Final Blog Post: Technology

Technology plays a big role in our lives today. We use it for our social life, for work, for school, for food, for shopping, etc. Technology has had a huge impact in our lives, but has that impact been good or bad? 

For me, I start by looking at my relationship with technology and if it is healthy. Our phones fortunately, and unfortunately, track how much screen time we use. On average, I use around 5 hrs. a day of screen time. That is around what the average time Americans spend on their phone, which is 4.5 hrs. Much of that time is spent on social media. Social media is great for connecting with friends and family, but it is also great at collecting data on us. Every time we post, comment, or search something, data tracking is happening. Think about how much we use Google. If we want to learn about something, we search it on google. If we want to find information on someone, we can google their name and any social media platform they are on or pictures that have been posted of them will appear. This leads me to then ask instead, is technology dangerous? 

Over a year ago Google had a lawsuit filed against them for the data they were collecting and selling. Google had originally been known to protect users data stating that they would "never sell any personal information to third parties' and 'you get to decide how your information is used.'" This of course ended up being a false promise.

"While Google says user information is 'anonymized' and shared with 'just a few partners,' it allows ad-aduction participants to match data they already have from other sources with unique identifiers provided by Google to identify individual users - even those who have taken measures to keep from being tracked," the suit claimed. This is why you might have an ad pop up while you are on google that is about something you are interested in or have been looking at purchasing lately. For example, one time I had been looking up nike shoes to purchase. Later when I went back on my laptop to do research for a school project I had an add pop up about nike shoes. The third parties Google sells our data to use that data to pinpoint ads at us. Again, if you google your name you can probably find pictures, or social media accounts, or anything that has been posted about you will appear on Google. Where is our privacy? You may still wonder how having our information out there would have such a huge impact on us. Let's look at this from a job standpoint. Employers can search and find out all about you, the good and the bad, all from the internet. Anything that you, or someone else has posted about you, or written about you, is forever on the internet, and an online footprint of you is being made. We even use social media or the internet to find out about people. For example, your friend may come to you and tell you about someone they just met. You immediately try to look them up on social media or google their name. Social media and the internet have a lot of information on us. 

I went and googled my name to see what information on me would come up. Every news article on me for basketball came up and my Facebook and instagram pages came up. This is why I am very careful what I post on social media. However, Google is not only using the data they collect to target certain ads on us, but they use it to make them the top search engine, stoping any competition they might have. 

In October of 2020, the department of Justice sues google for violating antitrust laws. The complaint was, "Google has entered into a series of exclusionary agreements that collectively lock up the primary avenues through which users access search engines, and thus the internet, by requiring that Google be set as the present default general search engine on billions of mobile devices and computers worldwide and, in many cases, prohibiting preinstallation of competitor." Google has made it so that they have no competitors. Selling information to third parties has allowed them to gain the spot of being the top search engine, knocking out competitors.

When President Trump was in office, even he tweeted that, "Google and others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and are controlling what we can and cannot see." Google of course is not the only platform that takes our information and manipulates our thinking. 

When President Obama was in office he made a personal appeal to Facebook's chief executive. He's appeal was that Facebook needed to address more the political disinformation on the platform or this disinformation would only grow to get worse. Facebook then responded to this appeal and federal pressure  by, "shifting from its original commitment to being an 'open platform for people and perspectives from across the political spectrum' to a company that routinely curates content."

Even Facebook is choosing what we see on their platform. This leads to the question, is the information we are receiving from these platforms accurate? A lot of fake news is out their due to platforms trying to manipulate our view points. For me personally, I try to do my research and not believe everything that pops up on my feed on any social media platform. We live in a day where our information is being taken, and disinformation is being given to us. This has to make one wonder, is technology a danger to us? Well, with every new technology there comes with it the good and the bad. It all depends on how we use it. Google and social media, as well as many other platforms, can all be beneficial in researching, advertising, and staying in touch with friends and family. There of course is the bad that comes with it such as the disinformation, data tracking, and everyone being able to discover information about us. My take away from all of this, is to not let these platforms control me, but to be careful what I post, search, and read. 

Discover Amazing Benefits

 

The Discover Student Credit Cards are the perfect credit cards for students. You can get the credit card if you have a bad credit score, or even if you have no credit score at all. The goal of the Discover Student Credit card is to help you learn and encourage building a good credit score. There are two credit cards for students that Discover offers that both help in gaining cash back. The first card is Discover it Student Cash Back. Using this card you can earn 5% cash back on certain purchases and unlimited 1% cash back on all purchases. The second student card that Discover offers is Chrome for Students. This card allows you to gain 2% cash back at gas stations and restaurants. 

