There’s no way I mean that we should lead our lives without the usage of available technology. Technology plays a vital role in bringing easiness, comfort, convenience, efficiency, and timeliness in everyday life and we all know it. However, how much we should depend on it is up to us. At least, in my opinion.

For example, we do need a cell phone that can reach out to our families and friends within seconds. Who could deny its efficiency over posting hand-written letters? Although I secretly wish of receiving a hand-written letter instead of hundred calls and several hundred text messages. Back to the technology talk, we can even use the same cell phone device for many other purposes such as checking time, emails, bank accounts, reading books, calculating, recording, taking pictures, listening and watching audio and videos etc. I usually make sure that I use my cell phone or any other technology only as much as I need which leads me to the thought that obsession and dependency come as choice. As I’m able to establish a control over my technology usage it saves me time to focus on other important things.

At this point I’m interested in knowing how many of my classmates keep their technology usage to the minimum just to avoid dependency? Or how many at least agree that dependency is a choice?

Ek Ronga Ek Ghuri started as a facebook page in November of 2007. Initially, a group of facebook friends would hang out there on a daily basis. Chit-chatting, poking fun of each other, sharing music and photos, writing and sharing nonsense rhymes were usual activities of the group members. But soon those people became essential part of each others lives. They would depend on the group members for every possible matter. Within few months, the “Ghuri” (the kite) team became a family.

Eventually, the creators of the page expressed an interest in arranging an online poetry competition and received enormous positive response from the group members. The Ghuri team consisted of youth from various professions and students of renowned education institutions of the country. Almost all of them had some sort of involvement in art and literature. Everyone helped out posting adds in different facebook pages and blogs asking for poems for the contest. The response from the participants was spontaneous. A selection committee took the responsibility to judge the quality of the submissions.  Three best poems were selected for award. The award day was a big day for Ghuri as everybody finally got to meet the virtual faces.

In 2009, tornado Aila stroke Bangladesh and left it with massive destruction.  Ghuri team volunteered to step out of the facebook page and decided to reach out to people in need with aids. That’s the beginning of Ghuri as a social work team. The same year Ghuri volunteers took the initiative to buy new and collect used warm clothing to distribute among the needy as winter got bitter for the poor. Since then, they are doing it every winter. Ghuri also runs a smile campaign that distributes little gift bags to children of slum areas on the occasion of vivid religious and cultural festivities.  Apart from that, Ghuri team volunteered in the rescue effort and aid distribution in Neemtali fire incident, Savar tragedy, and several other national incidents.

In 2011, Ghuri came up with its own press. It has published numerous popular books during the Ekushey book fair, nations biggest book fair in 2012 and 2013. Ghuri also published several little magazines. By now it has become a strong platform for new authors.

Starting from last year, Ghuri has expanded its activities even more. It has registered as a volunteer organization at the ministry of social welfare of Peoples Republic of Bangladesh. Ghuri activities of 2013 at a glance:

1. Project for street children

2. Project for the poor and homeless adults

3. Creative activities such as photography contest, best blogger award, writing contest etc

4. Publishing new author’s books

5. Helping out in national crisis

6. Campaigns for social justice

Bangladesh is  a developing country of South Asia. Usage of the internet, blogs, facebook etc was a fun and cool thing in the beginning. But we have talented, motivated, dedicated, educated and of course, amazing souls who have been utilizing this cool technology for even cooler purposes. Ghuri is just one example. I can write about at least hundred more organizations that are contributing to volunteer, raise awareness on vivid issues, educate people, donate, form public opinion, run campaigns and many more. I take the pride of being one of the first two people behind Ghuri. I also feel proud to say that my team includes students, doctors, engineers, architects, photographers, writers, teachers, pharmacists, government officials, NGO workers, bankers, biochemists, journalists, web developers and many more. The message I’m trying to convey here is internet made it possible to bring and gather people from all parts in society on one platform. Now we are like a family working for greater good of our beloved nation. Thus, I consider technology as a blessing for me.

To visit the site we have made for Ghuri: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ekrongaekghuri/ and http://ekrongaekghuri.com/

My sincere apology as the sites are done in Bengali.

The town of Stoke-on-Trent in the UK is piloting an obesity awareness texting program. This town government program will send daily motivational texts to its overweight/obese subscribers. The city council concludes that this preventative program, which cost about 10,000 Euros, is a cheaper alternative to the medical bills relating to obesity that will be incurred in the future. Click here to read the full article.

As strange as this idea may sound I think this will be extremely helpful in the long run. Think of how tempting it is when you walk pass a Subways or McDonalds and you smell the freshly baked bread or cheeseburgers. Before you mindlessly walk into the store, you suddenly receive a text that says “2 more months until summer, is your beach body ready?” How powerful would that be?!

