Week 7

     Last night we had a very interesting class. We talked about a topic that I feel I have a lot to say about… pornography. We read a couple articles, which basically all had an agenda leading to the same point: the kids in our society are being exposed to porn at younger and younger ages. For example, my mom is a middle school teacher and she teaches the seventh grade. I could not count the times she has come home in a funk because of the things she hears her students say (mostly pertaining to sex). I remember when I was in middle school, I vaguely knew what sex was (it made babies). I wore basketball shorts to school so I could play harder outside during breaks, I had braces (with springs), I thought boys were gross. These days, middle school girls look older than me, and middle school boys know more than me (not in the academic sense, if you know what I mean). There is even a meme I have seen where it says "me at 13" with some cute, dorky little girl beside a picture that says "13 year olds now"with a girl who looks like she's going out to a club.
     My mom does say that she has some students that still have their innocence about them. So, it is possible to raise your children with some sort of morals. However, with phones it is hard to tell what curious kids are looking at in their rooms all by themselves, or at a sleepover with friends. Sometimes, it is not the parents who are doing something wrong. I think the problem stems from kids being introduced to sex through pornography. They are too immature to realize that what happens in porn is not actually what happens in the real world. Then, when the time comes that they choose to have sex, (which is younger, too) they are strongly disappointed that it was not like what they see on their phones and laptops. Pornography desensitizes these kids so much that nothing in reality will ever live up to their expectations. I believe this causes people to sleep around more (hoping to find someone who resembles the girl/guy in a porno), and have to find something--for lack of a better word--kinkier. This thing could be child pornography or sadism and masochism. I find this such a scary thought.
     I am a religious person, and I do have many of my morals stemming from my beliefs. Setting all of that aside, I still believe that this is a big problem in our society. Children should not be introduced to something that is meant to be special by porn stars on the internet. Parents need to talk to their kids and let them know what sex is and what pornography is, because they are different. Middle school is an age where kid's minds are still being shaped and they should not be shaped by the garbage they see on the internet. To sum up my point, I am going to use an idea that was in one of the articles we discussed. The mom was writing to her son to explain to him that if he wants to watch porn, she cannot stop him. However, she does not want him to base his expectations of his future partner on what he sees because he will never be satisfied. I think this is the approach that has to be taken these days. Children have so much access that we can never completely monitor what they see. Instead, we have to talk to them beforehand and take a preventative approach. In all likelihood, they will see pornography, but it is up to the parents to let their children know the difference.
   

Week 6

This week in class we discussed a topic that I found very interesting: are we missing out on life by being so addicted to social media? This is a topic I have thought about many times before, so I was glad to be able to discuss it with others and get new perspectives on it. Personally, I do not think I am addicted to social media. There are days that I do not check anything all day long. I do enjoy going through my timelines when I have time, and I admit that it is a great way to pass time. However, I think there is a difference between "passing time" and "wasting time." I use social media for only minutes (maybe seconds) at a time sporadically throughout the day. I am not the type of person who knocks out an hour on social media. I believe that is a waste of time. In an hour, I could get a homework assignment done, chat with friends on campus, eat lunch, make it to the gym, and so many other things that I could not accomplish in a few minutes. Those random few minutes are what I dedicate to social media.
    I know there are probably more people unlike me in this sense than there are like me. Many of my friends seem to always be on social media. It is like an addiction. I truly think we are wasting our lives when we spend so much time in an alternate reality. I admit, there are good things that come out of social media and the internet, but there are also really bad things. It all lies in the way we choose to use it. I do not want to miss out on memories with my family in real time. I want to always choose to be present. Real life first, alternate life last. The moment that really sculpted this way of thinking was when I went to a concert of my absolute FAVORITE band. It was one of the most exciting days of my life. My boyfriend, Alex, actually surprised me with tickets for my birthday. When we got to the concert, I of course starting taking pictures. I wanted to remember this special moment for the rest of my life. During the concert, I took a video of a segment of the first few songs. Finally, Alex told me I was missing out on so much so that I could get a good video. From that point on, I put my phone down and just enjoyed. I got so much more out of the real-life experience then I ever could out of a video. To this day, I have never gone back and looked at the videos (although I have travelled down memory lane plenty of times since then). I am so glad I did not waste the life experience. Basically, I think social media can completely overtake our lives if we let it.  We are so afraid of forgetting a memory that we fail to make new ones. I think social media should be used for change and not for escape.