The card we are going to focus on today, however, is the Discover it Student Cash Back card. I have this credit card, and it has helped me build a good credit score and save money based on where I shop. For example, each month with this card you are given a different place you can earn cash back on. The different places include: Amazon, grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, PayPal, ect. Not only does this card give you incentive to shop at certain places, but at the end of the year Discover will match all of the cash back you have earned! You do not have to spend any extra money, Discover will match any low or high amount you earn that year! Not only are there great benefits for saving money through this card, but it also comes with good security making sure that your credit card number is safe. To start off you have refundable security deposits. Not only are you guaranteed all your money back, but you also get free identity alerts. This allows you to immediately know with no charge if someone is trying to hack your credit card. If you lose your credit card, or simply want a backup, Discover will send you a new one free of charge! Finally, there is 0$ fraud liability. With all of these amazing security features Discover makes for a reliable credit card for starters and even for people who have had a credit card for a long time and are looking to use a different company. 

The main reason the Discover card, though, is so good for new users is due to building a good credit history. Discover reports payments to three main credit bureaus. Why does this stand out? Because a lot of credit cards and debit cards generally do not report payments to bureaus. Why are bureaus important you may wonder? In a article about why credit bureaus matter it states that, "A credit bureau is a company that gathers and stores various types of information about you and your financial accounts and history." Keeping track of this information is what helps in building your credit score. Building good credit is so important in helping aid you for future jobs, loans, qualifying for lowest mortgage rates, and even earring bonuses from your credit card company! Thus, it is important to start building a good credit score as early as possible. Discover even offers an amazing incentive for you to start using their Student credit card. If you refer a friend to using the Discover credit card and they get one, both you and that friend will earn a $50 statement card! Not only that, but you can refer other friends and earn up to $500! The Discover it Student Cash Back card offers so many benefits why wait and order now! I highly recommend this card, and it is so easy to apply for. If you go to Discovers website, it will walk you through questions to apply for the card and once you have completed the questions, Discover gets the credit card to you as soon as possible. Thus, the Discover card is so easy to get, it has become a staple for a college student to have and a way to introduce them to a world of credit. Act fast and start building your credit today!

SEO: Credit Cards, Students, Building Credit, Credit Score, Discover Credit Card, Security, Shopping, Cash back  

Looking Through a Lens

 

My name is Alexa Franklin, and I am currently a sophomore at High Point University. Growing up I always had a passion for telling stories. My parents got me my first camera when I was 7 years old. I would go around with my siblings taking photos and videos of everything we did together. As I grew up, my Dad had a student who went and worked at Warner Bros Studios. When he came back to my hometown in Illinois, he would visit my Dad and tell him stories of working on set in a studio in California. I was interested in the stories he was telling about the production of a movie. From then on, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to work behind the camera creating video content. 

As I went through my high school years my Dad got me a job with his business to start learning how to film and edit videos. I then created video content for his business. While working for him, his business gave me the opportunity to be trained in the basics of Adobe Premier Pro, one of the best editing softwares. I continued to look for opportunities to learn about film and editing. My sister was competing in some track events, and so I contacted someone in the News Gazette in my town to see if I could shadow them while they filmed short shots of the event. They allowed me too, and I learned a lot about important shots to get to make a highlight video for a sporting event. 

I soon decided to expand my knowledge on video editing and production by then attending college at High Point University where I am currently studying media production and entrepreneurship. While at college, I started doing photography. I began teaching myself and doing it on the side of my studies.  My parents got me a EOS 6D camera to use to capture better quality photos. Now with my new camera I have been using it to practice photography as well as videography. I have helped in several student projects and have taken some LinkIn photos for students at my school. I have done some friend photo shoots and graduation pictures. I plan on continuing to expand my knowledge behind the camera as I gain more experience here at HPU.

While at college, I also took a drone certification class. I now have my drone license and have been creating video content and capturing phots with the drones my school provides. One of my drone videos of my schools new arena and conference center was featured on all of High Point University’s social media channels. I also declared my minor in social media marketing in order to get a better understanding of marketing on different social media platforms. After I graduate college I want to take what I have learned and apply it at my own studio. I currently have a domain name called Story Tale Studios. At my studio I want to do both videography and photography. I want to be able to create any kind of video or photo content for either weddings, businesses, or even maybe the movie industry. 

SEO: High Point University, News Gazette, Story Tale Studios, Drones, EOS 6D camera, Videography, Photography 

Blog #10: EOTO Group 1 Propaganda

In EOTO Group 1's presentation, one thing that really stood out to me was the topic of propaganda. Propaganda is defined as "the dissemination of information - facts, arguments, rumors, half-truths, or lies - to influence public opinion." Propaganda has so much power over us, as things like posters, ads, billboards, ect. can all play a part in influencing what we do that we never intended on doing. Thus, propaganda is influencing, and manipulating our decisions making. 