The other side of the argument is the practicality and motivational factor. One gentleman from the BBC article summarized the idea of the text messages perfectly by saying, “I don’t know whether it would feel like nagging, though. I’ve already got my wife to do that.”

Do you think this method is useful? If it’s not, how else should the town government spend the 10,000 Euros budget?

As I was heading to class in the 23rd building, I was targeted by a young man with a red beanie. “RED BEANIE!! You’re wearing a red beanie, I’m wearing a red beanie”, he yelled out. Then he started to captivate me by talking about this nonprofit organization that is aimed to help women and children who are not as well off on the other side of the world. This nonprofit organization was called Care. As he went on to explain how I could contribute, he had his ipad out with a form ready to be filled out. I thought I was doing a good deed so I opted for the highest amount. I donated without hesitation even though he said it was a monthly contribution.

When I got home, I did some research on this organization and looked up how to cancel this monthly contribution/PAD (pre-authorized debit). You can get more information about PAD here.

If you would like to donate to this cause, you can visit:
http://www.care.org/donate
The other plus side is that you will get an income tax receipt for the sum of your contributions so you could use that when you file taxes!

There is a huge connection to this course mainly because of technology and information. When asking for donations, the marketer would have a page that’s already set up for you to fill out your personal information. They usually have a lot of ways to persuade you to act on what they want – forming a large group of donors all with one thing in common. Donating has been made easier and more efficient with the use of credit and debit cards instead of taking cash. It also shows the ease of completing forms online or on the computer instead of filling out everything by hand. You can easily find information online related to the things you are curious about, in this case, I searched about PAD. This can also relate to Clay Shirky’s idea of transaction costs. The difference in the costs between doing everything by hand and filling it out online is the time and materials wasted. Why use the old tradition of pen and paper when you can do everything with a click of a button?

New York City, one of the most diverse regions in America. How fitting it was for this first openly gay basketball player to be signed to the Brooklyn Nets 2 days ago. Before being signed Jason Collins’ career was at a standstill because no NBA team was ready to have an openly gay basketball player in their locker room. His career was in jeopardy. He has been praised by numerous athletes and celebrities for coming out to the world. His mission is to make other athletes feel more comfortable with coming out. Times are different and if this has happened 10 years ago maybe the killings of Matthew Shepard and other hate crimes against homosexuals would have never occurred. Which is why to this day Jason Collins wears the number 98, to remember the horrible and senseless killing of Matthew Shepard that occurred 1998. Below is a link of the types of questions he received in his first game as an openly gay professional basketball player. A lot of celebrities artists and teammates have backed up Jason Collins through Twitter and Facebook. Going back to the discussion of if this were 10 years ago, it would be very difficult to see how many people and celebrities that everyone idolizes actually support gay rights. Through platforms such as Twitter and Facebook this can be accomplished instantaneously. Especially because some papers have a bias view and wont even cover such news. This way a lot more people are involved and  can be many others influenced others to change their minds about gay rights and coming out in this day and age. Do you think that these types of social media platforms have a negative or positive effect or both on the way news is covered and spread throughout the internet?

Collins first post game interview with nets

We all own smart devices. Every year it is a competition between different companies to make smarter device. These smart devices run by apps. Apple is of course leading the app market closely followed by Google Android. Just like the devices, the apps are getting smarter too and as we use more and more apps everyday it is helping the apps to be even smarter.

We all face the window when installing a window saying, “_____ wants to access to your contacts” or “_____ wants use your location.” Time to time we all press ‘yes’ depending on the apps. While I was reading Molly Wood’s article, I realized how dangerous it is become in terms of privacy.

On my last blog, I was focusing on cybercrime on different websites, but this one in my opinion can have worse impact. Hackers are desperately trying to hack to phone OS systems. Apple just released IOS 7.0.6 mainly because of the security threats. We use our phones to access our emails, text messages, and even bank accounts. We definitely should be aware what apps we use in our phones and stay away from connecting our phones with insecure servers (yes that includes Starbucks Wifi as well!!)

