Final Thoughts

To wrap up this course--and this blog--I started thinking about some overarching themes that ran through the semester. Of course, one of the most obvious ones that came up in almost every discussion was the idea of disruption. But what I found most interesting was a quote that Professor Robinson brought up a few times in class.

We discussed Kranzberg's 1st Law that technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral. There will always be unintended consequences that come along with the terrain of new technology, and these consequences are circumstantial. We can take our class's blog forum as a perfect example of this. Some technological advancement that one person sees as having extremely negative consequences can be seen by someone else in an entirely different light. We can't make any broad generalizations about any new technology. A perfect example of this is Sherry Turkle's view that cell phones are causing us to be "alone together" since we are so attached to them, but cell phones have also allowed us to be able to more easily connect to more people than ever before.

So, depending on the circumstance, the result of a technological advancement can have a certain type of consequence that it wouldn't have in a separate context, but in no context is it neutral.

Waze

After doing my class presentation on the community based traffic and navigation app, I actually had the chance to try it this weekend. Going home from Chapel Hill, we hit some horrible traffic and I wanted to figure out how long we might be in it for. So, I downloaded the Waze app and signed in just to see if it was all it's cracked up to be.

It ended up being extremely helpful. It showed me the traffic I was in, and the length of it, by making the road display red until the traffic jam ended. I could tell how much farther I would have to go to get out of it. What was really great, though, was that it's set up so you can see other users on your screen, so you can tell there are people around you who are also on the app. They come up as mini cars on the road, and when you click on one, it tells you how fast they are going. So, unfortunately, I could see that up to ten miles ahead of me someone was only travelling at 4 miles per hour. It was a long ride home...but the point is that--even if the app didn't get rid of the traffic (that would be an amazing app)--it still let me know just how long I should be prepared to be in stand-still traffic. It was really cool to see notifications popping up that alerted the Waze user community to the traffic conditions and updates. It's a great way to get need-to-know information as fast as possible.

Creepy Social Media

I have a post that should reaffirm the beliefs that some people in our class hold that social media is creepy. So, just as a preface to the creepy moment I just experienced, this past weekend I went to Disney World and met my boyfriend's family. Long story short, we stayed at a hotel called Melia. Now, here comes the creepy part. I'm not sure if you all are familiar with the website 9gag or not, but it is an incredibly addicting social media site that has a variety of memes, gifs, funny pictures, etc. Anyway, I'm on it all the time. Especially when I should be studying. I was on it today, of course, and as I'm scrolling down chuckling at a gif, I notice on the right side of the page where the advertisements are featured is an ad for guess what? Melia hotels! Telling me that I should book a stay now! What's weirdest to me is that I don't think I posted anything on my Facebook or any social media site about where I was going, much less what hotel I would be staying at. It's some creepy stuff. Even though it's a completely different situation, I feel like the girl whose dad found out she was pregnant from Target before he found out from her. Sometimes this personalization and behavior-tracking that comes along with media is a little too much. When a silly website I go on to procrastinate knows about a trip I took, that's where I draw the line.

Let's Not Blame the Internet

Maryanne Wolf thinks that online skimming is hurting our ability to comprehend and manage "deep reading" that is more dense than what we are used to. I don't think this is true. Sure, some people have a hard time switching from skimming light stuff online to more dense material, but that's two different kinds of reading. If you are going to read a dense novel you have to invest yourself in it and actively engage in the material. It's always been that way; I don't think the Internet has suddenly made us worse readers.

Also, as for students saying that their readings are too time demanding, I think this response is being analyzed in the wrong way. Sure, it is demanding on their time and they find themselves too impatient to finish or read it fully. But it's not because they are too used to skimming texts online, like Wolf is asserting. It's because they have so much dense reading for many of their classes and not enough time to do it all fully! That's how my experience has been, at least. I've certainly noticed, especially with having a Communication major with a Journalism minor, that most of my homework is reading. And it's not very light. (With the exception of this class, of course--we always have just the right amount of reading). So, yes, I find myself having a hard time focusing completely on one reading when I know I have three more to get through and not enough hours in the day to pore over each of them until I fully understand every single one. I think Wolf is focusing on the wrong problem.

