Final Post

My relationship with the internet:

I would like to first note that I am writing this without checking my screen time, I think those might be statistics that concern me with how much time I have been on the internet for finals week, so I am going to refrain from that for now.

I do believe that the amount of time I am on the internet is mostly healthy. It can sometimes be a lot, however I think that is the norm for people my age in college. I have done so much work on the computer this week, however, that my eyes have begun to hurt. When I told my mom about this she told me that I should get blue light glasses... I think it is a strange phenomenon in this world that people go on their screens so much that there is a need for these glasses to help headaches. 

I think I will need them for next semester though as I have a PR internship 20 hours a week all online, but in person in NYC over the summer. It is truly incredible I can get this firm experience all on my screen for the second half of this year before I go to the office and get the hands on training. I will always prefer in person over online, however. It is truly amazing the heights literally and figuratively technology has taken me to. The photo attached is my favorite picture I have ever taken. Because of technology I got to go hundreds of feet above New York City seeing landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, and One World Trade from above and take photos like I did. Truly one of the most unforgettable moments in my whole life. So many of my favorite moments, concerts, travel and even just being with my favorite people have been captured and possible due to technology.

My politics and the internet:

As a proud non voter, (Yes I just said that and I do not care what anyone's opinion about civic duty and all that) I truly have not sided with either candidate in last year's presidential election, the first time I was eligible to vote. No, I was not interested in picking the "Lesser of two evils" and did not want to show my support for either of the two buffoon choices. Again, do not care about people's opinions and ways to logic around my decision. Anyways, it was pretty interesting to see the forms of media I was getting during those times when I was not really aligned to either party. In some ways, I am very socially liberal where I believe in things such as LGBT rights and abortion rights, however I am definitely more fiscally conservative. I care deeply about racial and sexual injustices, yet I do not believe that "All Cops are bad". A moderate in a time where extremism seems to only be valued. All I saw during election season were people angry on each side and the consistent messages to vote. That turned me away even further from the political process. 

Interestingly enough during the 2020 elections, according to the Knight Foundation,  "The 33% of nonvoters who say they’re attentive to the news are also more likely to say they’ll vote in the fall." I definitely believe that I am attentive to the news, and all that does is make me sadder and feel more frustrated. It is a very confusing issue to me and I certainly am not against voting, this election was just not something I felt confident enough in to make a choice that I wanted to put my name next to on a ballot, and I believe that is largely because of how much of a scene the media causes on both sides about political issues.

Media consumption during COVID:

During COVID, my screen time and media consumption were truly ridiculous. I am seriously embarrassed looking back at just the amount of time I spent on the internet and my phone. I guess I had nothing better to do when I was locked in the house 24 hours a day, but still, it was just ridiculous.

I found when I could get out of the house directly after lockdown during the summer, I spent less time on my phone when I did things such as hiking and going to the beach when I could. These were some of my happiest moments and actually ended up being one of my favorite summers ever.

I am also seriously thankful for media coverage during that time when Black Lives Matter began so I could stay updated with exactly what was going on throughout our country already so divided during COVID. 

During this time, Nielsen reported that 66% of workers in the survey spent some time working at home during the peak lockdown. My dad never missed a day in the office as a CFO. Which at the time I thought was nothing short of outrageous when High Point sent its students home and before we knew about vaccines or masks, but some people really need that degree of separation between the distractions of home life and work. I can understand that thoroughly now after doing half of a semester online and struggling through navigating that time.

Friends and Family:

I actually think that I would not have come to college all the way in North Carolina if it was not for the revolution of digital technology. I would have been so far away from New Hampshire and all the people I love and care about if it wasn't for things like texting and Facetime. This can be taken to an extreme, however, as many things with today's technology is. On Snapchat, I can see hundreds of my "friends" exact locations and what they are doing. Is that too much? My location is certainly turned off for all those people to see because I do not feel that is necessary.

A psychologist writing for CNN said that "Our increasing preference for texting over email and phone calls creates a higher quantity of interactions, but it decreases their quality, harming our relationships."

