Blog Post #12

For this week’s blog, we were supposed to listen to the TED talks posted on your blog and discuss the content in them. The first video talks about tattoos. Just this year, I got my first and second tattoo, so this video caught my attention. The man in the video suggests that we look at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc as electronic tattoos. They give just as much, if not more information about you than any tattoo ever could. They also do not have a certain lifespan, so just as a tattoo lasts forever, as does your footprint on the internet. I thought that that was a very interesting way to look at the social media platforms we use daily. The next video was by Catherine Crump and she was talking about the insane surveillance cameras that police departments are allowed to use to gather a very detailed illustration of who they think you are. License plate readers capture images of licenses and checks each plate to see where people have gone or may be going. The government in way too involved in our everyday lives and I have believed this for a very long time before seeing these videos. I have friends who truly believe the government watches the webcams on our desktops and laptops. At first I didn’t believe them, but I have started to believe it more and more with all of this information out now on how the government spies on its own citizens. I think we need to do something to even further limit the government's power.  

Here is another article on how the government invades our privacy:

Article

Blog Post #11

For this week’s blog post, we are supposed to talk about one of the PP presentations we saw today in class. Personally, I have been without a laptop for around 3-4 months and that has made things extremely difficult for me at school where we are so laptop oriented. Unfortunately, this assignment is one where having a laptop would’ve been very beneficial. Now that the presentations are a few hours old, I do not remember them very well, but I am going to do my best to recall them. I can’t recall what group it was, but I think Sabrina was in it. I remember one of her slides pretty well. It was the one where it showed the 6 most dominant channels/networks and all of the many companies/channels that are associated with them. Mr. Dean made a point to talk about how you scroll through channels and see the many different names and think that they are all independent, when in reality they are either owned by or in business with the main 6 channels we saw in class. This stood out to me the most out of everything that went on during the presentations. I think in the future, the PP’s should be made available through blackboard, so that people who don’t have laptops or even people who wish to write their blog posts at a later time, can do so and have just as much to talk about as the people with laptops and people who wish to do their blog posts the same day. 

Blog Post #9

This week in class we talked about how the government and social media companies invade our privacy everyday. A few examples of this our when you are on your computer or cell phone and you search the internet for winter coats, after a while you will notice that there are winter coat ads on the majority of the websites you visit. I have noticed things like this over the years, but never thought much about it because I have known for years that the government monitors us all very closely, even though we may not see them do it. Nevertheless, I found it interesting to actually have a dialogue about it and see how much we can find about ourselves on the internet.

So how big of an online footprint do I have? When I first thought about this question I thought about the fact that I have been on Instagram since the age of 12 or 13 and I am now 20 and have only posted 9 things on my account. I also have not posted on Instagram in over a year. Next, I thought about Facebook. I have had a Facebook account for about the same amount of time as Instagram, but I post even less on there. I have pictures and videos on my Facebook, but were posted many years ago and I haven't posted another of myself in over 5 years. However, I know you can easily find my family members through my Facebook. The only social media account of mine that I was slightly worried about, is Twitter. I use Twitter a lot and it is by far my favorite social media platform. Even when it comes to Twitter, I don't tweet very much, at least not anymore. Up until this past summer, I used to tweet anywhere from 3-10 times a day, some days even more. Something happened to me over the summer that will forever impact my life. This thing left me with a lot of time to just think and reflect on where I wanted my life to go. During this time I thought of the many negative things I had allowed to take over my life and tweeting so much about things that people don't need to know about me was one of those things, so I worked hard to stop it and now I tweet maybe twice a week, but that was after I went months without tweeting over the summer.

After reviewing my social media accounts, you can gather that I play/love basketball, attend High Point University, take pictures, I am a member of a fraternity at school, my brother does music, and I have few friends, but the ones I have are basically family, what middle school and high school I attended, and when and where I was born. There is probably much more information that one could uncover if they were to go through all of my Twitter posts. I personally think it is insane that the government can watch us like this, but I also see why its necessary and that is to secure the country, but I don't know what from. While you can find a lot of information about me online, there is a lot less about me out there then there are of other people. My picture does not come up when you look m up on google images, which is good and there are a lot of people who cannot say the same. Just be careful out there, you never know who is watching. You can inform yourself on your rights and many other things on websites like this: Learn more about the governments internet privacy rights

Blog Post #8

For this week’s blog post I will be talking about how social media platforms that are so popular now, came about, but from my perspective. I will also be talking about how I was influenced to join these social media platforms and how be apart of them became such a normal thing for me overtime. First and foremost I would like to say that if so many people did not use social media, I would not either. I am not a big fan of the cell phone addicted culture that we currently live in, but when I’m out at dinner or something and I want to talk to people, but they are on their phones, what am I to do? Anyway back to the social media platforms. I encountered Snapchat before Twitter, so we’ll go over that first. If I remember correctly, I was in the 8^th grade. I had an android phone at the time, but I had an iPad. At the time, there would be a popular app for about a week or two and then everybody would stop using it and move onto the next popular app. I did not have very much storage on my iPad at the time, so I had to pick and choose my apps very carefully. At some point in the school year, Snapchat became the popular app. It was essentially texting, but with pictures. I did not like the concept of Snapchat because I am a very closed off person and I don’t like people knowing where I am or what I am doing, I wasn’t the most attractive middle schooler, so I didn’t like take selfies, and lastly I wasn’t used to using/having multiple social media accounts at the time. Also, facetime, skype, and oovoo were all big at the time, so why would I want to see someones face, but not be able to have an actual conversation and wait minutes or maybe hours for a response? For these reasons, I went a very long time without using Snapchat, but one of my bestfriends convinced me to try it out and so I downloaded it. I made my account and started snapchatting people. I hated it so much that I deleted it the same night I downloaded it. It wasn’t until the 9^th grade I believe, that I downloaded Snapchat again. Since I was in highschool now, lets just say the reasons why I downloaded Snapchat were much different than before. Overtime I used it enough where I became accustomed to it and it became like another instagram for me.

