Sex Ed

Something that really spoke to me in where is invade next is how sex education is taught in France. Something that is not touched upon in America enough is consent. In high shool, we discussed the statutory rape age and how different people deal with it. We never talked about our personal life. I am assuming that part of this is because students would be embarresd talking about it. This is a whole issue in itself. Sex should be an open conversation. This is not stressed in class nor in life enough. How are children supposed to know what consent is and how to be in a healthy relationship. They also had abstinence based health classes at my school in which they wouldn't teach you about contraceptives because if you don't have sex you don't need it. Sex Ed tried to scare us all out of having sex, but it should encourage healthy relationships instead.

Charity for profit

I believe in the idea that people will be more inclined to participate in charitable acts if they have the incentive of a profit behind it. However, I do not believe it is the same act. A person who donates to charity or creates a non-profit must do so for the act of doing the charitable act itself. If a person only did something nice because they wanted something in return, how genuinely nice is the act?

It leaves humans at the corner of a dilemma. Does a human accept the idea of making money off of charity or do they do charity for the act of doing charity. This however is not the criticism that Toms faced. Tom faced a lot of criticism in reguard to the people they donated to. People thought that those who recieved the Toms would become too reliant on others to have shoes. However, I do not think this is the issue. I believe the issue is making a profit from charity.

No Laptop Left Behind

This reading really opened my eyes to the role that technology plays in education. I often think about the new technologies that have come into play in schools. I was friends with some girls who were required to get iPad in high school at the private school they attended. I had always thought this was unnecessary. To some aspect, I feel that requiring certain technologies in the classroom is not always the answer. When the girls at the school were required to get iPads, they were required to do work and learn on iPad. This narrows the scope of study. It creates an environment where the student is told what type of studying is best. I believe that every person studies differently and these differences should be explored and embraced. For example, when I study for a test, I cannot create a study guide on a computer. If I want to retain information, I must write the information down. Many studies show that writing something down by hand increases a person's ability to memorize it significantly.

I also often think about what school must have been like before the internet and Microsoft word. Everything had to be hand written and if a person wanted information, they needed to search through a book. When this was the case, people had an entire extra set of skills that learning in this way required. Now that these steps are no longer necessary, many people have lost those skill sets. To me, this doesn't matter because the skill sets that used to be a necessary are becoming obsolete. However, the people that have access to technology have an unfair advantage over people who do not have access as it pertains to information. The girls at the school who were required to have an iPad had an advantage over me because I didn't have an iPad. They may have not been able to memorize information as well, but they didn't need to because it was all at their fingertips. Even though I do not believe that technology should be pushed upon students, I do believe that every student should have equal access to it. This scenario is almost an impossibility. There will always be people with less access than others, but efforts must be made to secure access to information for everyone. If everyone had access to information, that global awareness would lead to an increase in problem solving and give everyone the opportunity to do so in their own way.

Future of Advertising

Advertising is not what it used to be. Advertising used to be a novelty that we could easily distinguish from the rest of our life. Now, it is all around us. Advertising is, financially, an interesting part of business. Most of the time businesses pay for advertising. This is not the same as paying for new equipment in your business, there is no guarantee that the type of advertising will make a big impact. Advertising is a game of trial and error for small businesses.

Big businesses proved advertising to us from every angle at all times of the day. We cannot escape it. We are hit with so many ads a day, they don't make as huge of an impact on us. This is why advertisers must now catch the attention of the consumer immediately. This can be a difficult task since our attention span has evolved to that of a goldfish.

My sister works in a very modern entity of advertising. She calls it "the future of marketing." She works for a company that specializes in experiential marketing. This is marketing made into an experience. It is almost a cross between event planning and marketing. Her company creates an event or a pop-up kiosk that gives consumers the chance to participate in the ad. It is interactive. This type of marketing holds the attention of the consumer and makes it almost impossible for them to escape because they are literally a part of the ad. The idea is that this form of advertising will encourage talk among consumers. Company marketing events will begin to trend on twitter and everyone will want to come and be a part of the marketing campaign. It is giving the power to the consumers while catching their attention and keeping them engaged.