I can certainly see how this could be true because it is so easy to misunderstand things especially over text messages where there is no tone or facial expressions to go with communication. Being far away from those you love can also cause emotions to run high and therefore arguments through a screen. I have seen this happen before and it is sad. The harsh reality is going to school almost 900 miles from home comes with its consequences, however I am really grateful to have technologies to keep me close to home while I pursue life down here in North Carolina for 4 years.

Online footprint:

Overall, I think my online footprint is a pretty solid start. I have very carefully crafted my socials to make sure what I am presenting is only my best and authentically me. However, looking at privacy concerns, it is challenging to know things like Facebook and Instagram are looking at my data and even things I search on the internet in order to build "Who I am".

EOTO Influencers

 

Online influencers have taken the world by storm, especially the younger generation. Although there are both micro and macro influencers, these people usually have a large following base to at least some extent, from a few thousand all the way to Charli D'Amelio with an absolutely unbelievable 100 million followers and celebrity status with a net worth of over 15 million dollars at age 17. An online influencer uses their followers for brand deals and social media marketing, typically in order to monetize their content through advertisements. This career and marketing tactic began in 2013 when Instagram began pushing paid ads as well as YouTube's decision to put ads within their videos. (https://influencermarketinghub.com/what-is-an-influencer/) The current biggest platforms for online influencing are Tik Tok and Instagram. 

Some very surprising statistics about online influencing are 

Last year, online influencing was estimated to be around a 13.8 BILLION dollar industry

and 

In 2021, 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations.

This is absolutely incredible that there is this much credibility and this much money in influencing. 

Some of the major implications of this sector of marketing is that when these influencers get a brand deal with a company, they do not have to actually use the product or support it, even if they are making it seem like they do, just like an actual advertisement. These people can being pushing products and brands they do not believe in on social media because they are getting a large monetary cut for their promotion. Also, influencers do not have to come right out and make their content ads, but use product placement just like it can be seen in movies in television to be even more discreet about advertising.

Also, influencer marketing can make or break brands. Recently, there has been talk about "cancel culture" and holding influencers accountable for the things they say or do. After allegations of mega influencer David Dobrik with a net worth of 25 million dollars at age 25 covering up sexual assault on his Youtube channel, over 10 brands decided to drop him from his brand deals in hopes to cover up the potential negative image that could come with sponsoring someone of this nature. (David Dobrik) There needs to be intense influencer training, accountability, and background checks when choosing people to represent brands because their image can be detrimental to the companies that associate themselves with people of that nature.

Influencer marketing can really impact people my age and younger because of how easy it is to be susceptible to people like this. When influencers show so much of their own personal life, it is easy to trust them and almost feel close to them rather than looking at product promotion seriously and as just another advertisement. Since this is largely on social media, it is mostly important for younger people to be educated about how important it is to be cautious with influencer advertising.

Before 2020, influencers were mostly not diverse, however, since the pandemic and events throughout, there seems to be a more diverse look into influencer marketing, however, largely the biggest influencers are still white. In 2020, though

"For the first time ever, African American influencers earned the most per sponsored post in 2020." 

This is certainly a step in the right direction that Gen Z are shaping tomorrow's celebrities and their influencers in a diverse light, however there is still a ways to go and a need to monitor progress and influencers impact on young people as a whole.

Twitter and Diffusion

In 2006, the first Tweet ever was sent, and the rest, is history. In 2007, Twitter took off at the South by Southwest conference and in 2013, when the company went public, the company was worth over 31 billion dollars. (https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/twitter-launches) Twitter grew at an astounding rate, and to this day is a huge source of news for as soon as something happens, and is typically the first to break huge stories. Also, it has a huge place in politics looking back on Donald Trump's Twitter run and ban during the downfall of his presidency.

The technology began to catch on at the conference in 2007 that Twitter had such a presence at. Early adopters began to realize how revolutionary the technology is, and now, there are around 500 million tweets every single day and around 186 million users on Twitter. (https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/) 

Some people are certainly late adopters or not adopters at all to Twitter first because it is a fast paced technology. There can almost be "Too much" going on and too much to catch up on. It also can be similar to Facebook where it is a platform to personally share ideas, so people with other forms of social media may not feel the need to download it. 

