Author: anastasiamongra

Where do we go from here?

Social Media Class

To think how far we’ve come in the age of digital media, is amazing, but to think how far the possibilities of technology can take us is even more amazing. We started off with t.v.’s and simple computers where everything was one-way communication to today where we have smart phones, DVR, enhanced computers, home robots etc. As far as we can see technology has made our lives so much easier by doing all the hard work we do not want to do. Because digital media is such a growing industry I can only see it growing bigger in the upcoming years. We have accepted the toll it has taken on our lives, from how it exploits us through free marketing/labor but also how it brings us pleasure. As long as people continue to collectively favor pleasure over our value then digital era will always win.

In the future I see the Internet becoming so simplified and reachable that it flows like electricity, like Rainie and Anderson say. But I also see people forgetting how to live in the now and interact in person. I see more wearable inventions (Apple watches, Google glasses, etc.) taking over and a huge decrease in anything paper.  The following article includes a video from Henry Blodget where he talks about the where digital media is going.

The aspects of digital media I would like to see increase is social media. Social media has created platforms for people to become different versions of themselves, it has allowed people to interact with others they never would and it has changed the way younger generations view politics. I would love to see new platforms be created where we can come together as a people and share our thoughts on change (politically, socially) because I do feel that the only way we can get what we want out of the world is to make changes collectively.

I would like to see companies believe in their consumers more. Consumers are what makes a company what it is and it is truly unfair that large companies take advantage of our miscomings like reading terms and agreements. Our job as consumers is to remain educated and for those who are educated, to educate others not just keep it to themselves.

Do you think it is possible for people to ever come together and take over the system?

What is one of the gadgets you are looking forward to in the near future?

Get Out

Get Out

Between Instagram, Facebook and Google even when I’m looking for something I’m still looking. I’ve been wanting to purchase a new pair of glasses so while on my train ride I scrolled through Zennioptical.com to see what sparked my interest. I’m too paranoid about identity theft to purchase anything online under transit wifi. By the time I got to work I had forgotten about my eyeglasses purchase and got caught up in research for my homework. But as I’m reading articles on the founding fathers of psychology, ads for Zenni optical keep appearing in the sidebars of the websites I’m on. It doesn’t take a lot to know that as a consumer I am being watched, it is no coincidence that I’m searching for something on my phone and later on I see pop ups of it on my laptop.

“We know in general terms that we’re being monitored, but we are far from having a sense of how extensive, detailed, and sophisticated the monitoring system has become (Andrejevic, p. 9).”

The idea of an electronic panoptic as described by Foucault says that not only are we being surveilled by the state but also by those around us. In today’s society, everyone knows they are being surveilled but like Andrejevic says, to what extent it unknown. We are being watched for information into our lives, for the state to maintain control over society.

“He is seen, but he does not see; he is an object of information, never a subject in communication.”

Knowing that you are being surveilled puts you in a position to do the right thing in fear of the criticism and punishment you may receive. Surveillance does monitor and perhaps, reduce, the amount of crime and illegal things that people do. In my experience, I have been fearful of doing things like using illegal websites to watch movies or tv shows, especially since a friend of mine has gotten in trouble for that very thing. One of my friends shared with a story of how his Internet was shut down, without his awareness, for illegally streaming movies. I may not be learning from my own mistakes, but something happening so close to home, make me not want to make those mistakes at all.

Questions:

  1. Do you think the problem lies in peoples inability to do right without fear of being surveilled? If society was able to function properly, would surveillance be necessary?
  2. With algorithms being as advanced as they are now, is there any possible way to steer away from being surveilled?

HDBEENDOPE

Meet Darius Henry also known as HD. I have known Darius since the 9th grade and he has been one of my best friends since. I knew he would be one of the most interesting people to talk to about their life on social media. Here’s what he had to say:

Photo Source: Instagram

Me: What social media platforms and apps they have used now and in the past?
Him: “Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Instagram and Snapchat. I use Instagram more now than I did before and Facebook less.”