Twitter Messaging Alerts

It seems like Twitter is making changes along with Facebook. In fact, Twitter's recent change makes it look a little more like Facebook. It's adding notification alerts when someone mentions, messages or retweets a user. I do think this new addition is a good idea, but maybe Twitter should hold back on becoming too much like another social media site.

Both Facebook and Twitter are great in their own right, so why change one to make it more like the other? I like Twitter the way it originated. The point was to have a one-way status update platform, but now it's looking more like Facebook with the messaging functions. So, I guess it depends on what direction Twitter wants to take their social media platform whether this new development is ultimately a good idea or not, but I think they should make sure they are keeping themselves distinctive from other sites.

Yet Another Change to Facebook

Another update on Facebook: apparently it's planning on taking chat out of the Facebook app, forcing users to download a separate Messenger app. This sounds like another bad idea to me, and Lance Ulanoff agrees. In fact, he gives us 11 reasons why, and he doesn't hold back. 

I'll let you guys read the whole article at your own leisure, but I just wanted to share a few of his reasons that I thought were great. First of all, Facebook didn't ask the public about this change. Why, after so many negative responses to their changes, would they make another one--that's even more annoying than most others--without getting their public's consent?? I don't get it. 

Secondly, Ulanoff points out that this change will ultimately hurt Facebook because it will take the real-time communication aspect out of the social platform. I think this is extremely relevant. This is one of Facebook's best features! It's so easy and convenient. Why would they feel the need to separate this aspect from their original platform and make the two mutually exclusive? I think it's an extremely important part of owning a business to have the ability to know when it is smart to innovate and mix things up a bit and when it's smarter to just keep things the same--the way people like them. In this case, Facebook does not seem to have that ability. 

Privatizing Facebook

Facebook is planning on updating their features, making it more private for users. According to Mashable, the new features give you the option to decide if you want your post to be open to the public or to be private, and will make the intended audience label more easily visible.

I do think this is a good idea, because people are very concerned nowadays about privacy issues--a concern that Kristin can definitely attest to. However, I don't necessarily think that it is the responsibility of Facebook to make sure that nobody posts anything they didn't want the public to see. To me, when you sign up on any social media site, you are signing a contract that you are responsible for what you post on that site. If you are concerned about something that you post being seen by someone, why not just refrain from posting it in the first place? I think that we should mediate our own privacy, not Facebook.

This isn't to say that things like people stealing your identity are the victim's fault. I don't think that's true at all. It's not like a free-for-all where if you're on social media you might get your identity stolen and you just have to accept that. That line of thinking is just unfair. But, I do think people should be aware of what they are saying and who is seeing it. If you really are that concerned with privatizing what you are saying, why post it on a SOCIAL media site when you could just tell the people you are close to?

Copying Might Not Be That Bad

In response to Lauren's recent post about social media companies copying others and their lack of originality, it's my belief that copying ideas--although it makes sense that the popularity of an aspect of one site would transfer to another--it ultimately comes off as lazy. Although, adding things like hashtags and private messaging makes our different social media sites more personalized and gives us more that we can do with that technology. So, maybe there are some positive aspects to what seems like copying. Some people may only use certain social media sites, so they might appreciate that features originally on a site they don't use were added onto the site(s) that they do actually use.

Cell Phones are Toxic

As much as I love technology, and am very glad to have it in my life, I can't help but feel that sometimes it does detract from some very important aspects of life and just being human. Nicole and Madison discuss some of the good and bad things about technology and how it has changed our lives, and I would like to add to that.

Their posts made me think about the Louis C.K. video we watched the other day about how he hates cell phones because they don't allow people to just be themselves and enjoy what is going on around them. Just "being a person." One of the comments he made that really resonated with me is that technology like our phones has given us an outlet--that we shouldn't have--to not think about the deeper questions in life. You know the kind. They come to you when everything during the day has died down and you're in bed alone and all of a sudden all of the questions of the universe suddenly come to you. It's a scary feeling and it's one that people will avoid if possible--and that's exactly what technology has allowed us to do. I don't think that's a good thing. I agree with Louis C.K. that we should just allow those feelings to take us over and maybe just get a good cry out every once in a while, because if we're not doing that, then we're not really in touch with our humanity.

