Technology, the Human Relationship with It

 Blog #11

Technology, the Human Relationship with It

The Perfect Balance

Everyone knows that technology can provide countless benefits to our daily lives, but
does this mean that it is always beneficial to us? No. While yes, anyone can learn anything at a click of a button, with the swiftness of a Google Search, or reading an important text, there are many negative effects of today's technology consumption. These negative effects mostly surround psychological effects, physical health effects, and in children growing up in such a high technological era. 

Psychological Effects

Such a rapid increase of technology presence in our daily tasks has created an increase of isolation and depression and anxiety in today's society. Young adults that classify themselves as frequently using social media are three times more likely to report feelings of social isolation than those that do not use it frequently. This is a "tool" that is supposed to bring people closer together and create a thriving online community, however, it actually just leads to feeling like you are missing out on experiences and that other people have it better than you, even though nothing on social media shows the full story. Social media has also had mixed effects on feelings of depression and anxiety. Those that have a truly supportive community on these platforms have been able to show reduced levels of depression and anxiety, however, without that truly supportive relationship, the opposite tends to occur. 

Physical Health Effects

Using technology at the levels many of us do in today's world can have major physical health effects as well. Some of these including eyestrain, not effectively using the 20-20-20 Rule, poor posture, sleep problems, and a reduction in physical activity. Our eyes were not developed to be spending the majority of hours in our day staring at blue lit screens and not experiencing outdoors or sunlight and looking at naturally occurring objects/light. Use of the 20-20-20 Rule can help to minimize the effects of eyestrain. This means for every 20 minutes of screen time, a person should spend 20 seconds looking at something that is not a screen, at least 20 feet away from where they are. 

Our posture suffers when we sit at a desk all day every day staring at a computer, but it suffers even more
from texting. When we text, we develop "text neck" from the angle we have to look down at in order to effectively see our phone screens. This has deeply negative effects on our posture and the way we carry ourselves. Bringing blue light back, blue light has highly negative effects on our ability to sleep at night. It interferes with our circadian rhythms and does not allow our bodies to effectively follow the ability to "rise and fall" with the sun. Being on screens and sitting down all day every day also leads to negative effects on our levels of physical activity. A reduction in physical activity below recommended standards can be detrimental to our health, leading to obesity, cardiovascular disease, and premature death. 

Is it All that Bad?

Sure, I have just talked endlessly about the detriments of technological use, but that doesn't mean it's all bad. I think society just has not acknowledged the idea of "everything is good in moderation" in relation to the use of technology in our lives. Social media is great, as someone who is about to go to England for a year to earn a Master's Degree, I will be using social media to see what is going on in the lives of my friends, but I am not going to be living through social media. There were days in the beginning of my HPU career that my friends would make plans to go somewhere, such as the Greensboro Arboretum, for the sole purpose of taking pictures to post on their Instagrams. This is something I found extremely embarrassing and I walked around with one of my other friends experiencing the nature and beauty around  me in this wonderful location. 

My Personal Technology Philosophy 

Technology helps me in a multitude of ways daily, I mean I wouldn't be able to make
this blog post without it. However, life cannot run off of it. Being outdoors, interacting with people in person, and looking around you at something that is not a screen is essential to living a happy and healthy life. I run every single day, are there times I would rather sit and scroll through social media than run at least one mile? Sure, but does that mean I give in? No, because I know I need to put the phone down, get outside, and get moving. I don't look at social media, see what people are posting, and think I am missing out on life, I think about how happy I am for my friends to be having experiences they want to share with the world. 

Screen time. My iPhone tells me every single week what my week's average screen time was. This is something I take very seriously. I try to keep my average within the three-hour range. While is this probably still a bit higher than I wish I committed myself to, this is still a far better average than many of my peers. Average screen time of 12 plus among my age group seems to be quite frequent, which I find terrifying. 