Me: Do they use their real name(s)? Have they ever used aliases or created fake accounts? Why?
Him: “I have an alias on Facebook and never created a fake account. I created an alias on Facebook because people I didn’t know were adding me and I wanted to separate them from my friends. Prior to creating a fan page I had already added people on my Facebook and didn’t want to sift through the ones I knew and didn’t know, plus Facebook has a cut off for the amount of friends you can add, like 5000 or so. Every other of my social media accounts are under my rap name.”

Me: What different personas do they construct in each of these platforms and how do they relate to aspects of their experiences in life?
Him: “I’m the same person in all platforms, all my posts tie into me. My Snapchat is more personal and my Instagram and Twitter are more for business. Snapchat is more in the moment, like if I’m out side and I see a really dope view and I take a picture versus Instagram where it’s more like a presentation to the world. I would never create separate pages because I probably wouldn’t be on social media if it wasn’t for what I do. HD needs social media, Darius is good without all that.”

Me: Do the digital personas they construct help them cope with the problems they face or do they create new problems? In what ways?
Him: “Neither. If it created problems for me I wouldn’t be on it. HD needs social media, Darius is good without all that.”

Me: Have you ever been bullied or criticized for what you do through social media?
Him: “Yeah I have in the past. Negative feedback makes you want to react but I’m now at a place where I understand people more. My first reaction isn’t to react but to understand why.”

Darius is a musician who uses social media to interact with his fan base. His use of a wide range of social media platforms has allowed him to promote his brand with his fans from the Americas, to Europe, to Australia. In the interview, he says that he uses social media for his business and less for his personal life, “HD needs social media, not Darius.”

Cyberspace is  place where we can be any version of ourselves, because it allows us to exchange ideas, have conversations and participate in communities we would not normally have access to. Turkle says, “We have the opportunity to build new kinds of communities, virtual communities, in which we participate with people all over the world, people with who we converse daily, people with whom we may have fairly intimate relationships but whom we may never physically meet (p. 9-10).” Not everyone is a successful musician who gets to tour around the world like HD, which is why cyberspace works in our favor. We can virtually meet people and form friendships through the Internet with people we do not know. We can create different personas from the ones we show our real-life friends.   We can be whoever we want online.

Creating friendships online can sometimes be easier than in person for some people. Conversations may flow easier and there are ways to  make up for the lack of emotion that face-to-face contact has. According to Athique, “participants in online forums were seen to compensate for the lack of social cues by expressing themselves in new ways… (p. 69).” Some of these ways included emoticons but now they can me anything from memes, gifs, bitmojis (personal emoji), etc. Cyberspace is a virtual world that has created opportunities for individuals to advance their personal and professional selves.

  1. Have you used social media to start or advance your career in any way?
  2. Social interactions through media can have negative impacts in our lives if we allow it to overpower our face-to-face communication. What are the consequences of “taking social media too far?”

Kuri, your friendly home robot

Expected to be ready for sales in 2017 is Kuri, a friendly robot for your home. Mayfield Robotics designed Kuri as a source of home entertainment and surveillance. The problem the company was trying to solve was the lack of personality in other home robotics like Amazon’s Alexa. Kuri stands out from other gadgets because it is on wheels, making it able to follow users around their home, and it has personality. The evidence used is in the software like the 1080p camera, four-microphone array, dual speakers, WIFI and Bluetooth connectivity, etc. The software Mayfield uses is present in other devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home. This evidence is analyzed when the Kuri robot was presented at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and will be further analyzed when it is available to consumers in December 2017.

The argument being made in the article is that Kuri is special because it incorporates technology that sets it aside from other home robots. Unlike others, Kuri does not talk nor does it change colors, instead it makes beeping sounds and head movements to respond to voice recognition. For someone who has never used or even considered home robots, Kuri does not sound rather convincing. The article talks about how the software in Kuri is similar to other devices but it’s ability to recognize human interactions is better, which does not completely make sense. The analysis is missing a clear differentiation between Kuri and other robots, perhaps the use of specific software pieces.