Propaganda was first introduced in 1622. It was introduced in Europe because of the activity of missionaries in the Catholic Church. The term grew and is now used to persuade and manipulate behavior. There is both good and bad propaganda. When we think of bad propaganda, we probably think of posters promoting war, or ads promoting a politician in a bad light. One author wrote, "What if wars could be won by words? Without a missile being fired, propaganda alone could swing the mood of a nation and undermine the actions of its leaders." In this author's article he writes on how reputation of words to express an idea or product eventually gets stuck in our head and ends up persuading us to act. Propaganda like this can cause many arguments between friends and families. Many propaganda, for example, with politicians can be fake news, but many believe it. That is what leads to many controversy between groups of people. We even see propaganda reaching children. Back during the First World War, children were being influenced to believe war to be just. One author wrote, "All the belligerent states made children and teenagers the target of intensive propaganda with the aim of integrating them into the conflict." They did this by inserting their opinions on war with parents, schools, clubs, books, songs, and games in order for it to reach children. Their goal being to convey that war is just and to get children excited, and support war when they reached the age where their opinions matter. This is why fake news and propaganda can be bad. In Group 1's presentation, it was pointed out that Millennials have more knowledge of what is real news and what is fake. However, the younger generation, Gen Z, is being raised on technology. Technology that can be used to persuade them. There is so much propaganda on the internet, and everything is posted on social media whether real or fake news. Our upcoming generation is being fed a lot of options and beliefs and are being persuaded and manipulated into believing a lot of it. For example, your favorite celebrity might post something, and because you are one of their biggest fans, you are going to believe it. The media is now using popularity to manipulate our decision making. Thus, I believe the media is a danger for our new generation. 

Examples of some Good propaganda not meant to harm us, would be posters like Taco Tuesday, or help protect the environment. Posters that promote helpful things or not meant to persuade us on fake news are beneficial to us in persuading and residing us to make good decisions such as not littering. Today, though, with so make propaganda going around, it is hard to distinguish for me what I should and should not believe. It is easy to believe what the news says, but is it true? It is important to recognize that our media today has learned tricks on how to get inside out heads. Thus, it is important to seek out the truth and get several different opinions on a topic. We have to remember, thought, that propaganda is not going away. It is going to be a constant battle that we face everyday. We can't let our media persuade and manipulate us. We have to stand for what we believe, but not be tricked into believing something that isn't true. That is the danger. 

Blog #9: Roger's Diffusion of Innovations Theory on Email

 

Roger's Diffusion of Innovations is a theory used to help us understand how and why new technologies are increasing or decreasing in popularity and use. This theory helps us look into the spread of technology and its affects on us. Using Roger's Diffusion of Innovations theory we see more insight into the use of email. Some don't think email is that popular anymore, but using this theory we get a better view on how email is still one of the most used platforms. In a report done in 2021, we see that there are still over 4 billion active users on email. In this article we see that email has stayed consistent in its growth. In 2020 it had a 4.4% growth, 2021 a 4.3% growth, and in 2022 it has had a 4.3% growth so far. Email is expected in 2023 to have 4.3 billion active users, as in 2019 over half of the world was already using email. Applying Roger'd Diffusion of Innovations theory we see that email continues to grow slowly, as it continues to consistently be used by over half the world still today. 

Roger's Diffusion of Innovations theory has us look into also why a platform such as email is still popular today. Looking at an article on this, we see that email is still used widely around due to first, habit. Email has been around for decades, and people have been used to using email to communicate. Many new platforms like instagram, messenger, iMessage, are still fairly new. Second, is collaboration. To collaborate for either work or business people send emails to collaborate because you send documents, links, and attachments. Third, email has proven to be reliable. Again, email has been around for decades and has proven to be an affective way to communicate. The last 3 reasons email is still popular is due to it being accessible, culturally ingrained, and for its privacy and security. 

Finally, email is also being used by all age ranges. In 2019 it was said that 90% of 15-24 year olds use it, 93.6% of 25-44 year olds use. it, 90.1% of 45-64 year olds use it, and 84.1% of 65 and older use it. Thus, based on these statistics, I believe email will continue to grow and be constantly used across the world. Because it has been here for so long before, and when it first came out we had no other way of electronically communicating, I believe email has become a necessity for us. We are use to always having it since it first came to be in the 1960s. In business, sports, school, careers, government, we depend on email to share ideas, deals, highlights, documents, attachments, bills, news, and so much more. Thus, email is a constant shared necessity that will continue to thrive. 

