The existence of digital media tools are helping the expansion of our knowledge, that is if we use it for good. What is defined as “good” though? Well, for everyone, “good” would obviously mean you’re not using these tools to commit crimes such as murder or even something like terrorism. Just like you shouldn’t use a knife to murder but rather to cook a delicious steak for dinner. But how can something like this help expand our knowledge? Well, thinking about the internet on general, it creates a bridge for everyone that wasn’t there previously. You never would have expected a professor from West Canada to communicate with another professor from Southern India about their thoughts in alternative energy. Previous to the internet, you only communicated via mail and telephone. And even then, you needed the other party’s information such as their number or address and mail would take time to reach its destination. With the help of the internet and digital media tools, anyone can join in on the conversation and provide insight that no one else would have thought about. In recent years, the internet has expanded tremendously with billions of users online and serverloads of data being generated everyday, it’s impossible to say there isn’t a chance you can learn something from visiting a site. However, it would be understandable to think why someone would oppose digital media as it allows anyone to easily access data about a person to make pressumptions. Jeffrey Rosen writes about the Web’s influence on how people will never be able to forget things. After all, nothing ever gets deleted from the internet. Rosen claims a Microsoft survey revealed “Seventy percent of U.S. recruiters report that they have rejected candidates because of information found online, like photos and discussion-board conversations and membership in controversial groups.” With the extreme accessability of information posted onto the internet, it’s hard to make sure people have the correct assumption of you and that’s why some rely on services like ReputationDefender and TigerText, that go about purging your online footsteps. What’s to say you forgot you made some silly mistake when you were young and your recruiters for a top-level position takes that into account during your hiring?

For me, I did not go an entire week without using social media. I have a facebook  but I don’t use it. I have them because a few years ago, they required you to have a facebook in order to use the ‘Messenger’ app. In terms of twitter, I do use it and it was difficult to just give it up because twitter is a window to the chaotic out side world. I use twitter to see what is going on, like if there is a wild fire in Australia. Twitter was a way for me to be caught up on what other people are talking about and to not be on twitter almost makes me feel like I am severely disconnected. If a friend texts me about if I heard about how Tesla was going to the moon, it feels as though I am not apart of society. This same feeling occurs with emails. Emails are so incredibly important and are so ingrained in our society and life that if I don’t check my emails, it really makes me feel anxious. When i can’t check my email, I am disconnected and I don’t know if a teacher has sent me homework. So yeah, I really wouldn’t be able to not check my email.

The tools of digital media seem to be both impeding and expanding our knowledge as a society because it is giving us the necessary tools to tell numerous, untold stories, but it is also giving us a false sense of reality as well. Digital media give individuals an outlet to depict their life journeys and generate their own content. But it also hinders our own extensive knowledge by always providing resources that we as humans have been accustomed to and become dependent on. In the “Long Revolution” article, it speaks about how “Internet has come to be established as a delimited public arena, and the question is if the cyberspace imaginary will become a highly monitored and regionalized social space or if the Internet will retain its potential for independent endeavors and ideological exchange.” This article goes into depth of both sides of the equation regarding the purpose and usage of the Internet. 

Then in the “Data Mining” article it speaks about the numerous cases of wiretaps that the government was issued to do on various phone calls. It mostly speaks about the process of gaining people’s information through Amazon’s wish lists by simply typing up the name of an individual. The video was interesting to watch because it seemed like a joke but then knowing the extremities of Google it seemed like a legitimate idea. The Internet is a base where any person on a computer can get the information they’re looking for but it is also somewhat of an hindrance because then dependency on the system starts to arise as well.

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In other words: Fustercluck is the Google of gaming! 

Now onto the assignment:

The tools of digital media are both impeding and expanding our knowledge for certain types of situations. When it comes to personal, it can definitely impede us however for professional situational, it can expand our knowledge on a person or company that we have shown interest in. Our actions, thoughts, and words are forever recorded even if we decide to go back and delete them; none of that matters as the original has already been saved. As Jeffrey Rosen writes, “…The fact that the Internet never seems to forget is threatening, at an almost existential level, our ability to control our identities; to preserve the option of reinventing ourselves and starting anew; to overcome our checkered pasts.” And it’s true. We now live in an age where we must be conscious of what we do or say online or it will come back to haunt us many years later. Allow me to don my tinfoil hat while I say “big brother is always watching and will never forget.” Unless one makes a living from posting on the internet, we must always be on our P’s and Q’s when it comes to social media, public forums, and even the websites that we have registered accounts with. Of course, there is always the argument that the first amendment allows us freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and so on- this amendment does not apply when it comes to private companies searching your past and turning you down. The amendment is not airtight and does allow for major loopholes, as Stacy Snyder learned when she lost her lawsuit to Millersville University School of Education, after being denied her teaching license after an inappropriate post on her personal social media account.  

The thought of being data-mined from a wishlist on Amazon is terrifying- even if your list is innocent. Tom Owand mentions that one’s address can be lifted from a first and last name on a wishlist, thus pinpointing an exact location via Google Maps. Although this can be used against the average person, it is a good way to track down terrorists both abroad and locally.  Although, it’s not unheard of, especially by those familiar with 4chan- which led to the arrest of a number of murders and animal abusers and those who are into gaming especially on pc. The tracking of your IP address can lead to pranks that go horribly wrong, like swatting, or authorities at your doorstep, ready to arrest you because of what one has posted on a certain website- again, touching back on the subject that everything that is written and posted on the internet is always logged and never deleted. We must be extra careful nowadays because we never know who’s going to look us up, search our past, and even decide to track our location. 