I seek to use technology as a tool and utilize it as needed rather than rely on it for day-to-day tasks. Especially when it comes to being around others, I do my best to live in the moment and not use technology. I want to take my time with others to connect with them in person. I try to ensure my online footprint is a scrapbook of my favorite moments, I also make sure that the things I post will not diminish my future as a professional. 

The Spiral of Silence-Is it Ruining Democracy?

 Blog #10

The Spiral of Silence-Is it Ruining Democracy?

Spiral of Silence?

The spiral of silence is a concept of the unintentional silencing of differing opinions. This means that
when people believe or know that those around them will not agree with their opinion. This effect can be amplified when it comes to political opinions, if someone that holds one political ideology is surrounded by a group with a different political ideology, they will tend to stay quite, in other words, they buy into the spiral of silence.

This Effects Democracy?

Of course this effects democracy. For democracies to not only to thrive, but also to simply survive, citizens must share their view points with one another in order to merge and share public opinion. When people share differing opinions it forces the other to think more deeply and critically about their own opinions. Regardless of whether or not this changes either party's opinion, they have now been forced to think more critically about why they have the opinion or ideology they do, and they had to defend it. 

The social demand to conform is one of the heaviest societal weights. This stems directly from the fear of rejection. However, without dissent of opinion, the marketplace of ideas in which democracy lives on, ceases to exist. Without various ideas being shared, there is no marketplace for these ideas, without the marketplace, people lose the ability to learn from differing viewpoints which forces out the ability to effectively engage with the democratic system. 

Increase in the Spiral of Silence

Everyone talks about the pros and cons to social media and its effects on today's society. This will discuss negatives. Sure, social media has made younger people more engaged with political issues on their social media accounts and has made news more accessible to younger generations that do not watch the news via television or streaming, but this does not make it automatically beneficial. Social media is just another space in which people succumb to the notion of the spiral of silence. Whatever opinion is more widespread on a social media platform first will become the prevailing opinion that is shared. Many will log onto one of their social media accounts such as Instagram, go to the "story" feature and see the same graphic about a certain news topic posted over, and over, and over, and over, and so forth, again, and agin, and again. When a person sees something like that, if they do not agree with the opinion shared, they will not speak out. This is just another channel for the spiral of silence to grow in our society.

Breaking the Spiral

Stop self-censorship. This is easier said than done, however, the spiral cannot be broken without a
reduction in self-censorship. When an individual stands up for what they believe in when it opposes the consensus in whatever forum this takes place in, it helps others that agree with them to feel safe to speak their own minds as well. In addition to simply speaking up, making this easier to do would be to encourage our society to change its perception on when people speak out on their opinions. 

A.I., What is Too Intelligent?

 Blog #9

A.I., What is Too Intelligent?

What is A.I.?

Well, first and foremost, A.I. stands for Artificial Intelligence. A.I. is was allows digital devices to learn,
write, create, analyze, and more, the important part to note is that all of the things A.I. allows these devices to do are human tasks these devices were not previously able to achieve due to having the ability of artificial thought. A.I. has the capabilities to be applied to speech recognition, customer service, computer vision, recommendations engines, supply chain, automated stock trading, and weather forecasting. 

Privacy?

A.I. is able to do just about anything it seems nowadays. This includes major invasions of human privacy. In the documentary produced by Frontline Shoshana Zuboff states "we thought we were using social media, we didn't know social media was using us. We thought we were searching Google, we didn't know Google was searching us." These technology companies own the right to everything we search, everything we post, and everything we do online. Even the creators of Google believed that any sort of advertising would ruin the integrity of search engines. The dot com crash hit, they were pressured by their investors to produce a profit, according to Frontline this is when they tapped into the data mines of their users and began to be able to predict our every action based on our past actions. 

It has gotten to the point that Shoshana Zuboff discussed that cues in the online environment can change
the behaviors of humans, not only can they do this, but it is possible for it to be done without user knowledge of the influence.Smart speakers such as Google Home or Alexa products are intelligent to the point that in listening to your voice it can determine if you are depressed, sick, manic, or any other feeling you could exhibit. These means the technology these people invite into their homes, their kitchens, even their bedrooms and bathrooms, are tracking everything about the user. 