Virtual Reality

In response to Lauren's post on the future of virtual reality,  I would like to say that I think there is no way it is going to end up as the next big thing, and it certainly isn't going to be so pervasive in society that it affects our ability to connect with people. Maybe it's just my bias, but I think that virtual reality technology is a bit overrated. Especially in the case of the Oculus technology; it's just a bit much and seems like it has the potential to be very overstimulating. Although this kind of technology is interesting at first, I think it loses its appeal quickly. It's just not practical. A huge set of goggles like those of Oculus seem cumbersome and inconvenient. So, even though it would be a fun and exciting experience to try once or twice, I don't see it as a lasting technology.

In my experience, virtual reality has been one of those things that is very cool for a only a very short amount of time. For example, you guys remember Runescape, right? At least within my and my brothers' circle of friends, this online virtual reality game was all the craze when I was in elementary school. And then all of a sudden people got bored with it and it died down just like that. I see this same pattern happening with other forms of virtual reality going into the future. I'm not worried at all that we will become glued to our alternate virtual identities while we leave the real world behind--at least not permanently.

The Future of News

One important current mass media issue that is being talked about is the future of news. As this just so happens to be my final topic, I have an interest in the subject. Something that I have noticed through my research is the reoccurring trend that people are getting their news more and more from social media. In fact, according to Pew Research, about half of adults who are on Facebook use it for news. There's a cool graph on the page that shows the different social media sites that people are using and the percentage of them who are using it for news as well. It might actually be the same graph that Professor Robinson showed us in class the other day, but, hey, that just makes it all the more valid, right? 

Anyway, I think it's very interesting--but not surprising--that this seems to be the path that news is going down now. I think it has a lot to do with convenience; if you're browsing social media and news pieces show up on your feed, it's that much easier to click on the link instead of searching it out. You have your information right there. It may also have to do with the "filter bubble". If Facebook knows what your preferences are based on your past behavior, your news feed will probably have more items that are of your interest than not. This means that you're all the more likely to click on those news links. Even though this is my prediction of where the majority of news will be in the future, I fully believe that other sources will not die out. There are always going to be those more traditional people that like their news the way it used to be: in print. 

Conversation Killer

Although I ultimately love and appreciate that we have the technology available that makes texting possible, sometimes I really hate it. I'm sure that even before texting was invented, people got distracted while having conversations and didn't listen to the person they were talking to, but with texting now it seems like it's an every-day occurrence.

I've realized now how big of a pet peeve it is to me when people start texting when you're talking to them. Even replying to just one takes them out of their conversation with you and detracts from the connection. Not only is it rude to the other person, but it's a total overestimate of how well you can multitask. When you pull out your phone when someone is having a conversation with you, it sends the message that you aren't really paying attention to them. It's one of the most dismissive feelings in the world when you're on the other end of that.

My friends will do this sometimes, and I know they mean well and aren't trying to be dismissive, but it makes me so frustrated and want to just stop talking to see if they'd even notice. Actually, I like to play a game to see how receptive they are to what I'm saying once they start texting, so I'll just start saying the most random, weird stuff to see if it even phases them. I know for a fact that people like to feel listened to, so I've made a promise to myself that I won't check texts or anything else on my phone when I'm having a conversation with someone else face-to-face. Surely if I think I deserve that basic level of attention, then so does everyone else.

The Power of the Polaroid

Okay, just one more post about pictures, I swear. After going through our class's recent blog posts, I saw one in particular that caught my eye. Nicole's post about creating photo albums made me think about what a difference a tangible photo can make as opposed to just posting it on social media. It brought me back to my middle school days, actually. My granddad used to have a Polaroid camera that we would always use on our family trips to the mountains, beach, etc. Something about the whole experience was so much better than just taking a digital picture and printing it out. Maybe it was because it took more time, or maybe because the photo looked so distinctive, but whatever it was, using that outdated piece of technology was an experience in itself.

The more I think about it, I actually remember those moments that we captured with the Polaroid more clearly than I do the ones we took with a digital camera. They were such simple moments too, but I love being able to remember them. Most of the pictures we took are lost somewhere now, probably in the depths of my mom's attic space, but even the memory of the photo itself is still enough for me to remember the actual experience. The one that lingers with me the most is a picture of my sister, my cousin, and I, sitting on what has got to be the oldest, most dilapidated couch in our mountain house just making faces. I was 13 years old, and that is one of my clearest memories to this day. The moment was so simple, but the way we captured it made it special. I'd take a Polaroid camera over a digital one any day.

