Final Blog Post

My Relationship with Technology

Have you ever panicked because you couldn’t find your iPhone, felt lost because it died, or bored on a plane without a cellular connection? I can think of many times I personally have felt these feelings. As generations go by technology is becoming more and more relied on. My generation is known as the digital natives because there has never been a time in our lives that we did not have technology accessible to us. Having these tools at our fingertips has changed the way we were raised. At just five years old I had my first cell phone, granted it could only call four numbers and 911 that were preset on the phone, I still had a technological device at such a young age. My digital footprint started there. Although I like to think I do not leave much of a digital footprint this course has proved me otherwise. I am no influencer and post multiple times a day or even every day but since I was 14 I have had practically every form of social media. 

                        Digital Footprint

Digital footprint, think about how many times you look something up or even just open your phone to an app. There are people acknowledging that activity and adjusting your ads and feed to this stuff. Think about posting a Snapchat of you and a friend in a store or restaurant, there is another way you leave a digital footprint. It is quite impossible in this day to not leave a digital footprint but I have done my best to leave a positive digital influence. When looking up my name I was sure I would find more than what I did. I did not find a single image of me through a google search and only my Facebook and LinkedIn profiles came up. This made me very confident and secure in what my digital footprint was showing to others. Through this class, I have learned how important maintaining a clean and appropriate digital footprint is. My footprint reflects who I am, and shows all the people I have in my life and all the fun and adventurous things I am doing.

Healthy vs. Unhealthy

How do you differentiate between a healthy and unhealthy relationship with technology? Is two hours a day on technology day too much for you or is six hours fine. I think everyone has a very different relationship with technology and it truly depends on how you use it. Personally, my relationship with technology is not the healthiest, I wouldn't go as far to say I'm addicted to it but I do think I spend too much time using it in a day. As a college student, if I'm not using my laptop to do work, I'm on my phone on social media. I have been working on it but it is not easy when everyone around me has the same habits. I do think that my time using technology is too high. It is good for me to unplug and just live in the moment often. I try to allot time to my days to put my phone down and sit outside, or enjoy the moment I am in. This helps with my stress of feeling like I need to be doing something on my phone all of the time.

                                                    Family's technological Impact

My family has never been the type to have all the new technology, in fact, we don't even have the newest phones, TVs, and iPads. We have kept up with the trends but having the newest forms was never something we valued. I see it more in my younger sister's generation of having the newest and best, spending the most time on their phones, etc. On the other hand, my dad picks up his phone for almost an hour a day and it does not affect him. He does watch the news though which is another source for him to get his information. My mom works on a computer all day so she does not have a choice but to use technology all day and then still comes home and uses her phone I would say out of our entire family my mom uses and is affected by technology the most.

Technology's Impact

It is pretty easily seen how technology takes us away from everything going on around us, the beautiful sunset on the beach, hanging out with friends, or going out to dinner. There is always technology around. Is it something you worry about your time using technology or do you accept it as the society we live in? I know there are times that I wish I was a teen in my mom's year and all my mom said was to be home when the street lights turn on and they would just enjoy their time without any expectation of social media. I do believe that social media has been crucial and very good at helping information travel and leaves everyone using technology way more informed than before we had technology as accessible. It is a source to get our information around the world very quickly. A downside of this technological era is the misleading information that gets passed around. It is very easy for someone random to post that there was a robbery down the street, when in reality there may not have been. Word gets passed around much quicker and there is less reliability in some people's words.

Blog #11

 Artificial Intelligence

After taking this class and reflecting there have been a lot of different topics that I have learned about and that have shocked me. The one that stood out the most to me was the amount of privacy we do not have. There are so many aspects of your daily life controlled by other people that you do not know are even happening. This also lead to my other thoughts about this class related to government control. Through this class we talked about what the government can and can not do and the ability for them to take our privacy away drew the line for me. I think that artificial intelligence is something that has helped the United States greatly but it is also detrimental in the privacy of Americans. There clearly is an endless possibility of technological advances in our society but how we use them is going to determine a lot for us. In the sense of national security AI is vital for the safety of all. It is the reason we do not see daily tragedies and have control over how and when things happen. The government uses this power for the good of all but the daily observance of my internet to me is violating privacy. 

Blog #9

 In 1989 the World Wide Web would start and little did anyone know how huge this innovation would become. Where would we be without it today? Honestly no where. This innovation is something used every single day by millions of people. When the world wide web was first launched only select individuals had access to it. It was originally designed for scientists and professionals to allow communication all around the world. The main goal was to allow them to share ideas without having to travel in person. When it finally was released to the general public everyone spoke very highly of it and they were eager to get to use it. It was user-friendly and allowed quick access to so many things it took the world by storm. 

There were many early adopters of the World Wide Web for many reasons. There was a completely new online platform that was one of a kind. There has never been anything relative to this so trying it out peaked a large majority of the population's interest. Tim Berners Lee struck gold with this invention. The only reason for some of the late adopters was their access to the new innovation. The parts of the world that are off the grid did not have quick access to the new World Wide Web. 

Although the World Wide Web serves an amazing purpose of allowing communication around the world there are still negative aspects to it. Privacy is one main issue that comes with it. Hackers being able to steal your identity and share personal information is something that also comes along with it. When it was first invented this issue did not arise and was not a concern as much as it is now but if it was more relevant during the time there would have been more late adopters because of their concern with identity theft. Overall the World Wide Web took the world by storm and is still a very used invention.

