What is this

Reading Time: 2 minutes

For my final project, I decided to revamp my mom’s website for her cat breeding business, Royalist Ragdolls. She breeds purebred Ragdoll cats and they are the absolute cutest! She’s been asking me to fix her website for her so I decided to use the skills acquired in this class to finally get that done.

First I had to click to edit this page. The pictures were already there, and I wanted to edit the page as the kittens in the pictures were no longer available.

Next I wanted to edit the page where I had the parent cats

The pictures all lead to pages that had nothing on them. They also had cats that we weren’t currently using in our program. I fixed both of these things

I had to go to this page first in order to edit Bo’s content

Next I wanted to edit the content page so the background had a picture of past kittens on it. I had to edit the page overlay and change the opacity to do this, which I forgot to take pictures of. But here is the final result

I used the skills I learned from this class to make my website more functional, relevant and interesting! The website is www.royalistragdolls.com

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Do you think Analog tech, such as physical books or film photography, will make a permanent resurgence? Die out? Do you use any analogue technology or processes? Maybe you keep a physical calendar or use paper money. What’s your motivation for that? Is there something the digital world isn’t offering that those analog things do offer? Will we ever exist in a purely digital society (however you’d define that)? 

I loved this weeks reading about physical books vs digital ones/iPads as well as the reading about people who choose to use film photography in today’s digital world. I do think that physical books will always have a place, I don’t think that they will ever die out completely. I love the feeling of holding a physical book in my hands and turning the pages. Feeling the texture of the paper and seeing myself physically working through the book from cover to cover. This experience just cannot be replicated by a kindle or iPad. As far as film cameras go, that is an artistic choice for a lot of people. I’ve taken photography classes and using real film is almost always a project even in basic classes. The end result is a more vintage looking photo, and you get less forgiveness of messing up ISO settings and shutter speed. I don’t think film cameras will ever completely die out, either. I don’t think it’s just the artistic appeal, although that is a big part of it. I think that it also has to do with the fact that it is more satisfying to take a picture that way than with your iPhone. This is the same reason why polaroids still exist- people love the nostalgia, but even when that fades with newer generations, there is something so satisfying about the little photo popping out and developing. That’s something that an iPhone just can’t do. These are things that digital technology doesn’t replace, and it shouldn’t have to. Both mediums should exist, and it’s important to recognize this. Just because we have iPads and Kindles doesn’t mean books have to be obsolete, and the same thing goes for polaroids and film cameras. A lot of people still have record players, with big clunky vinyls sitting around. The people I’ve met who have them say they love the sound which can’t be replicated by newer technology. Things like that are way these older technologies will never go extinct.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I value my privacy but not to the extent that I am super careful about my online presence, social media, online receipts, etc. I don’t want a random stranger to be able to find where I live, but ultimately, I do know that that is possible. I try to not share my address anywhere that is not secure and I don’t give away personal information on online platforms like Facebook or reddit. My social media accounts are all on private after I had an unfortunate event where somebody stole my identity (my instagram pictures) and made a fake OnlyFans to get people to give them their credit card information. Yep, not making this up! After that incident, I decided everything needed to go on private as I was uncomfortable with freaks like that being able to see my pictures.

There are lots of other ways people can get personal information on you. Exam proctoring online is a good example. I think that exam proctoring online is a little extreme. I think since it’s online it shouldn’t be proctored, that’s just ridiculous. I have never had to show a stranger my bedroom, but when I had zoom classes my teachers and classmates would see my living room. I didn’t think it was an invasion of privacy at the time and I still don’t, since you can pick your location.

I don’t think that digital technology takes away too much privacy. I think that people know to an extent what they are signing up for when they use the internet, and using digital platforms is a necessary way to navigate life. At this point, if you don’t have access to the internet you are at a social disadvantage in many ways. The pros definitely outweigh the cons for me.

