Week 8

Hey so another interesting week went by. I learned some interesting things on Facebook. I find Mark Zuckerburg's visions interesting. He wants to bring internet to the world. It's really interesting that much of the worlds populations in developing countries still don't have internet access. It's interesting how he wants to tap into this market, I'm guessing so he can influence them through his social media platforms. There is power in numbers and the more people he can get using it than the more powerful he will be. I like that his mind seems flexible to adjust to peoples needs. I learned that he wants to have a Facebook app that is for slower internet connections. This again will open his social media to more people and thus it will increase the value of his company.

I like that Facebook can be used for social media maketing. You can have a page with your company profile. Then you can work on getting followers by liking your page. This helps when you have a product you simply post and your followers automatically know about it.

Another interesting thing I learned is that people have a lower heart rate when using Facebook. This explains why when your having a stressful day it can be very relaxing to browse through Facebook and just waste a bunch of time. Or is it? Perhaps peoples life expectancy will increase as a result of spending large amount of time using Facebook. With lower heart rate maybe we'll have less heart attacks.

It's also interesting that Facebook using increases ones self esteem. This does make sense because you see your best self on Facebook and perhaps you buy into it a little and think better of yourself.

Week 6

        What I found interesting was the thought that there is great accuracy in large crowd predictions. This is interesting to me because in strengthens my beliefs that it's best to get advice from as many people as you can when making an important decision, especially if those people have experience with a particular subject. There is also a caution that I'm sure I need to be aware of. No matter how many people believe that something is true, if it goes against the words of the prophets than they are wrong. What I mean by this is just because lots of people believe something is true that doesn't necessarily make it true. I want to find more crowdsourcing social media resources to find information of what I'm seeking.

        I think that is what makes democrascy so strong and powerful. Becuase for the most part the majority of the people will choose the right thing or the thing that's best. It's scary to think though that there are times when most of the people choose the wrong this and when this happens things go bad fast. This is one of my fears that will take away from the peace and prosperity of the world. I hope that more people choose the good part for a long time to go yet.

        It's also amazing how much we can get done through crowdsourcing. By getting a lot of people working on one task in surely can get done effectively and fast. It's amazing how the internet made this idea so much more valuable and effective than ever before.

        We also spoke about how we are capable of being connected digitally but alone. We can game all day, like friends posts, interact in artificial intelligence but never really talk face to face with another person. This is very interesting and something that I am glad to be aware of.

Week 5

        In class today we watched an interesting video of a man taking pictures with his girlfriend only to spend most of his time uploading his photos and interacting digitally with the social media platforms available. His girlfriend took a picture of him with a camera that printed out a physical photo and gave it to him and walked away. At this time the digital technology malfunctioned and all he was left with was himself and a physical copy of a photo of himself. This story brought up the question: What would I have left without the digital resources available to me today? Pondering this question would make me think that it would suck because so many memories in photos are in hard drives and servers, and digital era makes possible to easily interact with so many more people who are far from me. But I would not be so drastically destroyed as would some people be becasue I don't think I'm as active on social media platforms as many other people are.

        We also watched a TED talk about how our society is using mobile divices and social media as an activity to divert their attention for the purpose of numbing our problems. This becomes a problem because if we as a society keep doing this our problems in life will never get solved. She made the point that we need to walk through the crappy feeling to get rid of the crappy feelings which I think is true. We need to talk about and realize our problems in order to solve them. Problems don't get solved by ignoring them.

        There was also an interesting video that brought the idea that binge watching makes people more social. I do agree with this in a sense that because someone binged watched, they would then know more about that series and then have something more to talk about with someone who also watched it. But I wouldn't agree with that in the way that it's an effective way to build deep and meaningful social connections. Sure it's a superficial way to be social but anything deep and meaningful it is far from.

Week 4

        This week we were able to learn from Paul Wilson who came in to speak with our class. He talked about the Dark Web which I never heard of before. I thought it was what people used to pirate content or pornography or something. But from what I understand it is a part of the web that people can access where everything is anonymous in such a way that it is very difficult or almost impossible to track you. It is not surprising that if this part of the web enables you to do things without leaving a trace that most of its content or users are using it to do illegal things. But what was surprising to me is that the Dark Web can also be used for a good thing. It can be used to open the freedom of speech and get things out to the public that higher authorities are trying to hide from the public because they did something wrong or illegal. I think that this is very important because it would be easy for a big authority to hide their tracks on the surface web because they would be able to just take that content off and find who put it their and punish them. 

