Blog Post #10 ~ EOTO Terms & Concepts (llusory Truth Effect)

Illusory Truth Effect

The Illusory Truth Effect is quite the instreaming theory. From a citizen's perspective, it's not a good thing to be honest; it's not good for anyone. However, it does have its advantages, but what is the Illusory Truth Effect? The effect is pretty much believing false information that is spoken upon multiple times until it feels like it's true. For example, if I say coffee is good for you to drink every day for quick and easy energy. The thing is, that is true in some ways, but drinking or taking too much caffeine can be bad for your health, especially the time of the day you take it. Too much coffee can cause sleep disruption, high blood pressure, and weird heart rhythms, making your heart race.

People only hear the good side, and they start to believe it's 100% good for you, but in reality, it's not. The more people hear the lie, the more they begin to believe it. Have you ever heard the term "Don't believe what you see online" or something simpler? That is because what you see and hear can't be taken for granted, especially online. Online is probably the biggest place for misinformation and people stirring the truth. 

Let's look at Twitter/X for example, Twitter is filled with a bunch of people posting misinformation. People see a post and an account that regularly posts information on something and has a bunch of likes, and they believe it. The key thing is to do our research, especially on Twitter. On that platform, it's so easy to spread misinformation that some people even do it on purpose to troll and start drama and propaganda.

A recent drama that I know about is the whole thing with KSI, Logan Pual, and MrBeast collaborating to make a clone and "better" Lunchables called "Lunchly" and then a beloved creator from YouTube who is known by a generation of people, DanTDM, spoke upon something. I don't want to get in the nit and gritty of it, but Logan and others tried to call out Dan, but that didn't go so well... A generation of people came to defend him based on his comment that they shouldn't be advertising a product that could be misleading children. Again, I don't want to get into that topic too deeply, but many people kept correcting them on their product on what they say is true but weren't, and they got "Community Noted" on their posts for that. 

What is Community Notes? Community Notes is a feature on Twitter that adds context to misleading posts that usually have falsified information. This is a very useful feature for anybody involved because anyone can get swayed in the wrong direction in believing a lie to become a false truth. I myself have seen and benefited from community notes (EX: Flappy Bird coming back as a Crypto Scam.), sometimes I even bring up these topics to my parents/family and they either correct me or feel skeptical about what I just mentioned to them. Then I did a little research, and would you know it, what I saw was incorrect. 

Overall, you have to be careful in what you see and hear everywhere and do your research. Be cautious about what narrative is being told before you jump the gun and believe it. Otherwise, people or the media will have you or everyone else believing a story that's not even true or inaccurate.

Blog Post #9 ~ Antiwar Conundrums

Antiwar Conundrums

I gonna say I can't believe these websites have been pretty much shadow-banned. I have never seen these websites before. It's kind of like Twitter, where some media or people are just randomly shadow-banned. When I say shadow-banned, I mean whenever you post or do something, your things won't be publicly shared; only people who check your profile or follow you regularly would know what you're doing or posting. 

I would guess the website variation of shadow-banned is when the website is not easily discoverable through regular searches or is suppressed by someone higher up with the power not to show it. For example, companies that have power over searches like Google, Bing, Edge, and other search engines. Also, the countries could be suppressing the trafficking from the website.

The anti-war websites and topics are interesting because from a citizen's perspective, of course, you wouldn't want to fight a war with a bunch of people dying, soldiers dropping left and right, gory situations, and seeing loved ones being affected by War. You just want to live a peaceful life and with all these rules and laws being passed, especially people being able to be drafted for wars, of course, a lot of citizens don't want wars and fights to happen, it just seems like an overall huge negative. 

Especially when sometimes countries don't learn from when a war happens years later, feels like a lot of situations and issues always come back in the future in some weird way or a roundabout way to come back in society.

Now, from a company perspective and businesses and countries overall, depending on the person in power and a lot of them in the higher-ups, are going to think it is a positive. For companies, they benefit from supply and demand. They buy weapons from the same companies, and those companies are the one that funds the government. The government is also more likely to get more taxes for military spending. Also, the media coverage of wars is also crazy, especially when winning fights. The political parties benefit so much and gain so much from it. It can even drive them into the office or further their campaign. 

There are many scary things when it comes to greed and war; when things get tense, I feel like the peaceful or manageable options always get shadowed away...

Blog Post #8 ~ Diffusion of Innovations

Diffusion of Innovations

The Diffusion Of Innovation theory is a theory that explains the rate of new ideas and how technology spreads. 

