Final Blog Post- My Relationship with Technology

My relationship with technology started in third grade, and I had to share a phone with my sister. My sister was in fifth grade, and you can imagine how unhappy she was about sharing her new phone with her little sister. My parents got us a phone because they worked a lot and wanted us to have one with our babysitter. I did not know then how much I know now about technology, but if I did, I would not have wanted a phone. Getting a phone changed everything; I thought I was the coolest person ever. I would always show it off to my friends and consistently play games on it. As I grew up and got my phone, I used it for its advantages. Around fifth grade, I started to get involved in different social media platforms. My friends and I would post funny videos and photos of ourselves with no care in the world. When I was that age, we just used it for fun. There was no point in it; it was just something to do. As we got older and social media started to pick up its popularity, so did my use of social media. Now it was all different. We were not posting just for fun but for people to see pictures of your life. Now it was more of a competition of who does what. No one will ever admit it, but there will always be competition between friends on social media today. 

 I used to give in to the temptation of competition. I would always see my friends doing cooler stuff than me; they always looked like they were always having fun. In reality, people post what they think other people will like. My relationship started very shaky because of how insecure I was growing up. Today, I have learned that it does not matter how many followers or likes you have because that is all fake. Those followers are not your real friends, and they are not real likes. I am pleased that I have matured out of that stage in my life, yet most people still think it is a competition. 

I spend more time on technology than I should. Now with apps like TikTok, it is so easy for people to get sucked into the “TikTok world” and never stop scrolling. TikTok is different from any other social media platform. Every video is thirty seconds, and you learn something new in every video. On the video to the left, it shows you how TiKTik creates videos for people. It allows people to learn new things in such a short period, and people love that. You never get bored because it is always something new, and people’s attention span has shortened due to TikTok. Technology is taking too much time; I could be doing much more productive things than watching videos on TikTok. Yet, even though I say and know I should spend more time off the technology, it still pulls me in.

Technology can make you smarter. Undoubtedly, people have gained a lot of intelligence since technology has improved. You can look anything up and get an answer right away. It opens a whole new world of opportunities for people to learn. Millions of different types of information have surfaced because of the internet and technology. Even though we have gained so much from technology, knowing what information is misleading is still challenging. You can take specific steps to ensure a website is reliable, yet people do not know how to do this. If people took the time to find out if the source is reliable, we would have less misleading information on the internet. 

I have a small online footprint since I do not post anything online, and all my social media accounts are private. Even though I say I have a small online print, I do not know because the internet could have a lot more on me. When I look me up, my Linkeln comes up; the rest is my mom and dad. My parents owned a business, so that is why there is so much information about them online. I want to grow my online presence to look for even more professional jobs. I do not want jobs to see my parents and associate me with my parents being successful business owners. I want to make an online presence of professionalism and want to make sure that my LinkedIn always stays at the top, so that is what employers want to see first. The image my online footprint shows is nothing except for my parents.

Lastly, I want to talk about the two videos we watched. The first video is about how technology improves our everyday life, and there are no wrong sides to technology. It predicted a world in which technology would be our savior, save us, comfort us, and solve our problems. It talks about how technology lets us explore the future, which is true. It also discusses ice testing and climate change, a huge problem today. They discuss deserts that make the water fresh from the sea for people to drink, new highways for people to transport more materials, etc. They talk about how they study the ocean and how a hotel could be underwater. Contrasting this to the second video is a very different outlook on technology. This video shows the harmful effects of technology and how it is ruining everyone’s life. It shows how depressed people get and how all people are ‘glued” to their phones with no personal interaction. It shows how people are fake on social media, creating a hierarchy. It shows how technology makes people very lonely because it is like everyone lives in their bubble due to technology. Both of these videos are accurate, and both have truth in them. To me, the world is a balance of both. Technology has pushed the world to learn new things and have a lot more opportunities, but with all good things must come bad things, and we saw this on the wrong side of the Technology video.  

Diffusion of Innovations- Social Media

The Diffusion Theory explains how new ideas, products, or technologies are adopted and spread throughout the targeted population over time. The website describes the different stages people go through when figuring out if they want to adopt or reject an innovation that comes out. This theory explains why a new creation becomes so popular or flops. It shows how innovation gets integrated into society and affects society. The website also shows what the critical elements in diffusion research are. The research starts with innovation, then adopters, then communication channels, time, and finally, a social system.

Social media has been an innovation that keeps getting newer by the year. Hundreds of new social media platforms or anything related to social media come out yearly. It is one of society's most rapidly diffused innovations since the 2000s. I will describe the diffusion of social media through the five stages of the adoption process. First is awareness; in the 2000s, the first social media platforms that came out were SixDegress.com and MySpace. Before the booming of social media in 2004, only early adopters knew what these platforms were. In 2004 the Persuasion of Facebook became a lot more popular. Social media was becoming used more by ordinary people and was being used for talking to friends, showing photos, and learning new information. The decision stage of social media came when people started to use it more. Users began to look at the personal benefits and what they could get from it. People began to take a deeper look into how social media works and what its parameters are. During this stage, users would try to see if they could use social media in their everyday lives and how effective it was. The confirmation stage "is both intrapersonal and interpersonal, confirmation the group has made the right decision." Users want to make the right decision by embracing this innovation.

