Search Engine:

The title of my search engine would be called CreateIY which would mean create it yourself. This search engine would lets users who make an account use all the resources the account provides and give users the chance to search up and upload different projects, recipes, and home decor ideas to the site and also gives them the chance to try others peoples creations. The search engine would also use your location and connect you to other CreateIY-ers that live in your area. To ensure users safety, we would use a software that will make sure that real users with good intentions are using the site. One thing that will make this site even more unique is giving users the option to create their own page and eventually their own website to further show off their unique creations.

Reading:

I believe for the most part that the tools of digital media is responsible for expanding out knowledge because it is key to our everyday life where we use if for pretty much anything. Our digital tools are responsible for keeping us on track and prepared for the day and as time goes on, it becomes more and more beneficial to our lives. But there comes a point to where it can even be close to ruining ones life forever. One example where we see digital media ruining lives comes from the New York Times article where a woman named Stacy Snyder’s life came crashing down after she was denied her teaching degree days before her graduation due to old pictures that appeared on her social media page. These photos which had nothing to do with her career and honestly didn’t give her a “bad look” since its normal to go out for drinks caused damage to her career that could not be fixed. Overall, the main idea I took from this article was its bet to be careful and not post everything on social media because nothing is ever deleted from there. I do still believe that digital media tools do help us a lot with our daily lives and keeps us entertained aside from the fact that it can also cause short attention spans unfortunately.

I believe that the tools of digital media is doing both impeding and expanding our knowledge. The reason why I say it is impeding it is because one relies on media for everything. To be honest the last time I believe I actually checked on a family member in person would be a few month ago. When having media in our hands we may say we are checking on people but physically we are not. It is like what the New York Times article, “The Web Means the World is Ending”, “now that so many people use a single platform to post constant status updates and photos about their private and public activities, the idea of a home self, a work self, a family self and a high-school-friends self has become increasingly untenable.” One has created a life on the internet that cannot be made in physical world. Another thing would be like privacy. There are instances and sayings in which people would say be careful what you put out in the Internet; anyone can see it. In the article “Data Mining 111: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlist”, Tom Oward says “Amazon Wishlist lets anyone bookmark books for later purchase. By default, these lists are public and available to anybody who searches by name. If the Wishlist creator specifies a shipping address, someone else can even purchase the book on Amazon and have it shipped directly as a gift.” One is not safe even in websites they believe that can be harmless to their safety. Then when I say that the tools of digital media are expanding our knowledge is because everything is from our fingertips. One is able to speak without having any restrictions. In the article, “The Lo(n)g Revolution: The Blogosphere as an Alternative Public Sphere?”, it said “Blogging breaks down the barriers between public and privates’ spaces and allows elected representatives to put across their individuality and personality.”

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.

This assignment is brought to you by FLUSTERCLUCK– your one-stop spot for everything gaming.

Introducing Flustercluck, the gaming world’s most advanced and up to date search engine for games old and new- retired and upcoming. What makes Fustercluck different? Well, besides having a pretty awesome name, Fustercluck gives the ‘little guys’ a chance to be found on our massive search results. Every ten sites that show up will be followed by sponsored websites with a summary of your relevant search and if it has nothing to do with what you’re looking for- don’t worry about said sites showing up, just because it’s sponsored. Flustercluck believes that less is more, especially when search results can be overwhelming. Your privacy will always be protected; your searches will not be saved and we won’t ask for your location ever!* 

As we know, Microtransactions dominate our niche world but with safe search, they will never be recommended or advertised to anyone. Our safe search mode also hides all NSFW content which will allow children to search for their favorite games without any parental distress.

Fustercluck can be accessed through our minimalist website, a convenient mobile app, or even our desktop app- all of which include a dark mode for those with sensitive eyesight. There are no catches, no strings attached, no signing up for a premium version- just information for whenever and wherever you need it! 

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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