Very interestingly, people may be turned away from Twitter now due to the brand new CEO. In a New York Post article, it cites Parag Agrawal saying in 2018 that Twitter should,

"Focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.”

This is entirely concerning when free speech is already a major reason why people are turned away from the brand. Long time Twitter personality and memer as well as Tesla CEO Elon Musk even went as far as photoshopping the new CEO into a photo of Josef Stalin following his statement that photos and videos without people's consent will no longer be allowed on the platform. As discussed in class, this is feasibly impossible and there is no real way to regulate this sentiment, however, it is also seriously concerning as news such as the videos from the George Floyd case as well as evidence from the Kyle Rittenhouse saga would not have been able to come into fruition under this law.

Twitter is potentially going down a scary path. The cost benefit is the privacy and free speech concerns in return of fast up to date news and keeping up with personalized content with the rest of the world. The choice is simple for many, but also many do not think of the possibilities and further implications of the Twitter world.

Privacy

It is certainly concerning that there is literally no privacy on the internet.

I really like the analogy of the tattoo on the first TedTalk, saying that everything that is done on the internet accumulates and never really goes away, even after deleting. It also was extremely interesting to compare all of the tracking that is done to a celebrity. 

It is very scary that programs such as face.com are able to identify people and their information just through a picture. It is very likely that every person has accidentally been in a stranger's photo before, and therefore as that gets distributed your face can be taken and therefore all of your information can be found. Your face is linked to every single thing you do on the internet. That is scary.

The government definitely should be shutting down this facial recognition tools, but they likely will not because it can do amazing things for criminal investigations and for other security and safety purposes. Although the average person is not doing anything wrong, no one should be traced to that extent.

When I was searching for facial recognition privacy articles, one of the things that came up in Google suggestions was facial recognition search. I decided to look more into it, and it is certainly concerning someone can just put a photo into this database to try to return hits of who this person could potentially be. Obviously this software is not perfect and does not really work for the average private citizen, but it is definitely continuing to develop.

NPR recently wrote about the disaster with Facebook having to delete over 1 billion user's facial recognitions due to privacy concerns. HOWEVER, we learned in the tattoo video that nothing is actually really deleted. In the article, it said that San Francisco is one of the first cities to ban facial recognition and that the reason behind Facebook's move against potential exploitation was 

"against growing societal concerns, especially as regulators have yet to provide clear rules." vs the positive uses that the company could have for this data. 

Certainly it will be unlikely more companies and cities will push against the sentiment of data tracking as a whole and facial recognition. The individual as always, needs to be entirely careful of what goes online and also recognize that this is reality and there is not much to be done.

EOTO 1 From Others

One technology that I thought was interesting to learn about during the EOTO presentations were NFT's. They are extremely confusing to me, even after the presentation. 

Some of the things I took away from the slides about NFT's are that is a volatile market that people can decide what the value of these currencies are, however it can be safer than traditional banking because each transaction is monitored. 

It is amazing to me that these NFT' pictures are being sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some questions I still have are 

What is the resell value of these NFT's?

How do you resell for monetary value?

After doing more research, Bitcoin is not an NFT but the idea behind it is similar, one is just art and one is actually currency.

The Verge wrote that a pet rock NFT went for 16k. Sheesh. However they also helpfully stated that 

"While there's no inherent value in these cards other than what the market ascribes to them, their fluctuating worth makes their collectability and trading potential like a high-risk gambling game".

This seems like a terrible investment if you ask me.

The EOTO presentation about carrier pigeons actually although was probably a joke was pretty fascinating to me that they were intercepted by military efforts. It is extremely interesting to me that these birds could be "programmed" where to go and just sent with a message, as well as the thought that a lot of times it would be carrying vitally important messages in code during times of war. Something tells me the pigeons I see in the New York City subway stations are not capable of that anymore.