According to Lee Manovich’s new media principles, Kuri uses automation. Kuri uses “high level” automation, which Manovich says, “requires a computer to understand, to a certain degree, the meanings embedded in the objects being generated, that is, their semantics (pg. 32-33).” Kuri demonstrates automation through its stimulation of human conversation. Kuri listens to what it is asked to do and responds through beeping and facial expressions, resulting in human interaction.

Article

1. In your opinion, are home robots necessary when we already have smart devices and camera alarm systems?
2. The Kuri was created to add personality to home robots, was Mayfield Robotics successfully based on the article?

Can we handle it?

This past hour spent online was one of my more productive uses of the Internet and my time. I used some of it to participate in a discussion board activity for my psychology class, scroll through my Instagram, watch Snapchat’s and read Facebook posts. I found myself unable to concentrate on my homework at to counteract my boredom I took to social media. I never post much instead spending most of my time watching everyone else’s posts. I liked a couple pictures on Instagram, looked through the popular page, grew tiresome, closed the tab and opened Snapchat. I watched the few recent posts on Snapchat and moved on to Facebook. After watching a few Insider food videos and reading one of their travel articles, I had gotten my social media fix and went back to my psychology homework.

In a pre-digital era, the activities I did in the past hour would definitely not happen in the same context. The discussion board posts I worked on were a way of engaging in with my classmates and discussing material for an online class. In a pre-digital era, there would be no online classes and instead I would be having these conversations face-to-face, in a traditional classroom. As far as turning to social media as a way to salvage my boredom, I probably would have been reading a book or talking to a friend. The things that I managed to do in one hour via the Internet would have taken much more time and energy from me had a computer and Wi-Fi not be at my disposal.

Both Couldry and Athique say that computerization and digitization improve our lives by making them more convenient. Couldry states, more people are now multi-tasking between multiple media; … the ability to communicate socially and with loved ones across multiple platforms is becoming basic for many, rich and poor (p. 19).” He also goes on to talk about the iPhone and how we have the ability to switch through apps and the Internet making us more connected to everything within one device. People are communicating differently and with a wider range of people that they were unable to do before. Similarly, Athique says, “digitization has already done much to ensure that the ways in which we study and play, in which we work (or avoid work) are markedly different different from the experiences of the generations that preceded us (p. 18).” Athique’s statement directly applies to how I spent my one hour online. I relied on the internet to study/do my work, but at the same time and on the same device, used it to not do my work.

Digitization and computerization have created new social practices for people to indulge in through the many digital devices available. The quality of relationships has changed as we spend more time having conversations over the Internet than we do face-to-face. Athique comments that even though computerization is a symbol of ultra-modernity, it is also a symbol of anxiety, dependence and obsolescence (p. 18). Athique’s critique of computerization stands depending on the circumstance. Like anything in life the Internet is best used in moderation. Balance is key. Over indulging in social media by using it as an escape for your real life does not have positive effects. But if social media is used to network, create new relationships and stay in contact with loved ones far away, then it will improve our human activity in a good way. The Internet has a way of making or breaking us, but the plus side it we have control over which one it does.

An article titled, “Technology in Moderation,” ties back to the idea that though the Internet improves our lives by make it easier for us to do things, it is important for us as consumers to really ask ourselves if it is beneficial in the long run. The article goes on to discuss how technology is moving at rapid speeds and humans are not able to adapt as quickly as new things are being created. This probes the questions:

  • Is saturating ourselves in the ever-growing technology industry making us lose the very things that make us human? Is technology going to take over our lives in ways we have yet to comprehend?
  • If technology is supposed to improve our world connectivity, is it really doing this through our screen? Are we missing out on the better things of life?