Black Mirrors Ep. 2

In the second episode of Black Mirrors, they live in a dystopian society in which media is imbedded into their everyday life by force almost. They live in a box that is made up of TV's. They are forced to watch the ads that come on the screen. If they close their eyes a piercing noise plays until their eyes are open again. The most unique part of this society is that they all work at the same place. Their place of work is a room with exercise bikes facing a TV. The people who live in this society must pedal to power the TV's and the shows that are on them.

Some think this is a dystopian view of the future of advertising. I do not agree with this. I think that this society is a metaphor for that way that advertising affects us today. If you think about it, we are slaves of advertising. Like the people in the dystopian society, we cannot escape it. The room of TV's is a metaphor that shows we have no power over advertising being in our life. Even if we try to avoid it, we see logos and hear jingles wherever we go. Ads are always around is an inescapabable. The place of work is a metaphor for how we are buying into consumerism. Our inherent need to buy more and more stuff is what fuels companies ads. It is the very act of buying into the ads that allow the ads themselves to control us. It is a positive feedback loop. The more we see inescapable ads, the more it allows them to control us.

Transmedia vs. Traditional Storytellling

This reading opened my eyes to the endless possibilities that exist through transmedia storytelling. It brings a whole new level to traditional storytelling. In my opinion, this can be a good or bad thing.

                Traditional storytelling gives you a linear story that you either read or hear. This is one dimensional as if you are watching the events in the story take place. Transmedia storytelling gives humans the capability to take a one dimensional story and put a person inside of it. From this point on, the story is no longer linear. The story changes depending on your decisions. It takes a person who feels like they are witnessing the story taking place and places them in the story. The witness becomes a character and the story begins to engage all of the senses. This gives people the power to become one with a story and fully experience it.

On one hand, transmedia storytelling is positive because it engages people more than ever before. On the other hand, transmedia storytelling can be seen as negative because it allows people to rely on everything they are given. With traditional storytelling, listeners and readers were only given a plot. In order to become immersed in the story, one had to use their imagination. People had to imagine what it would be like if they were a character in the story. Transmedia does not require any extra thought. Everything is given to the person. This could damage the way people think and cause people to use their imagination less. 

Transmedia

The reading this week is about transmedia storytelling. Transmedia storytelling is telling a story through the use of many media platforms. Though transmedia storytelling is not always used for marketing, it is an extremely powerful marketing tool. A very recent example of transmedia used in a mass marketing campaign is the film Jurassic World. Jurassic World launched a twitter account a full year before the film came out to begin generating talk of the new film. The producers knew that they would have to create a huge marketing campaign in order to win back fans from an older franchise. They used modern techniques to do so. They took advantage of viral marketing and instead of creating a website that would promote the movie, they created a website to promote Jurassic World, the fictional theme park. The website included park maps, park cameras, current weather on the island, ride wait times, and even how to book a flight to the park. Every detail was addressed and users could easily be tricked into believing it was a real theme park. The website connected to the "official site" of Masrani. This is a fictional corporation that owns Jurassic World. This website includes the company stocks and the option to apply for a job. Both websites also included many videos from YouTube about the building of the park and the owner of Masrani. When the film came out, the fictional company website included a note from the CEO warning of the risks of investing in the company since the recent event (the destruction of the park that is portrayed in the film). The campaign was revolutionary and extremely instrumental in the success of the film. This is a great example of transmedia storytelling in marketing. The creators of Jurassic World used several mediums to not only tell a story, but to create a new world.

This is my badge that I earned for applying for the dinosaur maintenance job.

Something else that is under conspiracy of being a transmedia marketing campaign are the clowns. There have been reports of clowns luring people into the woods and scaring people all over the country. Few of the reports have been verified and many have turned out to be rumors. The rumors have started mainly on Twitter and there have been videos on YouTube of creepy clowns walking around and scaring people. It is not yet verified if these are all elaborate pranks or if all this talk is promoting the remake of Stephen King's "It." If it turns out to be marketing for the movie, this could be and even more successful marketing campaign than Jurassic World.

Vimeo

Vimeo is a video sharing website for professionals. The site highlights artistic expression and videos that clearly take time to create. They are a competitor of YouTube, however, Vimeo is superior in many ways. The layout of the website is very clean and easy to navigate. The home page includes staff picks, documentaries, and animation sections. There is also a slideshow of featured videos on the homepage. Besides the layout, Vimeo has much less advertisements than YouTube and HD Quality of the videos is better on Vimeo.