Lack of Economic Stability

As discussed in my previous post "The Printing Press and How it Changed the World," people have blamed technology for taking jobs away from humans for 600 years, however, with A.I. there is a chance all rudimentary workers could be eliminated. This change has already been seen in industries like fast food, a lack of cashiers in our fast food restaurants means that teenagers and low-skilled workers are having their opportunities to enter the workforce removed. A.I. is not going to make a mistake on an order and is not going to have to be paid by the hour, making a more efficient and cheaper labor force than people, but this leaves these people with what?

As middle and lower classes have their opportunities to make a living stripped from them, what happens to them? What happens to the global economy? If the world find itself lacking any sort of low skill job, where do people go to enter the workforce for the first time? Without these avenues to personal revenue generation, how does the global economy survive? It doesn't.

Societal Implications

While A.I. is making daily tasks easier, helping automate rudimentary tasks, and furthering out
technological capabilities, not all of these are necessarily benefits to society. If A.I. were to replace humans in a variety of low-skill or entry-level jobs there will be many negative rippling effects that will cascade through society. It will be incredibly difficult to get a job without being highly specialized in a particular skill that cannot be accomplished by technology. Generally speaking, natural tends to be better, products created by A.I. cannot physically be "natural," which could also have a rippling effect on society. Increasing prevalence of A.I. also reduces human closeness as it will continue to reduce the need for face-to-face interaction.

A.I. will be able to bring benefits to many technological and medical fields. It is in no way all bad. However, there are certain things A.I. is being used for, mainly its uses for replacing the need for humans in society, that will not benefit mankind as a whole. It is important for societies to understand the good and bad places for A.I. to be used and not take the idea and importance of human capital for granted. 

News Deserts, What's Going on Here?

Blog #8

News Deserts, What's Going on Here?

What is a News Desert?

It is no secret that news today is not what it once was, but there is an even more recent phenomena than simply the news becoming less reliable. A news desert is a neighborhood or community that is not reached by vital communications. Essentially, these communities have little to no news coverage of their geographic location. These can have a spiraling effect on society, when a group of people are unable to get reliable, current, and relevant news, the grassroots of democracy are not upheld. 

Major Causes and Effects

One of the strongest forms of local news from the beginning of the United States was always the newspaper. However, in today's technological age, the newspaper is dying. With people using the internet far more than print media to get their news, small, local newspapers cannot survive. As people read the newspaper less and less frequently, these newspapers that already had smaller consumer bases are unable to raise enough sales to continue to be financially viable. 

When American people are unable to rely on up-to-date and accurate news, the rest of the country then
suffers. News deserts lead to an uninformed voter base, without people making informed decisions when voting, the country as a whole suffers. While uniformed voters are not beneficial to our democracy, the other issue with a lack of information is that it will keep people away from the polls as well, continuing the decline in voter participation that has been seen in recent years, especially at the local level. 

News deserts overwhelmingly affect minority and low income communities at a much higher rate than affluent communities. One of the major issues correlated with this is that people tend to trust their local news at a much higher rate than national news. These communities are no longer being served by local newspapers or local news stations. A lack of access to local news creates a lack of knowledge on local issues and disconnects the people of said local community from the important things effecting both their neighbors and themselves. 

While communities mainly comprised of minorities or low income individuals do tend to be affected at a
higher rate than others, major cities and communities have been affected as well. Tampa, for instance no longer is served by a daily local newspaper. Tampa is a major metropolitan area, while they do still have access to multiple local news channels, the lack of any sort of print news has large implications for the shrinking of print media. If a city as large and populous as Tampa cannot support print news, the medium does not seem to have a bright future.