A lot of people became early adopters of social media for several factors. Some were "it was the new thing," people wanted to interact with friends more, and there was a professional side of social media. People like exciting new things, and social media was a big culture shock. People wanted to be able to look into people's' lives and connect with their friends, even from far away. Professionals saw social media as a great business opportunity to get their information and spread it fast before everyone else. Some reason people adopted late to social media was that the older generation wanted to stay the same. It is known that when an innovation comes out, some people will always want to be the same. Another reason is people did not want to have social media. Some users care enough to be updated on others' lives or to know what people do in their daily lives. Another reason I found was privacy concerns. People have been hesitant about what information to put on any platform because of their digital footprint. Some people do not want their lives spread over the internet or any information being shared about them to other people. There might be some nonadopters to social media, but very few. Some reasons might be lack of internet or lack of technology. Others might want an online presence at all. There could be many reasons one does not have social media, but usually, only in specific cases does that happen

Even though social media has been one of the most altering innovations to society, there are a lot of downsides. Some significant downsides are depression, anxiety, self-esteem, privacy, and data issues. The adverse effects social media has on mental health is tremendous. The suicide rate has significantly increased since social media has been introduced as a norm in today's society. There has been some significant loss of privacy regarding how hackers can get into your social media and find a lot of personal information. Even though social media has a lot of adverse side effects, there are still a lot of positive impacts it has on the world.

In conclusion, the diffusion theory provides helpful information and steps for understanding how social media has spread and impacted society. The diffusion theory helps explain how social media grew so fast and how you can examine any innovation using the steps I described earlier. People need to remember to use social media responsibly so that all adverse side effects do not start happening to their users. 

EOTO #2- Reactions

This EOTO opened my eyes to new terms and concepts I had never heard of. The three most exciting presentations for me were agenda-setting, gate keeping, and citizen journalism. 

 Agenda Setting is the idea that the news media covers the stories we should pay attention to. Agenda setting shapes what the public thinks because it controls what the public sees. There are three types of agenda setting. Public agenda setting is when the public determines the agenda; media agenda setting is when the media determines the agenda; and policy agenda setting is when both public and press influence agendas. These groups diverse agenda-setting to show people what they think is important and relevant, leaving no room for personal opinion. Aside from the media controlling what you see, agenda setting has significant side effects. The media wants to control what you think, even off the news; they can influence you to feel like they do. Some negative association with agenda setting is that it makes some issues seem more important than others. All stories should be equally covered in the media, but this does not happen. Agenda setting strongly holds over what people think, say, and spread. Something else that I researched that goes along with agenda setting is framing. 

Framing is the idea that news media shape the story according to its biases. Framing refers to how the information is presented to the viewers. Media tries to throw all different things at you so that you can think like them. It can also trick you into misleading information, and they can lie as well. The media framing information has a significant impact on how people receive this information. Framing also shapes people's opinions and minds about an issue because, usually, the media only shows one side of the story. The media favors one side and only wants to portray that side to people. Anything type of news you receive can be framed and probably is. Nothing anymore can go without some bias because today. Everyone feels as if they need to pass their own opinions for the information to matter. In reality, all people want is the hard truth, yet some prefer not to know the whole truth. Framing can impact someone's emotions, values, desires, needs, etc. Lastly, framing dramatically affects how people receive, process, and respond to information.

Gatekeeping in regards to media law refers to the process of how platforms, television stations, newspapers, and how they make decisions on whether or not to include specific information or not. These decisions are based on different factors, but ultimately they make the decisions that are going to help them the best. Systems of gatekeeping result in creating hierarchies. Gatekeeping can lead to corruption for those who are trying to get influenced by the media. Gatekeeping can influence political and cultural norms. Even though gatekeeping can be seen as really bad and like the people are being withheld information, it is a crucial function in the media today.

Citizen journalism is when ordinary people create pieces of writing that they are passionate about. Citizen journalism is performed through social media platforms, blogs, podcasts, and online platforms. Citizen journalism is to stand out from the crowd and try to create an impact. Citizen journalism is a response to professional journalism. Citizen journals provide honest opinions and experiences; they can share their voice and say what they want. Since citizen journalism, there have been so many more diverse and "out of the box" pieces that have never been seen before. People write these blog posts only to use them to improve their writing skills and also to help raise awareness of topics they are concerned with. A lot of times, people will talk about issues that mainstream media can not talk about. This gives people a comfortable say in how they feel. There are adverse effects of citizen journalism, like the lack of resources. Citizen journalism is criticized for being biased, incomplete, and not helpful. Another negative factor about citizen journalism is its need for more accountability. They are not held to the same standards as mainstream media journalists. Overall, while citizen journalism is very beneficial for viewers to see different types of media, users of citizen journalism should be careful to ensure they are getting reliable information.