We’re not safe but we can control what we decide to put out on the internet.

While reading through Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, the issues of trying to read through text is definitely relateable. However, the reason and explanation for why it happens could use some work. Similar to Carr, I enjoyed reading at a young age. During the early ages of elementary and middle school, it was not difficult to pick up a book and read every letter of every page to delve into the fictional worlds painted by authors. But as time went on and as I grew up, I found myself struggling to convince myself to read. And as Carr mentioned, “my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” Often times when I am handed something during classes, I would struggle to read through 2 paragraphs, losing focus on what the text is talking about and stop reading. Other times as I read, I would still be reading and taking in the words, but my mind doesn’t connect them together to form a statement. It was pretty much just me regurgitating words from the paper and by the time I realize I understood none of the material I had just read, I had already went through a good portion of the text and would have to go back and re-read it. Carr claims the problem of him being unable to focus on this information stems from the Internet and how his habits changed after his usage of the Internet – I would have to disagree. The degradation of being able to focus on something – at least for me, is because we’re worn out. Doing something for many times can sometimes be exhausting and tire you out and eventually, you lose interest in it. For example, even if pizza is great and you believe it’s the best food in the world, having it for dinner everyday can be detrimental to your initial opinion of it. At some point, you will lose complete interest in it as you’re tired of eating it again. This would also apply for Carr’s situation in trying to focus on reading texts. After reading through pages and chapters and volumes of texts, eventually you get tired of it as the words become nothing but ink on paper or pixels on a screen. At that point, you’re reading for the sake of reading and not to learn and connect the information you gain to each other and other ideas. Tom Owad also shares an article of data mining in which he wrote a simple shell script to scrape data from Amazon Wishlists. The scripts collected about 260,000 wishlists that consumed just over 5 GB of data. Programming and shell scripting aside, the existence of Amazon Wishlists could prove that it’s true that we are unable to retain information nowadays. Before the prevalence of the Internet and internet services, information was simply stored via paper and pen that would be stacked upon other paper, inside folders, inside cabinets. With the help of the Internet and services like Amazon Wishlists, people have instant and convenient access to the things they need. All they have to do is pull out their phone, tap a few buttons and they list of items are presented to them in their hands.

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The very first day of attempting this challenge was a failure. Habitually, I opened Facebook as soon as the class was over last week. I realized that I did this out of instinct and didn’t even try to avoid it. I promised myself I would close the app and try again but easily found myself checking my email and looking at Youtube videos. I need to access my emails for both work and school, I need to watch Youtube for a class assignment, and I need to do research on Google for more homework. It was inevitable that I’d fail but I was surprised at how quickly it took me to do so! Habitual is the best adjective to describe how I accessed social media. I would pull my phone out and click on Instagram almost immediately, as if I do it every minute of everyday…and after monitoring my habits for the week, I can conclude that this is pretty accurate. This was definitely a tough and failed assignment but there is certainly a lesson learned here. I have deleted my Twitter account and vow to work better on not using social media unless absolutely necessary. And yes. I do NEED to use social media apps like Instagram for work purposes, so it is necessary at times. But I have already slowed my usage of Facebook, and to me that small step is a step towards self-victory.

Being without social media was not stressful at all but reading all the articles made me more interested in educating myself and understanding the future of technology.  I strongly believe that the internet and devices have made me unable to retain information because I am very dependent of Google , Apps and my phone. I set reminders, alarms, prepare schedule, google everything!  I can strongly feel a connection to Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”.  Definitely felt a connection to this article because I understand how much of my reading is being affected. I feel I am constantly skimming on the internet and now when I actually do pick up a book to read I do not read as many pages as before I began to feel tired.  This article was definitely an eye opener.

Moving forward, the articles “Why The Future Doesn’t Need Us” by Bill Joy and ” The Great Wall of Facebook: by Fred Vogelstein also prove that it is a growing platform that will only continue to make us more dependent on technology.  I believe the world will only become more futuristic especially from what was expressed in these articles we can see that some way somehow humans will solemnly rely on technology whether it is, social media, different Networks, or robots.  This will cause us to retain less and less.  We have also lost so much information and internet websites and have also grown and expanded in opportunities by Anil Dash in “The Web We lost”.  There is an incredible shift from our old facebook and google servers as well as apps.  These networks can be very valuable to society but indeed it has, for me become harder to retain information.

This experiment was extremely difficult for me the first thing I usually do when I wake up is look at my social media accounts and check my DMs and messages. on day one when I woke up went to grab my phone and check but then I stopped myself from looking at it I had a lot of notifications from my social media which makes it hard to ignore it. in todays society people keep up with friends and family through social media people rarely call people now a days everything is done through instant messenging so doing this experiment was out of my norm. I did realize that  I spend a lot of time on social media and it plays a major part in distracting me from important matter and causes procrastination in certain aspects in my life. i lasted about four days before I gave in and checked social media and I used google often to search restaurants or places I want to visit. I stood off Facebook because I rarely use that the social media websites I tend to gravitate more towards are instagram, tweeter and Tik Tok. I think the curiosity as to what was happening on social media got to me I like looking at trends and meme and even current events. media outlets like instagram and tweeter often provide current events at a faster speed then news outlets.