimes they're even politically charged. For example, this past election, I did a lot of media viewing on both sides, conservative and liberal, and now I've confused my social media algorithm as it can't decide which kind of media to show me; I get both conservative and liberally charged ads. Another thing that I find downright creepy is the way your phone "listens" to you, and I know this to be true because of this:

            My name is Ries, spelled R I E S, but pronounced like Reese, which just so happens to be a candy. I am consistently bombarded with Reese's peanut butter cup ads online as it is my name, and my phone hears my name repeatedly throughout the day. I have never searched the candy online, so there's no other way I could be being target by these ads if it weren't for my phone listening and hearing my name repeatedly. Although I found this humorous initially, receiving targeted Reese's ads, I now think it's scary because of what else my phone could be listening to.

What is my Relationship with Online Media?

            Overall I think my relationship with social media is more healthy than my peers. I try my best not to spend too much time scrolling mindlessly through Instagram or tapping through Snapchat stories. Although I have to say, during quarantine, my usage skyrocketed, and it put me in a negative place, swiping through digital media day in and day out over and over again to wake up and do it all over again. That's why social media can be tricky; it pulls you in for what you think is two minutes, and then all of a sudden, it's been a half-hour. Because of this, I try my hardest to stay cognizant of the time I spend online. Even the iPhone has put in a weekly "usage report," which gives iPhone owners a detailed breakdown of how much time you spent on your phone and which apps you were using. This has helped keep me offline and accountable with my time online. Writing this blog post has convinced me to pause from posting and do a social media detox. Especially in the age of the COVID- 19 pandemic, we've learned to live in the moment and be grateful for the people we have around us. While I'm home from school for the holidays, I think I will try to live more in the moment and put down my phone and only use it to communicate between texts and calls and give myself a break from social media; after all, it is exhausting.

Sources:

https://carrierclinic.org/2019/08/08/the-good-bad-and-in-between-of-social-media/

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/15/64-of-americans-say-social-media-have-a-mostly-negative-effect-on-the-way-things-are-going-in-the-u-s-today/

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/11/28/teens-and-their-experiences-on-social-media/

Post 10- EOTO Terms & Concepts: Disinformation

What is Disinformation, and how does it negatively affect the public? 

            Disinformation can be defined as "false or misleading information that is spread deliberately to deceive." The English word disinformation stems from the Russian word "dezinformatsiya," which is derived from the title of a Stalin KGB propaganda department used in the Cold War during the 1920s. Although 100 years later, the spread of disinformation has become easier in the age of the internet and social media.

            Consequently, the rise of social media has made disinformation more prevalent and easier to spread. Due to this, tech companies are trying to block and censor false content. The content is often put out by bots and fake accounts posing as real people, pushing forward a false narrative. A recent example of this on Twitter is an incident that occurred with congressman Dean Browning from PA. 

He tweeted the following statement."What Trump built in 4 years, Biden will destroy in 4 months." 

Another Twitter user then responded saying, "You mean what Obama built in 8 years, Trump trying to take credit for the first 3 years. Trump destroyed in 3 months with help from the "Trump virus"! Biden now has to rid the country of the "Trump Virus"! Stay away from Drugs Dean! You're clearly high!"

Browning then responded with the following tweet, which went viral:

            In an effort to support his first tweet and combat opposing views, Browning intended to post the above tweet on his fake "burner" Twitter account but instead posted it on his own page in error. Embarrassed by what he had done and trying to save face, he posted the following tweet as another decoy to make himself appear more reputable.

            Browning's claim was later debunked, as there was no person who sent him the Tweet in his direct message. Summarizing the Twitter debacle, below is a humorous Tik Tok commentator video who was able to document the whole ordeal.

            Although this incident appears humorous, it's anything but. This is just one of many disinformation tweets and claims, and this one was caught but unfortunately many go undiscovered and continue to be passed along. In a recent study, it showed "Fake news spreads faster and more widely than true news, according to a study examining how 126,000 news items circulated among 3 million Twitter users." Part of what makes misinformation so dangerous is the way it targets people. It works by targeting those that would be most interested in the false information, usually saying what the reader wants to hear. Disinformation works similar to conformation bias in that way. 

            In all, the real issue with disinformation is its ability to polarize and separate our country, leaving our democracy vulnerable. 

Sources: 

https://www.npr.org/2019/12/30/790144099/disinformation-is-the-word-of-the-year-and-a-sign-of-what-s-to-come

https://renewamericatogether.org/blog/what-is-disinformation/

https://disinformationindex.org/

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/11/10/21559458/dean-browning-dan-purdy-byl-holte-patti-labelle-twitter-gay-black-man

https://futureforce.navylive.dodlive.mil/2020/03/dezinformatsiya-and-the-cold-war/

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02934-x

Post 9- Privacy, Online & Off

            After viewing the provided TED talks, I began to think about my own life, how I communicate online, and how easily trackable I am. Quite honestly, it freaked me out. With technology so intertwined with our day to day lives, privacy is becoming rare. In one of the TED talk videos, the speaker mentioned how the concept of privacy will change and evolve as new generations are exposed to less and less privacy as they're being born into an age surrounded by online media; they've never known a time without the internet, so they don't know anything different.