When something brand new comes out the reaction from most people are not going to use it immediately; they're going to wait and see how other people respond or how it's going to be used. Take the first computer, for example, in its very early stage. Computers were just blocky, stationary pieces of wire and electricity. A common person is not going to think much about it. One thought they may have might be how can this help us, advance us as a society, and how will it affect me specify. A lot of ifs and how it will really help; that's why you have to keep improving the product and innovating in a way people will care about and can use. 

Once you present the product well enough for people to become interested, some people will try it. Let's look back at personal computers, for example. The reason why they catch on is because personal computers have many features that are useful for increasing productivity. Using programs to conduct searches, calculate numbers and problems, being able to watch/display something, play games, and so much more. Of course, seeing all that is going to want people to have a computer. 

However, there will still be people on the fence. How convenient is this going to be? Will it change my daily life?  How much will this cost? Will this benefit me? Is it really worth it? Many questions that people are going to have. There are also types of people that don't care, think this is too much to gasp, or (Here's the big one!) being too expensive. All of these reasons are what can hurt a product, but realistically, a product is never going to capture every individual, just a huge majority. 

There are also sometimes situations where you know a product is good but people still don't use it or suition where see a bad thing about it. Computers, for example, you have to worry about not getting viruses and be safe in invaginating the internet and downloading programs. You could just say it's stubbornest from those people, but people still just don't see the benefit or reason to use it, even if it has a bunch of upsides. 

Lastly, you have people who can't at all benefit from the products, mainly because they can't afford them or they don't have access to them. Electronic things are pretty expensive; the cheapest good working personal computer pretty much goes for $200-400.

Blog Post #7 ~ EOTO Technology Presentations

EOTO Technology Presentations

Technology That I Learned

At the start of class, I learned about Television and who made the TV's first iteration, Philo T. Farnsworth. It first looked like a camera tube and then was put into those small boxy tv's. Part of it was made in 1927, but the first TV was made with the camera tube in 1929.

When I think about TVs, they still were very boxy for a long time in history; they were small, a bit lighter, and then they got bigger and heavier. They also later started to have more inputs, like VHS, HDMI cables, cable TV, and satellite TV. It took 68+ years until we got flat-screen TVs, and even then, they weren't even that flat, more of a thick rectangle.

Next, I learned from the presentations, were about the Internet; and some things related to it, like emails. I know many countries launch satellites, but I don't think I knew that Russia was the one that started the wave of the internet by sending a satellite into space. And of course, like most inventions in the early days, they were used for military purposes, and I'm pretty sure ever since the internet began to spark there have been many underground and water cables for the internet, especially when the internet was used for military reasons. 

Lastly, what I would like to mention that I learned was about emails and something that adds to the whole grand scheme of the internet. Emails were invented by Ray Tomlinson in 1971 but weren't really used a lot until the late 1990s. Actually, Bill Clinton was the first one to use emails, and he really didn't use them that much. I feel like the reason why emails weren't being used during that era might be because of spam emails. Spam emails weren't a thing until Bill Clinton was president. Another thing to add might be that people didn't have great access to or could buy PC or phones that use email. 

Blog Post #6 ~ Communication Tech Timeline EOTO ~ History of Personal Computers.

Communication Tech Timeline EOTO

Here's my outline for my presentation below: ⬇️

Hey guys, my name is James.

Today, I am going to be talking about the history of personal computers. Now, when we think about 

personal computers, we think about modern ones, but of course, it wasn't always like that. In the early days, around like early 1940s, computers were just a huge box of cords and switches and just stationary; they couldn't really go anywhere like today with computers. They were also loud and would

have a bunch of wheels twisting and turning. The big boxy computers could do calculations, but of course, it would be like sounds or lights to get forms of feedback and to tell what the heck it was doing.

Jumping a little bit forward until around the 1950s, they started to become a little bit smarter and smaller, being calmer and more compact, for example, the ENIAC computing system (1943), and the first computer program to run on a computer around 1948. Most of the computers made during the mid-19s were from universities or university computers. There were also a lot of them being used for military purposes or a special version of that current computer being used for military purposes like radar or translators. All of these computers were being heavily worked on, and just in the span of 10 years, there was a huge accomplishment from IBM (International Business Machines) making the 1401 Mainframe, which replaced all the Vacuum Tube Technology with smaller and more reliable transistors.
These transistors were the first to be used in their series of computers as well, and by the mid-1960s, nearly half of all computers were using IBM 1401.

It doesn't stop there with IBM; they still accomplished a lot, and this leads me to the bigger impacts of computers from the late 19s till modern times.