Overall I think that digital privacy is pretty much nonexistent, and it’s something people should be aware of. However, I don’t think that this is necessarily something that should bother people. I think that the benefits of the internet outweigh the cost of privacy. For things like social media, I definitely recommend keeping your photos private. There are so many ways that can go wrong, as I showed in my example above.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

It is widely understood that very few people read the terms of service before clicking “I Accept” when signing up for new things. A lot of times you are agreeing to more than you would like to simply because you are too lazy to read the terms of service. This was shown in the two social experiments that we watched/listened to this week. People were agreeing to adopt a rescue dog, give away their firstborn, and give them the shirt off their back without even reading it first. I think this could happen to anyone because nobody has time to read the terms of service of anything. The documents are always insanely long. I am unsure if this is done with the intention to make them impossible to read, but nobody wants to read forty pages of legal terms and jargon. I think that terms of service should be made a lot more readable and condensed so it’s more accessible for people to read.. In Medium’s terms of service you are granting them access to royalty free use of anything you post to their site. I could see that going very badly for some people who make money off of their content. TikTok has a similar clause saying they basically own any content you post on their site. It also says you cannot suit them for any trouble you get into when posting content or using their site. They are “held harmless”. I think some people get in trouble when they don’t read the terms of service, and it’s really good practice to read them before agreeing to them. Unfortunately, I am not sure if getting rid of terms of service agreements are possible. I think it’s necessary from a legality standpoint. On the other hand, maybe it would be possible for there to be a key feature thing on the front page that describes the main things that you are agreeing to in simple terms.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Disinformation is running rampant on the Internet today. Disinformation can be satire, but it can also be incredibly dangerous to the reader who is vulnerable to it. When disinformation is spread about a public health crisis it can cause actual negative health outcomes. For example, the various conspiracies being spread on Facebook about the Covid-19 vaccines means less people are likely to get vaccinated. Because less people are getting vaccinated due to this disinformation and the fear tactics used by the people spreading it, more people are going to end up contracting the virus. This is incredibly dangerous information to be spreading around because it can spread so rapidly and so many people will actually believe it. Because this kind of sensational news is so interesting to people, it makes it so it gets a lot of attention. When people are paying more attention to disinformation than actual reputable sources, I think that becomes a major public health and safety problem – especially when it comes to the pandemic. Some people pay way more attention to these articles on Facebook than actual reputable and fact checked sources. It seems like Facebook is having a hard time with controlling these posts and comments. In the first chapter of Reality Lost, the authors talk about how people can create their own little worlds when all they pay attention to is false and sensational claims. When this happens it can be very hard to break free from this vicious cycle where they only listen to false sources. Because they’re in their own world, they can’t see out of it to see that the information they’re consuming is false. Back to Facebook- unfortunately, I think there is not a lot that Facebook can do to stop this fake news from being spread. Short of banning anyone who posts these things, which I’m not sure would be the right move either and would probably fuel the fire of fake news. All in all, I’m not sure how to stop these problems from hurting us as a society, but it’s good to spread awareness and report false articles whenever possible.

Reading Time: < 1 minutes

While I have very limited artistic capabilities when it comes to painting, I chose to do a painting of a spider web with different media and facets of the internet in the gaps of the web. I chose a spider web because I think the way the lines are all interconnected represents the winding and seemingly endless nature of the internet well. To me the gaps between the lines represented the different spaces you can go in the internet, and the lines represent the internet itself and how you can launch yourself from one place to another. I colored in some of the boxes to represent the dark web. By coloring it in it’s representing a kind of hole in the web, where you can get lost or “fall through” which is potentially dangerous. The internet is a vast, expansive place, which I think a spiderweb can also be to a spider. The different patterns and connections seem endless the same way it does in the Internet.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

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Hi everyone!

I enjoyed watching the social network this week. I felt like it was produced very well and gave an accurate depiction of what Mark Zuckerberg was like. While I don’t think he stole the idea from the twins, I do think it was wrong to lead them on saying he would build their website. On top of that, it was gut wrenching to watch what he did to his friend Eduardo. It looked like the fame and money got the best of him and he cut off his only real friend. It was hard to watch that bit.
I made two gifs of my dog. The first one is of her as a puppy, pulling on the leash and wagging her tail. I felt like this could go along with Facebook in its early stages, when Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo were still friends and they were building the site to be used at different colleges. Facebook was in its youth, just like Lani, and they were both really happy. It seemed like that was the happiest we saw Mark the whole movie.

The next gif is Lani looking around and at me when she’s older. I thought this could be representing how Mark was looking around the room and out the window during the deposition. I also thought her more serious face could represent how Mark became even more serious than he was in the beginning of the film after facebook’s success.