            I then started to get frustrated; as mention in another TED talk, these companies are using us and taking full advantage of our data without our "informed consent." Nowadays, whenever you download or sign up for a new app, users have no choice but to accept terms and agreements, but these binding contacts are so lengthy and heavily worded that tech companies know users won't fully read the terms and conditions before clicking a agree. It's the purposely putting users in a corner forcing us to sign away our data that gets me most upset.

            In my own research, I found a TED talk titled "What tech companies know about your kids," which described the ways tech companies start building and collecting data on kids from the time they're born. As someone who was born after the creation of the internet, I found this particularly striking. The video explained how data collected about teenagers were being used and sold to educational data brokers who would give detailed information about specific students and their interests to give them to scholarship companies. This is just one example of the many ways data is being profiled. It's horrifying to think someone has a collection of all my data searches ever and can sort through and categorize them for specific uses unknown to me.

            Going forward, I'm going to be much more cautious and aware of my actions online. I don't have anything to hide, but I just find the use of our data wrong and just plain creepy. It's awful that most people haven't had their eyes opened to this yet. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVNHd8ZODio

Post 8- Diffusion of Innovations: Tik Tok

 

            Above is an image representation of Evertt Rogers's theory of Diffusion of innovation, which explains how the public perceives and accepts ideas, products, or technologies and how they catch on. The bell graph represents a series of stages describing at each point how and why ideas or products are spread and become mainstream in society.

To further explain this theory, I will be using the video app Tik Tok.

Innovators: Before Tik Tok became the popular app it is today, it went through many phases, beginning as two separate apps. The first version of Tik Tok was known as "Musical.ly," launched in Shanghai in 2014. A similar app to Musical.ly, Douyin was owned by ByteDance, and they decided in 2018 they wanted to expand globally, so they bought Musical.ly, joining together to create Tik Tok, which was then released to the public globally.

Early Adopters: Consequently, the first users of Tik Tok were people who already had Musical.ly accounts and therefore really only had Tik Tok accounts by default, after the merger between Musical.ly and Douyin occurred. But this worked to Tik Tok's benefit as immediately they already had app users, which help it start off in a good place.

Early Majority: Thanks to the COVID- 19 Pandemic that began this past spring, Tik Tok really gained its momentum and success during the months of quarantine. As people were stuck at home away from school, jobs, friends, and family; without anything. People craved something to laugh at and to provide comedic relief, filling that need was Tik Tok. Teenagers were the primary users and target audience utilizing the app as a way to express themselves and interact with friends from the safety of their own homes. Tik Tok has set records as the fastest growing social media platform in the world, "its videos garner 17 billion monthly average views with users spending an average of 46 minutes per day in the app." said an article by Forbes. 

Late Majority: As Gen- Z dominated the platform, millennials and older adults didn't feel there was much room for them on the platform, although towards the end of quarantine is when it started picking up popularity with other older generations as they too saw a need for comedic relief during these stressful times.

Laggards: Since quarantine ended, there haven't been quite as many downloads. However, existing app users remain consistent and keep using it with all the endless video content it has available. There are still people who have yet to join, but it continues to be relevant as people keep using the app.

            After looking at Tik Tok through the lens of the Diffusion of Innovations theory, I realized just how impactful the COVID- 19 pandemic was in making it successful. Had it not occurred, I'm not sure it would have skyrocketed in popularity.  

Sources:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53640724

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/349905

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2019/06/17/is-tiktok-the-next-big-thing-in-influencer-marketing/?sh=10e3713c13ba

Post 7: EOTO Com Tech Presentation- What I Learned

            Out of all the EOTO Technology presentations, the history of Google is what most stood out to me. Thinking about all the technology I use in my day to day life, I have to say that Google is something I would have a hard time not using. Even now at this moment, I'm using Blogger which is an extension of Google, while in a chrome browser. As someone who was born after the creation of Google in 2000, I'm not sure I could have gotten through school without the classic google search engine, it's so fundamental these days.

            What made me the most curious about Google is how some college students created a platform in the 21st century that rivaled Microsoft, and its well-known search browser, Internet Explorer. as they soon surpassed this Microsoft superpower in usage. As my peer's presentation went on I soon began to realize the versatility Google has through its many browser extensions like Gmail, docs, sheets, slides, etc. These extensions are part of what makes Google so lucrative. 

        In more recent times they've even turned to developing their own phone and even a platform for virtual learning. Google created the teaching site Google Classroom in 2014 and their phone Google Pixel by 2016. As Google continues to grow it should be interesting to see which ways they evolve and capitalize on technology. 

https://www.mirrorreview.com/history-of-google-from-1996-to-2019/