“When I conducted my classroom exercise this semester, Black Girls Rock!, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering young women of color, was ranked high on the first page results, showing that there are, indeed , alternatives to the usual search results.” (Noble, page 6)

After reading Noble’s piece, I came across this statement about how she started a nonprofit dedicated to empowering young women of color for her classroom exercise and she found that it ranked highly in search results as opposed to anything vulgar that might rank similar to the search. I think that by this statement she is stating how google tends to rank vulgar URLs high rather than other URLs. By seeing that her page was ranked high, she is stating how it is possible for Google to rank URLs that don’t necessarily have vulgar content and how she was able to see that Google can choose what they want to rank due to our digital democracy. Based off our our clicks, she also goes on to say how sexism and pornography are the most popular values on the internet when it comes to women and it is all due to us voting. This goes to show that it seems as if society are the culprits for vulgarity being so popular on the internet.

 

“Social media use is pathological and leads to (psychological) problems.” (Tiidenberg & other authors, 6)

I completely agree with this theory because I have witnessed it first hand. As someone who suffers with anxiety, I have noticed social media become an entity that could be consuming and cause turmoil within yourself. In a day in age where social media seems to deem a person’s social status and can be the cause of so many friendships breaking up,  I can honestly see how social media can affect a person’s mental state. A friend of mine also suffers with anxiety and she said that she had to delete her instagram account because she found it way too addicting and distracting. A person can be so wrapped up in how many “likes” or “followers” that they have that it can affect how they view themselves as people. Social media can also make it appear as if a person is leading a double life. The way in which someone portrays themselves on Instagram can be completely different than how they really are in the world. I think social media does have a lot of downfalls and can ultimately cause psycholigical problems within a person.

 

Sources: Tiidenberg, Katrin, et al. “‘Im an Addict’ and Other Sensemaking Devices.” Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Social Media & Society – #SMSociety17, 2017

”Documents are integral to the way people think as well as to the social order that they inhabit” (page 5, Gitelman)

I agree with this statement because documents are truly an important asset.  They could be used for information, a depiction of time, and can also influence the way in which people make decisions and form theories. I believe without documents, human life would not be as advanced as it is today. All thanks to documents, we are able to advance in life and learn all kinds of new things. We are able to take a piece of time and freeze it just by writing words onto paper. This quote definitely shows that documents are truly an important part of today’s world even when we live in a digital world.

Sources: Gitelman, Lisa. “Paper Knowledge.” May 2014,

”The electronic letter functions less as a material artifact than as a medium. The handwritten letter carries an elaborate signature of presence, concluding with an author’s signature.” (Nunes, 97)

I totally agree with this statement because I personally feel that a handwritten letter has a certain feel and presence about it as opposed to an email that you may recieve. I feel that a handwritten letter has more substance. When reading a letter that was handwritten, you are able to see the person’s handwriting, which gives you a certain understanding about them. The paper that someone had written on has significance as well because you can tell how long ago it was written. For example, some letters dating back years ago may have crinkles and the pigment may be yellowish. This indicates time. I feel like a handwritten letter may be able to tell more of a story rather than your generic digital email that doesn’t have much substance.

 

Sources: Nunes, Mark. Cyberspaces of Everyday Life. University of Minnesota Press, 2006.

”Some people like all this incompatibility and complication, and say it is the new world we must learn to live in. Others, already hating computers, correctly dread these matters and hope vainly to stop the computer tide.” (Nelson, 14)

I came across this quote and found it interesting because it displays the difference amongst generations. When it comes to the new world, we have devices like iPhones, MACs, tablets, etc. We have all of these little devices that can help make our everyday life easier. For some reason, when we are without it, we can feel like we are missing something or we feel like we are not ourselves without these mini computers at our reach. For example, on Saturday my phone started glitching out and broke before my eyes. Thankfully, I had insurance on the phone and was able to receive a new one in one business day. At that moment, just the thought of not having a phone for a day made me nervous. How was I going to set my alarm for work? How was I going to call my Uber? How am I going to feel safe in an Uber without the ability to call someone if I needed to? It made me realize how dependent we were on these devices and just the thought of life without them would be horrible. After reading the second part of the quote, we have people who hate computers and wish this madness of technology would stop. This reminded me of an older generation who sees the craziness of computers and wonders how the newer generation would survive without their device. The older generations used to travel without a cell phone on their hip and they went through life just fine, if not better! This quote seriously made me reflect on the fact of how computers and technology seriously do shape the world and people of today. However, it may not always be a good thing and the people of the older generation see that.

 

Sources:  Ted Nelson, Literary Machines Part 1

“Users of the Internet represent themselves within it solely through the medium of keystrokes and mouse-clicks, and through this medium they can describe themselves and their physical bodies any way they like; they perform their bodies as text. On the Internet, nobody knows that you’re a dog; it is possible to “computer crossdress” (Stone 84)” (Nakamura 1)

This quote really stood out to me because it made me come to the realization that people really are able to disguise themselves or in essence “be whoever they want” over the internet. The computer can be used as an escape but it can also be dangerous when it comes to those who “computer crossdress”. There have been instances where people who have dangerous intentions hide behind their computer or phones to lure others into a harmful trap. I know it is inevitable when it comes to the internet that people are able to disguise themselves, but there are ways to avoid falling into a “computer cross dresser’s” trap such as staying off of dating sites, or talking to strangers through the internet.

Source: Stone, Allucquere Rosanne. “Will the Real Body Please Stand Up?: Boundary Stories About Virtual Cultures.” Cyberspace: First Steps. Ed. Michael Benedikt. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994.

 

 

”Yet if data are somehow subject to us, we are also subject to data, because Google collects so much information on users’ interests and behaviors, for instance, and the U.S National Security Agency mines fiber-optic transmissions for clues about terrorists.” (Gitelman, 2)

This quote stood out to me because there has been so much controversy surrounding the topic of companies like Google and Facebook aquiring information about their users and most users have no idea that their information is being recorded. I think its great that we have the U.S National Security Agency that can help target terrorists over the internet, however, I find it a little alarming that Facebook and Google can aquire a ton of information about you and use it to their advantage. As I had shared in class, I am starting an e-commerce clothing company and before I was able to move forward with all of the fun and exciting stuff that goes into starting a clothing company, I had to establish my Code of Ethics. A Code of Ethics basically tells the customer of what we plan on doing with their personal information, such as their credit card number, their interests, etc. A big part of my company is to not sell a person’s personal information to other companies for third party soliciting. I find it crazy that yes, data is subject to us, but the fact that we are subject to data and that people can form a paper trail of all the things that we may be interested in as well as our behaviors.

 

Sources: Plantin, Jean-Christophe. “« Raw Data » Is an Oxymoron Lisa Gitelman (Dir.), Cambridge, MIT Press, 2013.” Communication & Langages, vol. 2013, no. 177, 2013, pp. 155–156.

”Models of communication are, then, not merely representations of communication: templates that guide, unavailing or not, concrete processes of human interaction, mass and interpersonal.” (Carey, 25)

I liked this quote because of the message behind it. The meaning that I took away from this quote is that to study communication, you must understand how the models of communication are constructed. When understanding communication, you need to know what goes into the process of creating these models of communication and where the concept originated in. For example, it is possible that the construction of communication came from art, science and  interactions within real life experiences such as the communication between parent to child, advertisers, welfare workers, teachers to their students, etc.  I feel like this quote really helped me understand the model of communication and it allowed me to see how communication can evolve over time.

 

Sources: James Carey, Communication as Culture, second edition, 1991