Antiwar Voices

It is interesting to explore whether these current antiwar voices are liberal or conservative. Traditionally, the thought of antiwar is a more progressive even "hippy" idea. However, with headlines such as "Trump Never Wanted Peace with Palestine" and "Biden's Dangerous Foreign Policy on Ukraine" on the very front page of antiwar.com, this site may actually be a bipartisan way to look at the antiwar movement.

The quote under the about section stating that this actually is a libertarian and bipartisan movement, stating,

"Between government in the republican meaning, that is, Constitutional, representative, limited government, on the one hand, and Empire on the other hand, there is mortal enmity. Either one must forbid the other or one will destroy the other."

Was especially interesting because it explores the idea that an all republican mindset and an all democratic mindset will either be too much or too little, therefore creating some sort of war or something similar. I definitely agree with this fundamental principle. 

The American Conservative looks more at the traditional view of conservatism and the guiding beliefs that founded America. In the early days of America, foreign policy was made to stay out of, which clearly is no longer the sentiment. Today, however, this movement hopes to get back to that same view, especially by promoting antiwar. It is kind of ironic, however, that in being so conservative, they actually end up pushing the spectrum so far to actually agree with the liberal belief of not wanting war.

However, this website also states in its mission and values,

"We support a strong and advanced military unencumbered by the constraints of the military-industrial-congressional complex, one that uses its power judiciously for protecting America’s interests and promoting balance-of-power stability at crucial strategic points upon the globe".

 This differs from the first libertarian website because they believe in the idea of a strong military and therefore many different weapons.

These ideas are never heard within the mainstream news, probably because there is no war for people to be concerned about. All of these strong antiwar voices have a preventative tone about foreign policy. I do think that if there were to be a major war, news sources such as these would come forward to an extent.

However, this is still not mainstream media and is considered an extreme opinion. Having to seek out these viewpoints further on the spectrum is something people need to be mindful of because there is no place in the mainstream news for views such as these because it can incite fear and thinking against what MSM wants to display in daily news.

Eight Values of Free Expression

Out of the eight values of Free Expression, there are two that are seemingly most relevant today and stuck out to me the most. The first is "Promote tolerance" and the second is "Protect dissent".

Promote tolerance seems to be the most relevant to my view of society and I think is a viewpoint that may not be analyzed to the extent that it is. People are extremely negative and sometimes never think about the positive side of all of these hateful things being spewed. Thankfully, consequences are allowed for hate speech even though the speech itself is protected. Watching so many celebrities get "canceled" for better or for worse has shown certainly our younger generation that speaking and acting in a purely hateful way is not acceptable in today's society.

https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/travis-scott-astroworld-what-happens-next-9657656/

Most recently in "Cancel Culture" America is polarized on what should be done with mega famous rapper Travis Scott after 11 people were confirmed dead after his headlining annual "AstroWorld" music festival. Many believe that despite the event plan saying that he was not able to stop the festival and him paying for funerals and therapy for victims, some people believe that due to the violent nature of his concerts that he should be canceled. He faces losing brand deals, recording contracts, and even bigger industry wide consequences such as a move away from once beloved general admission events. The right to criticize the situation that happened actually may end up making future concerts safer as well as determine the future for the rapper. Movements like #Metoo allowed women everywhere to share their stories and therefore create a more aware society that will not tolerate sexual violence not being spoken about. All of this promotes tolerance and therefore shows people how to behave in the future and that this standard needs to change.

Somewhat similar, the idea of Protecting Dissent is very relevant in today's society. There are so many people with polarizing views on all ends of the political spectrum. Even though some may seem extreme or way overboard, they are still allowed and encouraged to voice them. Within today's COVID climate, everyone seemingly has a little bit different of an idea of how things should work surrounding masks, vaccines, in person school, travel, social distancing, and everything inbetween.

https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-2020/coronavirus-state-restrictions.html

Looking at the different regulations within each state, there are some states that are completely reopened and then others where they still have some strict procedures in place such as curfews. Every single person is entitled to feel how they do navigating this unprecedented time and their voices get to shape what will happen next.

Although these two stuck out to me most, it is incredible how the eight values of free expression really resonate with so many social issues in America.