I Don't Need Dental Work

While I'm thinking about our class discussions, I also wanted to argue, from my own personal experience, against the belief that pictures take away from memories or experiences. I have a story to tell all of you, and it is a story of an experience that was lost with the disappearance of pictures from my phone. Get your tissues and prepare yourself for tears. Just kidding, but I did cry a little myself if I'm being completely honest.

Remember my post about losing all of my information on my phone? Well, the good news is that I did get some of it back, but sadly--and most importantly--not my pictures. Now, that may not be such a big deal to some of you, but to me it meant the loss of one of the best potential albums I have ever made. I'm just going to assume that the majority of the people in our class have seen Bridesmaids, because, let's face it, JOMC 240 is run by girls. So, this means you all have seen the scene where Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph are eating and Kristen Wiig puts chocolate in her teeth and says "I dont. Need. Dental work." If not, here it is and you're welcome in advance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL812ag82xI.

Naturally, I loved this and decided to make it my own. Now, here is where I need to give some of you some back story. I'm in Alpha Chi Omega, and basically every Friday at lunch there are brownies for dessert. So, every Friday since the movie came out, I've made my friends stick brownie in their teeth and I took a picture of the beautiful moment. When I lost all of these pictures, I had racked up about 50 gems of friends who "don't need dental work"--which, coincidentally, was going to be the name of my album when I FINALLY uploaded it to Facebook during my senior year. Now I'll have to start all over from scratch...but I can't get back those moments. The loss of all of those pictures was devastating, which proves my point that pictures CAN and do make moments and create experiences that can sometimes transcend mere face-to-face interactions. Even if it's taking pictures of food stuck in people's teeth.

Facebook as a False Reality

After our discussion on Monday about FOMO (or fear of missing out for those who are not familiar), whether or not social media makes us happy, sad, or both, and the conclusions we can draw from that, I had a theory I wanted to share.

Although Professor Robinson sort of beat me to my topic of discussion for this post (rats!), I still want to add on to his comment. He mentioned how we typically only post the happy stuff that's going on in our lives. So-and-so just got engaged, this girl had a great weekend and here's the proof with 50 pictures, and someone else just got accepted into the college they wanted! That's all fine and dandy, but--like we discussed in class--this sets up a precedent for social media presence as a whole to be pretty one-sided and not so genuine.

I also think it contributes massively to the phenomenon we know so well as FOMO. Our society is so focused on making people think we are happier than we probably are, that we create this false reality on social media. I'm sure most of you have probably been in the situation where there's that one person you are Facebook friends with that is constantly updating depressing statuses that bother you for some reason. You wouldn't react the same way if it were something positive, and I think that's because that is all we want to see. When we see people having this great time through pictures or updates, it leads us to believe that they are truly experiencing this great happiness, when really, that's most likely not the case. And that creates FOMO.

Laurel Nakadate's art project is a perfect example of an attempt to unmask this false reality we live through social media. In order to "deliberately take part in sadness" the way that we all deliberately take part in happiness, she took 365 selfies--every day for a year--of herself crying. She, too, noticed this "happy" trend on social media, and she wasn't buying it. I think it's extremely interesting to see how social media can bring to light this sort of cultural practice.

Not Great, Alert Carolina

I completely agree with John's point that social media did a better than Alert Carolina did this afternoon to alert us of the dangerous, armed man on campus. I got almost all of my information from Twitter and word of mouth, and my friend was complaining about how she felt the same way, too! In fact, I hadn't gotten much information until two of my friends who the suspect had actually approached came back to their house and told me about it. It's concerning to me that our university's security update system is so lagging, but at the same time, it feels almost empowering that fellow students did such a great job of alerting the public in a timely manner. They took the reigns and gave us the information we needed through social media, which is an extremely efficient way to get breaking news out; everyone's going to be keeping up and everyone sees new notifications popping up on their news feed. Thank goodness for Twitter.

Modern Day Narcissus

With all this talk about selfies, I'd just like to put in my own two cents on the matter. For one, I'd like to agree with Jamie when she says that selfies have been around for a while now, so everyone should just calm down about them already. I don't think they detract from a moment; in fact, I would argue that they can create moments, and I have Jason Feifer to back me up on that one as he refutes Sherry Turkle's claim that technology is negatively affecting the way we communicate.