In my opinion, communicating is the foundation of producing. From the time of the telegram to now a time of an instant text message, communication has greatly evolved. Living in a technological age communication has become a key concept within businesses. The idea of communication through technology has broken the boundaries of distance. With the luxury of web based video chat platforms, such as Skype, Oovoo, and FaceTime, companies both  are easily able to communicate with one another. These tools have made it more efficient for businesses to travel both locally and over seas with out the opportunity cost of time and money. Before, companies may have had to make impulsive decisions when working with international clients, simply because the communication process was too lengthy and inaccessible. . Now we are able to communicate within seconds all across the globe. This allows for the production of goods to not only be made more efficiently, but more detailed. Every opinion is taken into consideration when using the tools of communication in the production process. However there can be down sides to the use of technology when communicating. We have all probably experienced occasions when there is miscommunication and a message is not correctly conveyed. Whether there is misinterpretation or technical difficulties. But generally it’s an occasion when we can thank our wonderful “SMART” phones for that lovely “autocorrect” that’s never actually CORRECT. However that’s probably a whole other blog post that I could write.

The immersion of wearable technology has spanned from ugly Google glasses to the 4-in-1 wristwatch to rumors of an Apple ring that controls the television. However, for the sex that supposedly seems to care more about aesthetic appeal, not much exists that is considered fashionable….This article in the NYT shows the result of fashion and technology. Ironically, these items of jewelry are tasteful, but serve very little technological purpose. Each item has the ability to send a ‘help’ signal for the person who activates it, and each item can be easily activated with a push of a button. Other features, like sending a text message, are done through voice activation, and physical levels may also be recorded. For now, this is merely the beginning of ‘technocouture’. I’m sure that new features, as well as new designers will come up with more innovative features and looks soon, but I’m truly impressed by the designers’ ability to really hide the technological aspects of the jewelry…those golden cuffs look like..golden cuffs.

So I came across this article on Mashable and I found it moving how a global movement can arise from sharing acts of kindness on social media. There’s a viral drinking game known as NekNominate where players film themselves drinking large quantities of alcohol and nominating other friends to do the same. One particular player, Brent Lindeque, was nominated and decided to use this opportunity to raise awareness on global concerns such as hunger and poverty through filming his acts of kindness. Instead of NekNominate, the new challenge became RAKNomination (short for Random Acts of Kindness). Soon this challenge became viral and people everywhere started filming themselves showing kindness to people in need.

First I don’t understand why people would accept a challenge to film themselves downing large amounts of alcohol and encourage others to do so. Just because something is viral doesn’t mean it’s always wise or in this case safe. However, people such as Brent utilized this viral trend as an opportunity to intervene and spread kindness through YouTube. My question is: Why do people feel inclined to use social media outlets like YouTube as a platform to encourage foolish acts instead of using it to raise awareness or make a positive impact in the world? Why aren’t more social media platforms being portrayed as tools to change the world for the better instead of tools that encourage stupidity and harm?

I found an interesting article that talks about a petition that resulted from the free skating event in the Olympics. The article is here. During the free skating event, Yuna Kim who is a gold medalist is beaten by Adelina Sotnikova. A petition ensues after these results are given because it seemed likely that Kim would win over Sotnikova especially since Kim didn’t make as many mistakes as Sotnikova. It is even said that on the score sheet for Kim, she received a zero for one of her jumps although she did it perfectly. Needless to say, the petition occurred out of outrage at the Olympics allowing something allegedly unfair to happen.

The petition for the reconsidering of Yuna Kim to be the gold medalist instead of the silver medalist is over a million backers strong. However, it is said that the decision will not be over written or reconsidered. What I want to ask here is, how is this gathering and petitioning different than what happened in Here Comes Everybody when the woman leaves her phone in a cab? The woman who left her phone in the cab was able to get her phone back through a bunch of voices gathering together as well as with evidence but didn’t have nearly as much people backing the cause as the petition for Yuna Kim. The petition for Yuna Kim has evidence and has an immense backing but nothing is going to change, why is that?

About 2 weeks ago I found an article online that talked about conditions in hotels at Sochi. Here is the article. The article talked about journalists at Sochi finding themselves in less than desirable conditions in terms of hotel rooms. The journalists in the article “talked” about their hotel horror experience by tweeting them. One journalist had a tweet on how they were told that they shouldn’t wash their face with the hotel water and that tweet was accompanied with a picture of the hotel water – which was a yellowish amber color.

What surprised me about this article was how the journalists tweeted their experiences and although the things that they tweeted about were serious and dangerous living conditions, it almost seemed as if they are displaying their experiences in a comedic way. My question is, when sharing experiences through social media technology, are things serious things taken more lightly? I ask this because in the article it felt like the journalists were making jokes out of their hazardous living conditions instead of legitimately showing that it is a problem.