Week 5

     This week in class we discussed what makes something go "viral." We talked a lot about memes, and even looked at some famous ones. We watched YouTube videos with millions of likes. The one question we asked, though, was is it about these videos that makes them go viral? There doesn't seem to be a trend… some are funny, some are sad, some are exciting, and quite frankly, some are stupid. I think the main reason that things go viral is because they have had a "tastemaker" bring attention to them. For example, I used to watch The Soup on E News, and the host pretty much made fun of things that had been posted on the internet over the past week. There were times that I saw a short clips, and then searched them on YouTube so that I could see the rest. So, I'm assuming that has a lot to do with it going viral. You need someone who has a lot of attention to BRING attention to something.
     I was also thinking to myself… what makes certain memes funny to me and others not so much? I came to a conclusion: I like memes that make me realize something about myself that I never really thought about before. I like when I see something and it makes me think "Wow, so I'm not the only one who does this or thinks in this nonsensical way?!"For instance, I saw a meme the other day on Facebook. There was a cat staring directly at the back of a plain couch (very boring) and the meme said "People at modern are museums… 'Interesting piece!'" What is funny to me about that is that although I have never thought much about how uninteresting modern art museums are to me, I completely understood the point of the meme. What makes it even better is that there are so many other people that feel the same way. So, I think that is what makes a meme go viral. Unexpectedness in the sense that it makes you realize something about yourself, while also making you excited that you are not the only one who thinks that way. If a meme makes many people say "OH MY GOSH!!" when they see it, it probably has a decent chance of going viral. People live for unexpectedness.
     I guess we never really know what makes something go viral (if science cannot even figure it out, I definitely can't). However, I think I have a pretty decent theory!

Week 4

     This week in class, we discussed important points out of "Here Comes Everybody" by Clay Shirky. I found some interesting points that I have never given any thought about before. The chapter 3 title pretty much sums it up: Everyone is a Media Outlet. Shirky talks about how professionals are specialized in a field, and the scarcity of the amount of people in that field are what makes them professionals. He described it as "In the same way you do not have to be a professional driver to drive, you no longer have to be a professional publisher to publish." He calls this "mass amateurization." Basically, the internet serves as an outlet for literally anyone to publish (although not necessarily professionally) anything they want to. For example, here I am publishing a blog, yet I have no background experience or specialization in the art of journalism or publishing. So now, you do not have to be a journalism to report or a publisher to publish. This is what makes the internet so full of junk. Millions of people are publishing works on the internet that nobody cares about. On occasion, however, you may come across something worth seeing. This brings us to chapter 4: "Publish, then Filter." Shirky's point here is that everyone is just throwing stuff out onto the internet without a second thought, and most of it is stuff that nobody cares about. So, all this stuff is being published constantly, and then the internet users (us) have to filter through it and decide what is important and what isn't. This is opposite of the traditional way of filtering, then publishing. Just to reiterate, this is the reason for the massive amounts of (for lack of a better word) crap on the internet. Shirky wrote "Surveying [the internet's] vast collection of personal postings, in-joke photographs, and poorly shot video, it's easy to conclude that, while the old world of scarcity may had some disadvantages, it spared us the worst of amateur publishing." I couldn't have said it better.
     Another point that was brought up that I found interesting was the amount of people who have become "famous" for their amateur publishing. For example, anyone can have a YouTube channel, where they can post just about anything they want. Ninety-nine times out of one-hundred, it is garbage. But maybe one of those posts is actually worth watching. It goes viral. Ellen Degeneres sees it and invites him or her on the show. Millions of people watch the show, search the guest on Instagram or Twitter, and follow them. Not that I consider that fame, but it is definitely more famous than I currently am! My favorite, by far, are the people who start working out to become healthier, and all of the sudden they become a fitness instructors and change their Instagram name to "Fitness-(insert name here)," and post photos of them eating healthy foods like avocados and pixilated videos of them doing crunches.
     Anyway, Shirky gave me a  new perspective on the way I look at this "mass amateurization." The word "famous" does not only include musicians, comedians, or actors and actresses. It also includes the "Instafamous" or "Youtube famous" people. I wonder if we will ever get to the point where fame does not mean anything anymore.