Not only does the lack of local news access affect the community, but it also has reduced the job scape for journalists greatly. While in the 1990s newsroom employment was practically at its peak, today that staffing has been cut practically in half with print advertising revenues hitting record lows. Local newspapers shutting their doors is also happening with independent newspapers at a far higher rate than those that are not independent. Of all daily local newspapers in the U.S., two thirds of them are owned by the largest 25 newspaper chains. 

Can We Fix News Deserts?

Not to be a pessimist, but odds are we probably will not be able to fix news deserts. The local newspaper has a very low chance at being able to make a comeback, especially independent newspapers. The odds that an independent local newspaper would be able to start up in a community and turn a profit in our current digital age is extremely low. This is why we have seen an average decrease in two local newspapers per week since 2004. This has not stopped both for-profit and non-profit organizations from attempting to develop sustainable economic and journalistic plans for local news organizations to once again thrive no matter the format (print, digital, broadcast, etc.).

While I may not think we can save local newspapers, there is a possibility we can reduce news deserts in another way. People that value local news and informing the public are giving hope to those communities without local news. Some of these cities have leaders that still believe in local news access, these leaders are putting in research efforts to understand how to effectively reach their community and make local news sources viable again. People have developed nonprofit digital platforms for local news. 

With the death of print media, which is being rapidly followed by a decrease in cable television viewership, it seems that digital/online platforms are the only viable way to reach people with local news. However, this is not necessarily ideal either, being a nonprofit makes it difficult for the hiring of skill journalists, being a digital source if people are not searching for local news online, they won't find these pages, unlike with newspapers where people knew about their local paper and paid to be on the delivery list. 

Overall, local news is just as important as national news. It is essential to be able to reach the people of your community about YOUR community's issues. Keeping people informed and educated about what is directly effecting them due to where they live is essential for democracy to thrive. Without voters, and especially without informed voters our neighborhoods suffer when unqualified candidates, or candidates that do not align with the values of the community win elections. Finding a way to maintain communication of local news to the people of every community is something we should focus on, we should make an effort to stop the creation of new news deserts and to reduce the number we already have.

Privacy - Can it Ever be Achieved Again?

 Blog #7

Privacy - Can it Ever be Achieved Again?

Permanency 

The internet. We are always told that anything we ever out on the internet is there forever, even after it is
deleted, this is true. In today's digital world, even if we elect to not create a digital footprint for ourselves (such as having social media accounts or posting information about ourselves on the Internet through any capacity) our digital footprint WILL still exist. Due to Facial Recognition software, simply walking down the street creates a digital footprint for ourselves. Images are not our only digital footprint, our credit scores, our Wikipedia searches, Yelp, among many other websites and digital holdings also make up our footprint. We are tracked almost entirely on all action we take online, these actions can be sold and studied to and by different organizations. Without giving up use of the internet, avoiding every public camera (effectively becoming a hermit), and only using cash (not having a bank account or credit card at all), we will always be monitored via digital footprints. 

The softwares being used in our U.S. cities are also wildly advanced in their ability to track us, our movements, and our locations, also what we do and don't do based upon those travels. These are considered to be NSA level technologies, however, they are now used in local communities. A major form of this is automatic license plate readers, seemingly used to ensure the ability of tracking cars of those that are believed to have done a wrongdoing, such as someone with a warrant out for their arrest, however, we increasingly see these used to track people that are not wanted. Anyone can get placed on a watchlist based on their habits and places they frequent, regardless of if they actually express suspicious behaviors. 

By simply carrying our cell phones with us, we are being tracked. The constant pinging of cell phone
towers means that when we have our cell phones on us, our movements around a city are tracked. Our whereabouts can always be looked back upon. While this can be helpful in locating criminals, there is not reason police should be able to continuously do this for people they do not like the habits of. You can have habits that a certain segment of the population does not approve of, that is the freedom granted to the American people, with that freedom you should not fear your every movement is being constantly monitored without a reasonable explanation behind why you are being monitored.