I recently read an article on yahoo news about how a Ukraine protester tweeted as she got shot by a sniper rifle. You can read it here! Olesya Zhukovska is a medic in the Ukraine. She’s apolitical and was in the protest to be with the people. The reason for the protest was, the government decided to stop their ties with the EU and instead seek financial help from Russia. The citizens saw this as an outrage and began to protest. Zhukovska was walking around with her friends, but note that she was wearing a white cross symbolizing that she was a medic. The government was targeting any journalist that had press badges and or medic symbols on their clothing. When Zhukovska got shot in the neck, she tweeted ” I’m dying” along with a photo of her bloody neck as she was being moved away.

It’s just insane what people do in situations in like these. I’m talking about, taking out your phone and tweeting something and putting up a photo of yourself when you were just shot in the neck. It just goes to show how connected we really are with social media and how even in the most dire situations we still have time to Tweet, Instagram or even post something up on Facebook. However, in a way it’s amazing how our social need to share everything with everyone virtually drives us to do the craziest thing. Do you think that you would’ve done the same thing and tweeted? Do you think that this is a sign that social media plays a larger role in our lives that we had anticipated and or were aware of?

Most people have tried to capture the importance of social media. I just wonder what is the biggest advantage and disadvantage of social media. I think that one of the biggest advantages of social media is that it is able to bring people from all over the world to share their idea and though which means that geographical locations are no barrier to gather. On the other hand, the biggest problem is that people will know what you write, share, and create, i.e, when you make a mistake through online, hundreds or thousands of people will know. In order to get social media’s full effect, we have to understand how it works, when, and how to use it and which channels to focus on so that we can be aware of how to use it most valuable ways.

I just saw one of the most disturbing video in my life. This video made me wonder why do we feel a need to express everything. The technology today it is amazing we are able to stay connected and share our ideas with others. We are able to express ourselves with no limits because, on the internet there are no rules/laws telling us what we can and cannot talk about. This is a luxury and I think that some people abuse it. For example the video that I just watched. It should definitely not be something that should not be shared with others. It is disturbing and it does not enrich us in anyway. There are thoughts that should not be said but are said through the internet. For example I remember a few years back a college student posted a video about racial stereotypes and got expelled from school and another student  posted a racial video and got expelled also. Yes sometimes the racial jokes are funny but at the same time it can be very offensive to some people. Even if it is not something disturbing or offensive there are people that post about everything. It seems like with the internet people mindlessly say these thoughts aloud. And this still happens today, I don’t think that the internet should be censored but I think that people are abusing the internet when they should be more careful. Because I remember when I was applying for college my teachers told me make sure you don’t have any bad pictures on Facebook because colleges might look you up and companies today might do that as well. Just because you can doesn’t mean you have to.

Our life are now connected with everything via internet. As the day passes by we are becoming more and more dependable on technology,internet to be exact. Internet gave us the power to order food, shopping without the hassle of going out on a snowy day. Unfortunately everything comes with a price. The more we get involved with technology and internet, the more we put our own information out there in ‘secure’ server.

Social media became really strong after the invention of Internet. Facebook and Twitter is now something we have to have to be ‘cool.’ On NewYork Times Nicole Perlroth wrote an article that goes to explain how online shopping system is prone to attack of cyber-crime.

We can all relate to this article, because at some point we all did and will shop online. Hackers are also being mutated like flu virus, as they are cracking all the new ‘security’ technology of secure server. I personally feel really anxious to feel that in some way someone can access my personal data. I think we should all think about the things we put on the internet, because changing privacy options are not enough any more. As we cannot control the hackers from hacking or stealing our information, but we can at least control what we put through internet. A click in unwanted link can cause hell break loose on personal life.

I was thinking the other day: technology has really ruined mankind. First of all- there is what exists in the media- provocative images for children to idolize, TWERKING, and images in general that appeal greatly to the man psyche. For women (and little girls) these constant images are slowly debilitating the slivers of self-positivity and mental security that exist. (This movie–just a trailer–is an incredible representation of the female and even male psyche in themedia) So, women in this generation are constantly striving to ‘get fit’ and ‘work their bodies out’, when essentially they do not need to–the standard of which they are comparing themselves to is completely unattainable, since photoshop exists. Secondly, there is no limit on what we can find on the internet, leaving people constantly entertained by the virtual life, which provides very little encouragement for a person to live in reality. Therefore, for this generation, I feel almost as if young adults face cognitive dissonance in that they would like to be social, and go to social events, but at the same time, the availability of things on the Internet holds the person back. To be honest, I’ve had times where I preferred to watch seasons of a new series on Netflix instead of going out and spending money. However, this has happened so often (where I would choose Netflix) that it almost feels as if two parts of my brain has split: one which wants to be social, and one which looms over quite depressingly. I would love to do more research on this topic–please comment and let me know if anyone feels the same way!