But before we get to IBM, Apple came along, and with the beloved Steve Jobs, and made the "Apple-I," which is a single-board computer, and then the "Apple-II" was introduced, which was a little bit bigger

but had all these features: a main logic board, switching power supply, a keyboard, case, game paddles, and so much more other little features. Apple was quite an impressive device for personal computers, but when connected to a color TV set, it produced brilliant color graphics. Apple sold millions between 1977 and 1993, making it the longest live personal computer. It was really the next generation of access to personal computers.

However, IBM made a huge impact as well during that time around 1981.

IBM introduced its own personal computer, and it was extremely popular during that time frame. It was the world's most popular personal computer in microprocessing using
certain operating systems and adapting from Microsoft. It was hard for other companies to compete with IBM because the only thing they really had to base on was prices, so there were a bunch of clones out there trying to compete with it.

I'm going to summarize quickly from that period (IBM & Apple) to now because there's so much information in history about personal computers. So, pretty much over the years, it became more innovative and more advanced to the point of getting desktops with that boxy-looking screen and base. Computers have gotten better layouts of

mice, and keyboards, and of course, computers becoming smarter and faster and have more processing power and visuals. Eventually, getting to laptops, but they looked like toy-looking laptops, very blocky. Those also came a long way to becoming smaller, flatter, lighter, and a lot easier to use.

And that's pretty much the brief history or jest of personal computers.

Sources:

1. https://www.britannica.com/technology/personal-computer
2. https://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/computers/
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_personal_computers
4. https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.highpoint.edu/stable/26059463?seq=7
5. https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/invention-of-the-pc

Blog Post #5 ~ Age of AI

Age of AI

AI is a crazy advancement in human history; when people think of AI, now they think of machines, ChatGPT, Siri, Alexa, websites, etc. AI is being used pretty much everywhere nowadays. It does have its pros, but there are still cons.

AI has been used to help in so many ways of searching when you search for something on Google or Edge. You ask something, and it gives you now an AI response and details to help you find what you're looking for or know easily. That is pretty much the same for ChatGPT. However, ChatGPT lets you do more specific things. For example, you could ask it to make up a story for you, that being a book or game, or give you a prompt for story building. The amount of stuff you can ask it to do is endless, and I'll do it for you. 

AI and privacy though can be concerning. The amount of data tracked based on websites you go to, using apps, programs, texting and calling, or even being outside, most of it is being used to train AI to learn and know human behavior. Human behavior of anyone, you, your family, friends, regular citizens out in the world, ANYONE. It's really cool in hindsight, but it brings up the question of what is actually private...

You would say your home or wherever you're staying, but is that really true?  Well no... The weather app has to gather your exact location to get you the right answer and the weather of your area so it'll know if it's going to rain or natural disasters are coming in your direction. Another example is when you're using social media, looking at and liking posts. Then you go to websites like the news, articles, or even Amazon, and it gives you related ads to things you would be interested in based on stuff you looked at and liked.

Now, of course, you can say no to some of these websites and products to not track your data, but they throw so many ways to hook you into having your data tracked. Saying like it'll improve the website performance, give you things you are interested in, or use cookies to distribute things, you know what you have saved or how many people have visited a website. To be honest, it goes on forever...

The best you can really do is just be mindful of things using your data and what's being tracked, and use measurements to help your own safety and realize what's going on around you.

Blog Post #4 ~ Privacy, Online & Offline

Privacy, Online & Offline

The talk of privacy is widespread and frequent, as it should be, because privacy is essential not just for yourself but for everyone else. Nowadays, people are everywhere online, on social media, looking up something, shopping, anything. Have you ever noticed when you search something up, you see advisement or something related about it showing up on a website? That is because these things are being tracked, and "cookies" on websites can also do that. Data is collected through these websites and distributed to others.  

Privacy for me about these issues is concerning, but this is why I don't really post much on social media.  Yeah, it's cool to post something in a while so all your friends or family can see what you're up to, but there's a point where there's too much. I do use it, though, for my hobbies and interests, like YouTube, Discord, and Instagram for friends and others, but for the most part, I just lurk around when it's other social media platforms.

Speaking of Twitter and privacy, there was a point and still going on that the government wants access to "keys" to Twitter, aka personal information from users. Now, I understand why the government wants personal information from a huge social media platform to stop and track certain people, but what about people who aren't doing anything and being good citizens? One to note is they can get information when you're not online by having secret cameras to track people's private lives and everything you're doing. It kind of sucks how bad the government and departments can abuse the power of privacy.

What the government should be doing is helping and regulating these data breaches and helping people who have been accused wrongly under suspicion for just living normal daily lives. This why so many people take privacy into their own hand and try to protect themselves by using VPNs, clearing their data, or using an extension to protect themself. These methods can stop and reduce traffic and crap from being thrown out there so easily.