        What was also interesting about the class today is how effective and valuable viral videos are. Or not necessarily viral but just well done videos in general are effective in getting your message across. What makes a video go viral? First thing mentioned is that it needs to have novelty or something that nobody has seen before. I can imagine this getting more and more difficult. Second to try to create an emotional response. Third you don't want it to be too long or people will lose interest. I think the smaller the better but it shouldn't be more than 2 minutes I would say. Fourth it should be targeted. You should know who your target is so you can customize the video to them.

        It was a good week of class overall. 

Week 3

        I learned a new way of thinking from reading the first two chapters of the book Everything is 

Miscellaneous. I learned that organizing things in the digital world doesn't work the same as the 

physical world. In the digital world one iten can be in more than one place at the same time. I also 

watched a TED talk that gave the idea that time itself works in a different way in the digital world. 

Time doesn't apply in the digital world the same way as it does in physical world. In the digital world 

you can be all around the world in a given time and you can relive your experiences by uploading 

information and being able to see it again. 

        I also read a TED talk about online videos and crowd acceleration innovation. I thought it was

interesting how he brought the idea that our brains are wired for video, not necessarily for reading. I 

never thought of that before. I don't know if I totally agree with that but I do think that it does have 

some validity. Many people are more visual learners but I think it's also important to learn from 

reading books and I think that reading helps you exercise your bring by having to imagine or make 

sense in you head what is being read. I think that videos are very effective at getting an idea across 

and if I want to be a successful marketer for my business I should learn how to make good videos.  

        I think it's really interesting how our society is evolving from a top down society to a more 

horizontal share of information. I do think that we as a society are still vulnerable to being fed in a 

top down manner but I think that great things and ideas will be shared because we now have access to 

more peoples information and ideas and they can be shared very quickly.  

Some thoughts on the book

Reading the second chapter of Everything is Miscellaneous reads “How we organize our world reflects not only the world but also our interests, our passions, our needs, our dreams”. I never really thought of how our personhood influences the way we organize our lives and our environment but I can see how this can be true. For example upon taking a math class a few semesters ago I made a sheet with all the formulas and things I had to know and memorize in order to do well on the tests. It was great having it all on one piece of paper because I didn’t have to search hard and long to find the answer if I had a question. I did well in the class and was glad I made that sheet of paper to help me organize my thoughts to remember what I had to know. The next semester I took a different math class but it related somewhat to the previous math class. I was tempted to keep the paper to help me just in case but I ended up throwing it away. I somewhat regretted throwing it away what I need handy answers to questions but oh well, I just had to take longer finding the answer to the questions I had. This book helped me realize why I threw away the paper I worked so hard to develop. Because my interests and needs changed. I didn’t totally need that paper because I hoped to find the answers to what I was looking for on google or something. And my interests changed because the math class I was taking didn’t directly reflect what was on the paper. So my interests and needs did change the way I organized that paper at that time.

            
               I also found this point interesting from the book, “Now we know that not everything has 

its place. Everything has its places – the joints at which we choose to bend nature.” I find this 

true because I am frequently in the dilemma of how to organize so many things. I think I have a 

hard time because there is more than one right place for my items or digital information. I hope 

to be a better organizer from being more away of the miscellaneousness of the digital 

information I have.  

First Day of Class

Today in class we watched an interesting TED talk about the possible psychological impacts that social media platforms are having on society. The speaker suggested that social media causes us to hide from each other because when we interact through social media we don't actually express our true selves. She suggested that social media seems to satisfy peoples loneliness but the reality is that we are still ever lonely when we solely interact digitally through social media.

I really like that we talked about the psychological impacts social media is having on society because it begs to ask, “how is social media effecting me?” which I think is a question deserving much attention as we are frequently required to use social media at one time or another. I wonder how vulnerable I am to its negative effects and how well I’m taking advantage of its positive advantages.

What I also find is interesting is that social media is decreasing the amount of time we spend by our selves, doing nothing but just thinking in our own body and mind. I find myself becoming more uncomfortable with being able to be content with meditating on my own. There seems to be an increasing urge to look at my phone to connect to someone digitally or search up some new information. Surely there is good mental health in being content with just yourself.

 We also spoke in class of Facebook’s future and if it is here to stay. Some class members suggested that one reason why teens may not use Facebook as much is because they don’t want to connect with their parents and such. I thought that was an interesting thought and somewhat agree to that.