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My Relationship with Technology

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My relationship with technology is anything but healthy. Unfortunately this is probably the standard for my generation, even if they don’t want to admit it.  I’m proud to say I’m not always on my phone, however, when I am on it, I’m texting my friends, scrolling through Instagram, viewing Snapchats or TikTok. Nowadays, I use my phone as a saving grace to appear busy or not to feel awkward, like before classes start or if I’m riding up the elevator. I completely understand I could be doing something way better with my time. The sad thing is, with my recognition of my usage and dependency, I would dare say, has only gotten worse as a result of the pandemic.   I don’t want to blame my unhealthy relationship with technology, social media particularly on the pandemic. I’ve been on Instagram since I was in 6th grade. So, I was 11. Now I’m well aware that kids, that age or younger have social media due to there not being social restrictions and if there are you can easily get around that, whi
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AI

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When I think of AI, it scares me. I think of all the sci-fi movies I’ve watched and the books I’ve read. I think of the movie, Wall-E, and the company Buy ‘n’ Large, except for our world, it will be Amazon or a big company from Silicon Valley. This is the popular culture nerd coming out of myself, but when I was watching the documentary, In the Age of AI , it talked about how it would come down to two world leaders, America and China. It also mentioned how it would be big technology companies, like Google, that would change the world… even democracy.  I think some inventions sound cool, but aren’t necessary. For example, like self-driving cars or trucks. I understand the reasoning behind it. I just can’t help but think about how it will take away jobs, like truck drivers or taxi drivers or even food delivery drivers. Additionally, AI taking over certain jobs, like in factories, is taking away jobs. Maybe AI could do the dangerous jobs, but machines have already taken away so many job
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EOTO 2: What I Learned

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For our second EOTO presentations I learned a lot of different theories and their implications. The one that stuck with me the most was the Spiral of Silence, which was presented by Alex Bouvier . The Spiral of Silence was invented by Elisabeth-Noelle Nuemann in 1974. It is the idea of people censoring their opinions in fear of consequences of their words.  A diagram was shared that showed that if the opinion aligns with the public’s opinion overall, individuals are more likely to speak out. As the opinion shifts from the majority, willingness to speak decreases, or spirals down.  The part that really got me is that everyone does it almost subconsciously. This is in part because of the Quasi-Statistical Organ or sixth sense of filtering what we should and shouldn’t say. We don’t want to offend our families, friends, peers, teachers, followers on social media, so we censor ourselves and therefore, train our future selves on how to speak.  Furthermore, the censoring of social media
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[Extra] Cambridge Analytica

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Presentation about Cambridge Analytica Above is the presentation, I'll be giving to share with my class about the Cambridge Analytica Scandal.  Here is the rundown.  What is the Cambridge Analytica Scandal? The Cambridge Analytica firm is a data-analytics firm founded in 2013. The scandal came to the public in 2018, after whistleblower Christopher Wylie told revealed the activities of the company and Facebook to The Guardian and The New York Times .      Facebook admitted to having given Cambridge Analytica over 50 million users' data. This was to create psychological profiles to influence political elections. It was later discovered to be around 87 million users' information.  They were able to harvest data through an external app – a personality quiz. The “thisisyourdigitallife” quiz hired 270,000 people to take it and then went through those people’s friends list to harvest data.   The app was designed by Russian psychology professor at University of Cambridge, Aleksandr
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Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation

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  To explain the Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations theory , I am going to supply the chart, similar to the one we made in class, as well as explain it using my first EOTO: Hulu .  The introduction phase was from 2007 to 2008. This would include the pioneers who consisted of the business executives who invented this streaming platform, plus the consumers who tested the prototype.  After its launch in October of 2008, would be the adoption phase, when the early adopters, also known as the consumers who first used the product. These users would be the ones using the website to watch television shows a few days after they aired with ads.  Next is the tipping point, which would be the creation of Hulu+ in 2010. This would be when the early majority of consumers would start using this service. Hulu+ was the launch of the subscription base service, offering different packages and bundles.  The maturation phase, consisting of the late majority, would be in 2017. I use this point in time for
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EOTO: Five Eyes/ FVEY

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The Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance of countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They have shared beliefs which allow them to maintain their trusting relationship. These beliefs are: democratic values, complimentary national interests, and similar cultures. Began during World War II, of meetings between the United States and the United Kingdom code breakers. It officially started on March the 5th of 1946 via the UKUSA Agreement; a multilateral agreement for joint efforts in signal intelligence. Canada joined in 1948. Australia and New Zealand in 1956. It wasn’t until 2005 that the agreement of alliance was even made public. It then took five additional years (2010) for the UKUSA Agreement to be released and recognized. This is what the treaty strives to achieve as written in 1946, " the parties agree to the exchange of the products of the following operations relating to foreign communications: collection of traffic, acquisition
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Privacy

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  Privacy. Something all humans value, yet we seem to give away without thinking about it. Something I’m guilty of doing too. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll clue you in. The internet. Social media.  Let me lay out the business model of Facebook. This was both discussed in various videos, (which can be found here ) and in class.  Contract of Adhesion - this is when you agree to terms & conditions on the internet or social media platforms. Basically, this is you and the provider entering a contract, where they hold all the power to negotiate.  Data Mining User-generated - you as a user’s info! Think about all the fields you have to complete in order to use or have a service, like Instagram or Gmail. Tracking malware - harmful to your devices.  Deep packet inspection - inspects your information and can potentially block, alert, re-route, or log it. Digital Dossier - a fancy way of saying your digital footprint.  Behavioral Marketing - a form of marketing to target au
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