Blog #8: Whistleblower

 

The U.S. Department of Justice states that "Whistleblowers perform an important service for the public and the Department of Justice when they report evidence of wrongdoing." A prime example of a whistleblower today would be Edward Snowden. Edward Snowden is known for exposing NSA surveillance. In 2013, Edward exposed the existence of "previously classified mass intelligence gathering surveillance programs run by the U.S. National Security agency and the U.K.'s intelligence 

organization, Government Communications Headquarters." This of course did not make our government happy. They charged Snowden with violating the Espionage Act. This lead to Snowden leaving the country and fleeing to Hong Kong and eventually Russia to avoid the charges. However, in 2015 Snowden wanted to return back to the United States, indicating he was wiling to face prison if he was able to return. More than a million people petitioned for him to be pardoned, during the end of President Donald Trump's term, Trump released a "last-minute clemency list, pardoning 73 people," but to many's surprise Snowden was not on that list. Luckily for Snowden, he never went to prison but for a period of time he had to keep quiet. 

Another example of a whistleblower who exposed our government, is Daniel Ellsberg. He exposed United States lies about the Vietnam War. He did this by the help of his 13 year old son and 10 year old daughter. They would photocopy classified documents, eventually leaking these documents out exposing the Pentagon Papers, which was a 70 thousand page top secret history of United States involvement in the Vietnam War. This information shed light on how President after President from 1945 to 1967, knew the war to be unwindable yet, mislead Congress and the public about the war. After this information was leaked, Daniel was put on trial for Espionage. He was at risk for 115 years in prison. Luckily the charges were eventually dropped. Now Daniel is looked back on as "the most dangerous man in America." Later he is quoted that his his only regret through this all was not releasing the documents earlier. 

In both of these examples we see these two whistleblowers charged with espionage. Thus, let's take a quick look at what espionage is. the Espionage Act of 1917 states that it is "intended to prohibit interference with military operations or recruitment, to prevent insubordination in the military, and to prevent the support of United States enemies during wartime." This act that was made, to many felt like it put limits on our first amendment, which gives us the right of freedom of speech. We see the risk that both Snowden and Ellsberg took in speaking up. Many more like Snowden and Ellsberg have spoken up exposing the lies in which our government is telling us. Each time it comes with a risk because of the Espionage Act of 1917. Even with this risk at stake, it is good that we have people willing to step up and expose the wrongdoings in our government, in order to protect us. The affects of whistleblowing on our society today and on different segments of our society have been allowing us justice and protection. I believe whistleblowers are needed and should be protected in order for justice to be served. 

                                                    

Blog #7: Invasion of Privacy

What does privacy mean in the digital age? In a article titled "The Human Right to Privacy in the Digital Age," it states, "Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) protects everyone from arbitrary or unlawful interferences with their 'privacy, family, home or correspondence.'"  We see, though, from whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, that our government has been secretly keeping surveillance on us. In a article about Edward Snowden's case, we see that "in 2013, Snowden revealed the existence of previously classified mass intelligence-gathering surveillance programs run by the U.S. National Security Agency." This of course surprised many Americans who did not know that their data was being collected. 

In my Media Law and Literacy class at High Point University, we watched a couple different TED talks with mainly the same message related to privacy. One of the TED talks explained to us what electronic tattoos are. Just as tattoos shout messages and tell stories so do our posts on, for example, Facebook, twitter, Instagram, even our google searches leave data to be collected that gives the government access and insight into who we are. Another TED talk video informed us on how even license place readers are being used to collect information on who we are. A license place reader does much more than track our speed, it saves our license plate in order to keep track of where we go. The government can at any moment look up detailed information on us simply by looking up our license plate. In another TED talk video we see how even "telephone networks carry calls wired with surveillance." Thus, someone could. be listing in on your phone calls collecting information on you. Even the Amazon Alexa has been known to collect data in the home. It has proven to "collect more data than any other smart assistant." 

What has happened to our First Amendment rights? Where is our protection for people like Edward Snowden who expose our government watching us? Our First Amendment is to protect free speech and protect privacy such as ones own property. This all affects us, friends, family, ect. because if our government is not even upholding a part of the constitution what else are they hiding from us that they are not upholding? How do we know we are safe? Safe to freely speak and to freely browse things like the internet without our every movement being tracked. I think our government should be doing something about American citizens concerns with privacy. I think our data should not be taken unless we give permission. There are some sites that ask permission for data usage, but data is still being collected. I think in order to protect ourselves from invasions of our privacy, we need to be careful what sites we are using, what information we are putting out there on social media. We must accept the fact that whatever we do on an electronic or even simply driving by a license place reader, is data being collected. There are data protection plans put in place that we can take advantage of. However, we live in a new and ever changing world dependent on technology. Technology keeps advancing and we are helping it advance by the collection of our data.