However--and here is my actual two cents--I do think that selfies create the capacity for a very self-obsessed and vain culture. Not just the selfie itself, but the ease of accessibility we now have to them. Nowadays, most people have cameras on their phones. It's like carrying a mirror around in your pocket all day but only a little more subtle (everyone knows when you're walking around campus and Snapchatting). Now that we have such easy access to this technology, it's like an itch we have to scratch. I'll be honest, I've given in to the temptation to open up Snapchat on my phone just to check how I look many a time. Granted, most of those times I'm attempting to top the most recent ugliest face I can make, but the point still stands.

I hope this Snapchat/selfie phenomenon doesn't end up with my generation and the kids growing up with this technology constantly getting lost in their own eyes as they stare at themselves through a Snapchat camera all day like a modern-day Narcissus. Ultimately, I do think Sherry Turkle got it wrong that selfies don't create moments, but are moments created from vanity much better?

Why the Glass Ceiling?

In light of our recent discussion about how gender roles and expectations are played out in our society, I'd like to bring up a question that we didn't really address. I completely agree that the media plays a large role in how we perceive gender, what's offensive and what's not and why, but I think it could be very skewed.

Now, this is not to say that women and men are seen or treated completely equally at all; I know there statistics that show that women hold much fewer higher-level, governmental, etc. roles than men. But what if it's because they don't want to be in those positions? I can't speak for every woman, but I think it's fair to assume that some women actually do just want to have a standard, 9-5 job or even just be a stay-at-home mom. And that's completely fine! Isn't it possible that the media could be portraying the statistics of the number of women in power in a way that might be over exaggerating the seriousness of the situation? That's all I could think about when we watched this Miss Representation trailer.

It's like giving a survey and only giving the recipient one decent answer to choose; the media gives us only one conclusion to reach--that women are being undervalued in society. And maybe we are. But I think it's important to think about it from the perspective that just because there aren't as many females in Congress doesn't necessarily mean that a man took a woman's place. Maybe not as many women were interested in having that position. Or maybe females are used to such a male-driven society that many of them don't feel compelled to try and attain those higher-level careers. Either way, I think it's important to consider the possible reasons behind the statistics we are given.

Starting Over

So if any of you want to test how dependent on your technology you are, try losing all your information on your phone. If you think to yourself, "Oh sure, I could go without Snapchat and Twitter every day," you'd be WRONG. Trust me on this one. 

Long story short, I had to get a new phone over break because I couldn't get WiFi, so we backed up all my information to iTunes (or so we thought) and then couldn't get it back to my phone. So now I have a new phone with none of my information on it. I didn't realize how dependent I am on all of my apps until now. 

And I think that's true for everyone. Joni Mitchell got it right; you don't know what you got till it's gone. Even your solitaire app! Seriously, it's killing me that all of my progress and stats are just gone now and I have to start from scratch again. I have to start all over with everything! I learned my lesson. I need to stop relying so much on my phone. Or I could just be smarter about backing up my information...Either way, now that all of that information is gone, I realize how much I used it and counted on it to be there. It's a sad realization, that's for sure. 

Whole New Meaning of Speed Reading

Guys. This is so cool. A company named Spritz has developed a speed reading technology that allows you to just blow through texts. Basically the idea is that sentences are flashed at you, one word at a time in the same place at speeds up to 1,000 words per minute--if you can manage that speed, that is. The way this new technology was introduced to me was by my friend approaching me and saying, "You know, there's a way to read a 223 page book in 77 minutes." Seems impossible? Well, IT'S NOT!! If that's not interesting, I don't know what is.

Of course, there are concerns that go along with the territory of technology that could radically change the way we read. Part of why the company came up with the idea was to eliminate the wasted time we spend moving our eyes around and flipping pages when reading, but why is this such a bad thing? Isn't that part of the whole experience? I, for one, think that this idea could be very popular because there's something really fun about seeing the words flash at you and following the sentence that way. But, at the same time, I enjoy the leisure of reading an actual text; being able to flip the pages at your own pace, poring over the text trying to catch something you missed the first time around. It's not a competition of who can finish it first, it's about what you get out of it!

I would also be very interested to see if this kind of reading would still work for more complex, dense texts. It's one thing to blow through and completely comprehend Harry Potter in a matter of hours than Marx's take on commodity fetishism. I guess we'll see.