The user interface and targeted audience is different for the two sites. YouTube targets a large audience of amateur producers. This creates a widely used platform with low quality content. Vimeo, on the other hand, targets professional producers and artists. This creates a less used platform with high quality content. Overall, I prefer Vimeo because it creates a more pleasant experience.

Black Mirrors Ep. 2

This episode of Black Mirrors made me think a lot. The premise of the episode involved something that they called a grain. This is a chip that is implanted into your brain that allows you to record every single one of your memories and watch them at any time. This also gives you the capability to share your memories with others.

The idea of a grain seemed like a good idea to me at first. The chip would help you remember details, settle disputes, and allow you to watch your happiest moments. In reality, the chip is a curse. The episode displayed many instances involving the chip that ended poorly. First, it allows people to over-analyze anything that happens to them by watching it over and over again. This is evident when one of the main characters goes on a job interview and becomes obsessed with the way that the employer speaks to him. Another thing that the chip does is keep our memories exactly as they are. Our brain has the power to alter our memories. This initially seems like a bad thing, however, some memories are too painful to relive so our brain changes them because we cannot handle them as they are. If we had the power to relive these horrible memories, it would change everything. Another aspect of the grain is that other people can watch your memories. This is the worst part. Some memories are yours and only yours. When other people have the power to see what you saw, you can run into problems and people can no longer have secrets. I believe that everyone is allowed to keep secrets.

After watching the presidential debate tonight, I can only imagine if the candidates had a grain and people had access to their memories. It would be good in one aspect because the public would know the truth. At the same time, everyone has memories and decisions they are not proud of. The grain would scare voters because they would be able to see these poor decisions and memories.

Technological Determinism

In Chapter Two of Baym's "Personal Connections in the Digital Age," she talks mainly about the technological theory called technological determinism. This is the idea that technology enters society as an active force of change and we cannot resist it. Through this theory, technology changes us. 

Baym goes over the idea that technology has the ultimate power to change who we are as humans and our society as a whole. She references the idea that technology is making us stupid. This, however, is nothing new. Socrates claimed that introducing the alphabet would make society stupid. In a way, he was right. Since the alphabet has come into play, humans no longer buy into things unless they are written down. Spoken word has lost credibility and our memories have even faded since we no longer rely on them to remember the things we can write down instead. In much the same way, Nick Carr believes that Google has made him stupid. Now that he has the power to look something up and find the result immediately, his attention span has gotten noticeably worse. He claims that he has a hard time reading for long periods of time before he must change what he is doing in the fear of getting bored. 

I do not think that the problem is about technology changing us; I believe it is about how much we rely on the new technology. I believe that humans can resist a new form of technology by not immediately shifting their total reliance to it. This is evident in the alphabet example. If society accepted the new technology of the alphabet and used it in moderation, the technology would not have altered society so much. Instead, society took the alphabet and put all reliance on it. This reliance is what changed society. The same goes for Nick Carr and most of the world that have access to the internet. If our smart phones and the internet were used in moderation, our society might still be able to read for long periods of time or hold an argument without looking up the answer. Society cannot resist the temptation of technology, but worst of all; we cannot resist the temptation of reliance. 

Love Over the Wires

The chapter, "Love Over the Wires," explains a story about a man and woman from different cities that fall in love using the telegraph as their form of communication. In the time of the telegraph, it was unheard of that people would have a long distance relationship. However, now, falling in love without ever seeing eachother has become more and more common.

Meeting a significant other online is becoming one of the main ways that people meet their spouse. This raises the point of what an actual relationship entails. Do people need to have a physical interaction to fall in love?  On one hand, a physical relationship allows people to express emotions real time and a physical way. On the other hand, meeting a person online could allow for an even more meaningful relationship. Without any physical aspect of the relationship, people are able to focus on getting to know eachother on an even deeper level. One could make the argument that more meaningful relationships are built when the couple does not see one another because they are only able to connect on an emotional level. This allows relationship without the distraction of sexuality.

Personal Connections in the Digital Age

In Personal Connections in the Digital Age, Baym brings up many important points about how media is affecting our personal relationships. One of the most important points she brings up, in my opinion is about how media changes humans.