Tower pinging is not the only way the government engages in these behaviors. Phone companies also allow for wire tapping. While this was once a very rudimentary technology where individual wires were tapped and monitored by a person sitting and listening to their phone line manually, there are now technologies that allow for the recording of any phone call ever made, no human needed. This means that we must go about our days assuming that every phone call we ever take, is being recorded and could be listened back to at any point. While you may not think it is a big deal because you're a good person and aren't up to any illegal activities, it is still unsettling to know that every phone conversation you have ever had may be sitting scattered across various databases. It's also does not have to be your government, but could be another government, or even a random hacker from anywhere in the world. 

Avoidance

So now you may think, what I can't even own a cell phone? Well, there are ways around the tracking and
surveillance the government uses on us. Between wire tapping and tower pinging this may not seem possible, but it is. in the early 2010s, Silicon Valley companies did invest a significant amount into building encryption technologies into their products. These systems are not foolproof, however, they do make it more difficult for hackers to be able to monitor individuals.

This means that encryption must be a main priority of these types of companies. Without encryption tools active on our technologies that we use daily, we are vulnerable to make type of surveillance attack, whether it be from government, an independent hacker, or any other monitoring agency. An encryption tool that is easily used and readily available in a variety of forms is a VPN. A VPN is a Virtual Private Network, whatever technology it is active on, it creates a connection to a remote server, it could show your online movements as being in Europe while you sit in your bed in North Carolina. It encrypts all of your personal data, blocks your IP address, and allows for the sidestepping of firewalls, creating a more secure online environment. 

Changes

Legislation can be brought forward to force the police to rid of the data on innocent people that are not
suspects of any crime. This would force police to have true and justifiable reason to maintain data storage on any person whom they currently do this. This means, if they are unable to prove that a person is actually suspected of wrongdoing, their data cannot be stored permanently and continuously reviewed by police. While we will still always have a large digital footprint, this does give the American people a bit more of their freedom back, a bit less of overwhelming overwatch of people in their daily lives, performing their daily habits. 

A simple change in our browsing habits can also provide slightly more protection on the tracking of our internet footprints. Cookies. We have all seen the pop-up "Allow All Cookies." Well, what is a cookie is not a delicious desert? Cookies are data pieces that are sent from your technology to the web server when you access a website. We are told cookies customize your browsing experience to improve it, however, it is truly just a way for various companies to monitor our online actions and create a database on each person based on their preferences and habits. Denying cookies can help to give a bit more data protection to our digital footprint. 

Dissent Against War-It Pervades

 Blog #6

Dissent Against War-It Pervades

American Dissent

As discussed in my Blog Post "American Freedoms, But do we Use Them", protecting the
ability of the American people to engage in dissent it essential to our governmental system. Throughout many different phases of our country's history, we have seen our people speak out against any governmental action they disagree with in masses. War is not an exception to this. 

Americans Against War

The anti-war movement truly pervades the entirety of American history, dating back to even the Revolutionary War. History.com speaks to the fact that there is dissent by the English loyalists at this point in U.S. history, next war dissent is seen for the War of 1812 by the Federalist Party, New-Englanders continued to be anti-war when it came to the Mexican-American War as well, the focus of their dissent for this war, however, was more based on morality over economics like the War of 1812. Next, the "copperheads" opposed the Civil War, while there were extremely decisive issues that separated the North and the South, many Americans for moral and economic reasons did not want to go to war against their fellow Americans. 

The need to keep the Gold-Standard, the Gold-Standard, businessman stood against the Spanish-American War so soon after economic bounce-back. 

In 1914, women still couldn't vote, but this didn't mean they were not ready to have their voices heard, they were the main Americans to dissent against World War I, in World War II (due to World War I) American isolationists, an idea used by George Washington, wished for America to bring back this policy. 

In the Korean War we see that the main dissent stemmed from Truman's lack of a formal declaration of war. Next, we saw the most widespread anti-war movement in America-the Vietnam War, which happened to be the only war our country has lost, so the people must have been onto something. Now, the United States has been at war practically since starting the Gulf Wars in 1991, there have been mild protests against various war efforts throughout, but nothing has ever compared to the Vietnam anti-war effort.