Now onto Twitter. Before I talk about how I started using Twitter, I want to talk about how I feel about Twitter today. Twitter is my favorite social media platform today, but that has a lot to do with features that have been added since I first joined. I was going to a party over the summer with my friends from high school. When we got there, there weren't too many people there yet, so after we said hello to everyone, we sat around for awhile just talking to one another. Eventually, the phones came out and we started talking about social media. My best friend to this day named Donovan, showed me a video he was laughing at on Twitter. I thought it was hilarious and he asked me why I hadn't seen it before and I told him I didn't have a Twitter account. After acting like he was the creator of Twitter himself, he grabbed my phone and immediately downloaded Twitter onto my phone. He proceeded to create my entire profile for me, including my username, which was changed just recently so before that I kept the one he created (that's why I remember this story so well). He told me to just try it out and if I don't like it, I can always delete it. I kept it for awhile, but it was never really that fun. I didn't see the same funny videos Donovan had been seeing and I was on the verge of deleting it. My older brother was also a big advocate for Twitter and when I brought up my issues with it to him, he told me its all about who you follow. This was great advice as from then on out, Twitter was by far the funniest and most informative form of social media I had ever used. Today I do still use both Twitter and Snapchat, along with Instagram. I still do not like Snapchatting people, but I have a few streaks that I snap at least once a day. Twitter and Instagram are great for me. 

Blog Post #7

For this weeks blog, I will be discussing one of the eight values of free expression that I believe is the most important, most inspiring, most underrated, and most meaning full is individual self fulfillment. If one were to examine grade school class from kindergarten to senior year of high school, you will notice that even at the tender and young age of five years old, people like to do things that make them happy or feel good. It all starts when children are born. My baby cousin ever since she was just a little baby, she would always fall asleep sucking her index and middle finger on her right hand. Its what made her most comfortable and she my sleep like that for the rest if her life. We all have things that we do like that where we have always done them and we don’t really have an answer as to why other than its what you do. We are all made different and in a world so heavily influenced by work and money, it is important that when we do have time away from school, work, or even family and friends, that we enjoy that time doing things that will make the daily grind that we call life easier. Self-fulfillment also promotes self-confidence and can change ones mood drastically. The way a person feels on the inside, typically directly affects the way that person acts on the outside. So if we all just do the things that make us happy and make us feel god about not only ourselves, but life in general, we can confidently and seamlessly put or best foot forward everyday.

Information on self-fulfillment

Blog Post #6

This week’s blog post is about the group presentations we did in class last week. Everyone did a very good on their projects and I believe the whole thing was a success. The thing I loved most about this project was the spontaneousness (if that is a word, which I don’t think it is, but this MY blog). When I walked into class two Tuesday’s ago, I 100% thought were going to stay in the classroom for the full hour and half and just write notes, like we usually do. I was pleasantly surprised when Professor Smith told us to pack up and go to Cottrell. I was very confused and thought he was playing at first, but sure enough, he was serious. I hadn’t seen the COM tech timeline before that day, so on the walk over to Cottrell I was thinking about what we could possibly be going to Cottrell for. I thought there was a public speaker or something. The fact that we have that timeline on campus is incredible (even though it should be in the communications building). My favorite thing that I learned about during the presentations was the messenger pigeon. I had no clue how big of a role they played in war efforts around the world. I hope Professor Smith continues to do this project because it was spontaneous and fun!

Blog Post #5

For this week’s blog post I decided to write about the video posted under week six, “Mad World Remix of Moby Video.” I noticed a few things almost immediately. Those things are the main character appears to be smaller than everyone else, which makes me believe he is a child. Another thing I noticed was everyone except for the main character was too busy looking at their phones to notice things like other people and things on the ground they could potentially step on or in. It seems as if everyone is way too focused on their cell phones to notice the little boy is alone and left out. The video depicts a lot of things that are currently happening in our society with cell phones like recording things for followers and likes instead of helping people in need. Another example of this is where the family is sitting at the table, but everyone is eating their food while they are in their phone. Even the baby has a phone in that scene. The scene I liked the most was the one where the director depicts people sending emojis that express an emotion, but they are not actually feeling any emotion and their faces are straight. Another scene I enjoyed a lot was the one where the girl is in black and white until she is behind the camera on her phone, which makes her come back into color. Overall, I enjoyed the video a lot. It scares me a lot to think that everyday our society is getting closer and closer to making this video a reality.

 

Link to the Assigned Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=5DU1B_XkyIk