Overall I thought the film was exciting and fun to watch. One critique is that Mark was played with a little more emotion than I think he actually has. Of course I do not know him personally.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I have been using the internet even since I was around 5 years old. I remember the old desktop monitors and giant computers we had in our elementary and middle schools. I remember first using the “proper” way to look things up for academic purposes when I was only in elementary school. I never had to struggle searching through a library using the Dewey decimal system to conduct research, every bit of information I needed was always available to me. Of course as I grew up technology became more and more immersed with my every day life. When I was little it was just the desktop, now it’s my phone that I carry with me everywhere and my watch that I wear a lot of the time.

I think that the internet is everything that you can google. If there’s a way you can make a link to it, it’s the internet. I don’t think of the internet as something that takes up physical space. The internet is not tangible to me, it’s not something I can touch. I can easily interact with it, and I even used it to meet my awesome boyfriend (thanks Bumble). But it doesn’t exist in a physical space.

Because the internet is so easily accessible, I find myself not using my brain very much in order to think things through. If I have a question, even if it’s a matter of opinion, I find myself asking the internet. I don’t think that the internet is making us stupider, but I do think it makes us have extra time that we don’t often use wisely. I don’t think the internet has the ability to make us stupid, I think how we use the internet can. If we spend all the extra time we have thanks to technology just scrolling watching bird videos on TikTok then we aren’t doing our neurons any favors. I do think that we can use our technology in beautiful, productive ways, and even when we just use it for entertainment that isn’t a terrible thing.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

This weeks reading addresses how technology is shaping us and how it emerged during the early 2000s. Written in 2002, this is the time where revolutionary advancements were being made in the tech field. For my item I chose an apple iPod. This device allowed you to listen to your music no matter where you were, and was small enough to fit in your pocket.

According to our reading, technology allows us to see space, time, self, and knowledge in different ways. The author was delving into how technology is an entirely different world than real life. He brings up examples of people harassing others over the internet as a way of showing how the “self” can be different. People can give themselves new identities, and be a different person in the context of whatever online format they are participating in at the time. This allows people to be nastier or even nicer than they are in real life. The author also brings up knowledge- the internet gives you access to any information you want. He talks about how when searching for a handmade quilt on Ebay he learns the desirable details of a quilt rather quickly.

For my example, I think the iPod represents how time can be affected by technology. A lot of people who got the iPod early on would use it on commutes, like long walks or bus rides. This little pocket sized device that played your favorite songs was a way to make the time go by faster. It would take your mind off of whatever mundane task you were doing and enhance your experience by playing music.

Technology gives people an entirely new world to dive into. You can be whoever you want to be online, and gain whatever knowledge you want to gain. I think that this has its pros and cons. The device I chose for this week is no longer around today, but the concept still exists as an app on our iPhones. I think while it’s amazing that you can listen to music wherever you want to, it’s also good to pay more attention to your surroundings and appreciate what’s going on around you. That being said, I can’t imagine doing a long drive with no music.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I had a great time reading The Veldt by Ray Bradbury. It was an exciting and thought provoking story about a family in the future. The goal of this story seems to be to forewarn the audience on the potential for technology to take over your life and relationships. It also serves to warn us that technology can be a weapon in the wrong hands, which is stated clearly at the beginning of the tale.
You are introduced to the husband and wife who rely on the house’s technology to do everything for them, including washing the dishes, bathing, combing of hair, etc. It seems like it would be a really nice life, however you realize that it’s causing a significant amount of depression and fostering feelings of worthlessness within the household. Unfortunately it takes a toll on the kids too. Instead of spending time with their parents, they’re conjuring up a digital world in a simulator room that takes your thoughts and lets you create a world with them. The parents get concerned when they realize the kids are constantly calling up violent lions. They decide that the room needs to be shut off for the safety and well being of the family, and also announce that they’re going to be taking a vacation from all of the technology. This upsets the kids tremendously, and the parents end up being manipulated into turning the room back on. When the parents go in to check on the kids, they get locked inside. At the end it seems as though the kids made the lions eat their parents.
I think that this is an interesting reading to start this digital studies class off with because it’s a take on how technology can really damage your lives and relationships. I think that the author was pretty pessimistic in this story, but technology isn’t always a great thing for us. I think almost everyone spends too much time on their devices and it can take away from real life experience. I also think that parents need to be careful how much iPad and TV time their kids get, as it tends to replace the kids having to entertain themselves on their own. I haven’t done any readings on how this is starting to change children’s developments but I’mc certain that there is some sort of impact on them.