Silence the Anti-War Effort

American journalists have major influence upon the opinions of the people. While media today is not what it once was, honest, nonpartisan, and made of straight facts, the American people still often take reports on face value. Especially those that only get their news from one source, will act on whatever information is repeatedly given to them. 

Not only can modern media give skewed views that will influence the political party they side with, but they also can bring vivid imagery of war and anti-war efforts into the American living rooms (Hadyniak, 2015). This great level of influence is the last thing the government wants used against them. This means the government tries to burry anti-war efforts to the best of their ability. This is why obscure websites like antiwar.com and theamericanconservative.com are so essential for Americans to know of/about. When the people are unable to understand that there are others out there that agree with them and are, too, anti-war, they do not end up speaking out. It is essential for the American people to be able to have access to media outlets that do not exist in the pocket of the party they align with and the government. 

Media's True Responsibility 

The media has a responsibility to the people, the mainstream media does not follow through
on this responsibility, especially not during wartime. The American people should not have to go digging on websites that are strange and do not even have an easily navigable layout to be able to get the truth out of the media. 

We often talk about needing to use reliable resources in order to support our arguments, and generally the mainstream media can be included in this "reliable sources" idea, but truly they are not. They push the agenda of the government and the party the align with much more than they push true journalism in today's world. This is why the media does not speak up about anti-war opinions. 

Carrier Pigeons! The New Big Thing!

 Blog Post #5

Carrier Pigeons! The New Big Thing!

Carrier Pigeons Today

So, carrier pigeons may be a mostly-outdated technology in the twenty-first century, however, it is not an entirely obsolete technology in today's world and are still used. In fact, according to an article recently published by The Guardian, a suspected spy pigeon was recently released from authorities in India after being detained for eight months, as Indian authorities believed it was sent from China to commit espionage. While technology has advanced far past the apparent need to use carrier pigeons, they are still seen as a mode of information transportation that is more resistant to information interception and hacking than many of today's modern technologies. 

Historical Importance of the Carrier Pigeon

According to Tess' presentation, the carrier pigeon can be traced back to 3000 BCE in Ancient Egypt. In this era, the pigeons were used to bring major news to people that did not live in the immediate area in which the news was occurring. It is the first time in history we see a mode of communications used in order to increase the speed in the transfer of
information between people. 

The next major historical significance carrier pigeons have is in 1167 AD. This came with the establishment of the Baghdad/Syria Route for the pigeons to travel along. Next, was in 1860 when Paul Julius Reuter used carrier pigeons to transmit the news of changing stock prices from Brussels to Aachen. While this is far different than the down-to-the-second stock ticker that can be instantly found by anyone with internet access, at the time this was essential to investors ability to know how their stocks and companies were performing. In 1897 Australia creates the Great Barrier Pigeongram Service. This service was a complete postal service separate from that of the actual postal service, down to the production and use of stamps in order to send messages via pigeon through the offered service. 

In the twentieth century carrier pigeons were essential to communication transmission, still. While more prevalent in World War I, they were essential to communication efforts in both World Wars. Carrier Pigeons were so essential to the war effort in World War I that we have pigeons that are famous and considered to be war heroes. Pigeons are essential to all kinds of communications in World War I, as well as being essential to the invasion of Normandy in World War II. 

Now carrier pigeons are mainly used for a single police force in India and for some less joyful reasons-prison smuggling. It is amazing that a technology that is truly not even thought of as a technology anymore, was once so integral to communicating at a rapid pace. It is even crazier when you think about the fact that we often get angry when a text takes more than thirty seconds to go through. The importance of carrier pigeons should not be forgotten, it connected a world where doing so was once incredibly difficult and time consuming. From bringing information at what was a rapid pace when they were first in use to becoming war heroes, carrier pigeons are a truly unique and interesting early form of technology.