Week 2 & week 3

     We read an interesting article called "25 things you might not know about the web on its 25th birthday." There were a couple parts that I found very interesting.. One being "the web has become a memory prosthesis for the world." Not only do I think this is very true, but I also find it a little scary. I find myself relying on the Google for everything from searching how much half of 2/3 a cup is (out of pure laziness; embarrassing, I know), to the Lewis structure of carbonic acid. What scares me is how much I rely on something that truly is it of my control. No, I don't think the Internet is going anywhere, but I suppose one never knows for sure. Another piece of the article I found unsettling: "The web we see is just the tip of the iceberg." I recently heard the term "dark web," and I have an idea of what it is and what goes on there. To think that people do what I previously would have called the "unthinkable" is disturbing. It is almost like there is this completely different world.
     On a brighter note, we discussed how far computers have come. Just 20 years or so ago a computer took up an entire room, and right this second I'm laying in bed on my phone typing this post. It blows my mind! As class was nearing to the end, we were asked to discuss in small groups if we thought the walls that have been broken down by advanced technology (hence, being able to communicate across the world) were a good thing or a bad thing. One cannot deny that this has so many potential positives, such as achieving world peace (dream big). However, every single day I come across some form of cyber bullying, whether it is through a "subtweet," a nasty comment on an Instagram picture, or someone posting something humiliating that someone else has done. It is sad to say, but I think there are far too many cruel people in the world to ever reach and kind of peace. Social media allows these cyber bullies to hide behind their screens and, in a sense, wear a disguise, which makes it easier to say nasty things about others.
     We also read the first three chapters of David Weinberger's book "Everything is Miscellaneous." What I took from the reading is that the digital world really has no order in how it is organized. No particular piece of information is in a particular category, it is all just one big cloud of information labelled "miscellaneous." He calls this organization pattern "the third order of order." I think that is a really neat idea. He is right--there is no one monitoring what is being added (apparently about 7 million new web pages each day) and organizing them into different categories. However, I do like the section where Weinberger talked about the periodic table. Being a science major, I am not used to thinking so abstractly about ideas like "everything is miscellaneous." Weinberger writes "If anything should survive untouched by the third order of order and the rise of the miscellaneous, it ought to be the periodic table of the elements." Now, this was refreshing to hear! I believe that there are some things that just cannot be labelled as miscellaneous… the Periodic Table is literally the basis of life! It is it's own category all by itself. It is the same no matter what search engine you use to find it, which textbook in which you refer, or what classroom that holds a giant poster. It does not change, and it will not change. Like I said, it is the basis for everything!
    One more thing I found interesting in class discussion. We watched a video about multitasking, and afterwards were asked to explain why some of us were on our phones while watching the video. I think a lot of the "multitasking" that goes on is due to the accessibility of communication. During that video, I happened to get a text from a friend about a chemistry fraternity event on campus, and because it was there, I felt I had to respond. It is actually physically painful for me to  know I have a text from someone and resist reading it until after I finish the task at hand. It is so simple to get ahold of people these days that you expect them to have their phone and respond within seconds.  
     Anyway, I'm excited to see what more we'll talk about throughout the rest of the semester, because I seem to already have a lot to say!

Introduction to Pyschology of Social Media

Well, here I am writing my first ever blog post.

After the first class and introduction to what the course "Psychology of Social Media" is all about, I am super excited! First, we actually use social media for our homework, which is awesome. Second, this is not going to be the average course! I have already made a Facebook (which I did not have before) and people who I haven't talked to in years are connecting with me. On top of that, each of us have to use a new "social media" that we haven't used before. I chose Pinterest. I always hear my friends say "I saw it on Pinterest" or claim inspiration for the coolest ideas from Pinterest. I'm not sure yet what it's all about, but the way I look at it you pin your interests (get it, PINTEREST)? So if my homework is zipping through a site that has the hundreds of ideas on things that interest me, then I think I've got it made! I believe this course has a lot of neat perspectives to offer as it relates to social media, and how it is changing the way things work. I don't know how I am going to feel about social media by the end of the semester, but I am going to blog my journey and see where I end up!