Blog #8

 EOTO - Online Influencers

Although online influencers may only be looked at as a famous person through a screen, they are much more than that. They affect the way products and goods are sold enormously. They also play a big part in deceptive advertising. They are considered to be a form of the social media marketing that involves endorsements and product placements. An online influencer is defined as someone who established credibility in a specific industry, has access to a huge audience, and can persuade others to act/buy based on their recommendations. In 2006 PayPerPost was introduced which is a platform that allows companies and brands to find influencers. It is essentially a network of bloggers that connects to companies and pays the influencer per post. This was the start of online influencers. 

Some big examples are Addison Rae, The Kardashians, Khaby Lame, Huda beauty, the bucket list family, James Charles, and Cristiano Ronaldo. These people have a huge impact on what we think of products and what we buy. I have realized that when I see influencers wearing a certain brand of clothing or makeup it makes me more inclined to purchase that brand or product. An issue with online influencing is that there is no certainty that those influencers are ever actually using or wearing the product. They get paid to put these ads out and at the end of the day, there is nothing saying at the end of the day they take hair growth vitamins or use the face wash. 

Deceptive advertising is defined as the act of publishing, transmitting, or circulating an advertisement containing a false, misleading, or deceptive statement, to promote the sale of property, goods, or services to the public. For example, Cristiano Ronaldo promotes Nike. He is seen wearing Nike cleats, clothes, and any other product Nike creates. Does this mean that if he was not partnered with him that Nike would still be his favorite? We may never know. The amount of income he gets from Nike trumps his personal ideals for the products he wants to buy. 

Online influencers have a huge impact on other things besides just purchases of products in fact. In many circumstances, there are famous people who voice their opinions on politics or current day issues which then influence their followers' opinions. For example, Justin Bieber is very strong in his opinions on politics. In fact, he has blatantly called out Donald Trump for “caging kids.” It is very obvious what Bieber’s political views are based on his social media presence which can be very effective in swaying views of the easily convinced younger generation who does not pay much attention otherwise. These online influencers posting their opinions all of the time can be detrimental to those who do not form their own opinions and only follow along with what they have to say which is not always the truth of the matter.

Blog #10

 History of Five Eyes

One presentation that stood out to me more than others was the history of Five Eyes. Before this presentation, I have never heard of this alliance between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This alliance began with the United States and the United Kingdom around the end of WWII. It was known as the UKUSA agreement. In 1948 Canada joined the alliance followed by Australia and New Zealand in 1956. 

This alliance allows the world to intercept communications that will remain a threat to national security. It created the Echelon Network which is stations placed all over the world to capture communication data. It collects information on terrorism, rogue states, and much more. Today there are questions on the alliance today because there are cases stating they are invading the privacy of citizens. I think this alliance is something that has been good for us and gives us more of a backbone than dealing with national security all alone. 

Blog #7

 

When watching the TED Talks in class the issue that stood out the most to me was when Juan Enriquez stated in his video that we are not famous for 15 minutes but instead we are only anonymous for that long. He compares your social media platforms to electronic tattoos. These provide as much information about you if not more than real tattoos ever could. There is also a very important discussion on how it is hard for someone to be under the radar in this day in age. Facial recognition is better than ever, posts are being posted and circulated every second, and people's lives are revolving around social media. 

One person that comes to mind more than most when thinking about this topic is my little sister. At just 15 years old it is very easy to be swept away in the world of social media. When I was her age social media presence was not seen as much, it makes it much easier for this younger generation to leave a bad electronic tattoo because they are still immature and do not know what is right or not to post. It is also affecting my generation a lot because although we are not the generation that started using social media platforms very young, we still do use them a lot and we are coming to the time where we are applying to jobs and many are running into issues because of their previous social media posts. Their electronic tattoo was not in mind thinking towards a future job when we have been posting. 

In my opinion, it is important for the government to regulate what can and can not be taken and used of people's content. We live in a free country with rights that everyone deserves and by posting on a platform we should not be releasing all of our information for the government to do whatever they want with it. In order to protect ourselves from these rights being taken and overruled we should be careful what we do on the internet, post things that are appropriate, and will not leave a bad electronic tattoo, use more highly protected search engines so that your history can not be tracked and overall to be more aware of what you do on the internet on a daily basis. 

Blog #6

After watching all of the EOTO presentations I found that I learned a lot from the presentation on Bluetooth. Before listening to these presentations there were definitely numerous things I knew I was going to learn about but I did not expect to learn so much more about Bluetooth that I genuinely did not know. Bluetooth was invented in 1993 in Sweeden by Jaap Haartsen who named the technology that connects electronics to each other after a King who had a dead tooth. When watching this presentation I began to think about how much I use Bluetooth every day and how I do not notice it. Every time I get in my car to drive when I wake up and put my apple watch on when I listen to music on my AirPods and so many other times. There are now 86% of all vehicles equipped with Bluetooth technology which changed the way cell phones were used in vehicles. This changed the game of using cellular devices while driving because now there was the capability to use them hands-free. Another huge innovation that is specifically helping my generation was Bluetooth speakers. 44 million Bluetooth speakers are sold each year which is a high number but one I expected to see on the presentation. Just about everyone I know owns a Bluetooth speaker and uses them daily. I thought to write about Bluetooth because it was one I did not expect to learn much about such as the radio waves and distances of use.