Social media is so evident in our culture and society, it has been able to change the way that people think. It puts instant gratification at our fingertips and throws away the idea of working through a problem or arguing face-to-face to find an answer. The new media takes away our focus and gives us a constant stream of mass information. Our brain doesn't know how to take it all in so it does it in chunks, 140 characters at a time (in the case of Twitter). This, however, is not a new phenomenon. Every time there is a new type of technology, it has changed the way that humans think. Even in the time of Socrates. He warned of the dangers of introducing the alphabet into society. Socrates claimed it would, "create forgetfulness in learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves" (25). This theory has proved to be true. Society trusts written records above all else. Many people now need lists just to get through their day. On the other hand, the alphabet and social media, has allowed humans to expand their capabilities in a way that would not be possible otherwise. For example, this blog post would not be possible without the alphabet and social media. They both give humans the power to share information. Society needs to find a balance when it comes to social media. Humans can harness its power and use it for good, but it cannot be overused or else it is detrimental to our brain. As in most cases, the key to successful technology use is moderation.

The Question Concerning Technology

In, “The Question Concerning Technology,” Heidegger analyses the relationship that people have with technology. He claims that he finally has found what technology is. Heidegger describes two definitions of technology that are able to fit together. One definition states that technology is a means to an end while the other claims that technology is a human activity.

In regard to the first definition, Heidegger believes that technology is used as an instrument for humans. He says, “Technology itself is a contrivance, or, in Latin, an instrumentum” (2). He claims that technology is just machinery that is a resource to humans. When something is made using a type of technology, tools, or equipment, the item that is made or the social need that is served belongs to the technology that created it. A modern example of this is Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word is software that I am currently using to type the draft of this blog post. I am using this technology as a means to the end result of creating a short essay. In this case, technology is a means for an end. However, this definition can be dangerous for humanity. This definition restricts human understanding of technology. Seeing technology as simply a means for an end could lead man to use technology as a resource to fuel his domination over nature. This would eventually lead to mans domination of man. Heidegger does not want his audience to see technology as a way to making, but as a method of revealing. He thinks that technology should be used to “reveal” the truth. For example, a piece of clay has the potential to become a pot. Through molding, the sculptor “reveals” the pot from the clay just as a tree reveals itself from a seed.

 The second definition revolves around the idea of technology as a human activity. When we use technology, we belong to that technology. Facebook for example is a modern technology that was not around during Heidegger’s time. His second definition claims that when a person is using Facebook that person belongs to the activity of using Facebook similar to the way that the essay I am writing belongs to Microsoft Word because it is helping me create it. The second definition is very true today because when people are absorbed in social media and other media outlets, it is difficult for them to stop. This creates a society where we belong to social media. 

Black Mirrors Ep. 1

In the first episode of Black Mirrors, social media and technology play a major role. The episode begins with a video message from a beloved Princess. She has been kidnapped and is being held hostage. In the video, she says that she will be killed unless Prime Minister Michael Callow has sex with a pig on live television. The kidnappers give detailed instructions and a deadline to make it extremely difficult for the act for be forged. At first, Callow wants to keep the video quiet, however the video is already viral on YouTube at this point. This is an example of how anything posted on social media or the internet is permanent in a way. Even if the Prime Minister is able to take down this video from the website, many people have already seen the video, re-posted it, and commented on it. This makes the video permanent in the minds of the people that watch it and permanent on the computers of the people that downloaded it. Technology also plays a large role in the way that the perpetrator made his demands. The kidnapper knew about video technology because his demand was very specific. He demanded that the sex tape use natural light and a roving camera. This made it impossible to create a special effect of the Prime Minister having sex with a pig. Another use of technology that affected the situation involved the news reporter. In order to get more information, she sent naked photos to a man who worked for the Prime Minister. She was able to get more information out of the man in exchange for the photos.

Technology and social media are used very poorly in the episode. The use of technology creates a dystopian society. The characters also fuel this dystopia. The kidnappers gave specific instructions to the Prime Minister telling him not to use any visual trickery. The Prime Minister’s team tried to use special effects anyways and in turn, the Princess had her finger cut off. If they would have followed his specific instructions, the Princess would have kept all of her fingers. If technology was used in a different way, they could have created a utopian society. In the episode, technology is essentially used to bring people together against the Prime Minister and broadcast a dystopian message. This same technology could be used to unite the citizens in support of a good cause.

The Medium is the Message

Marshall McLuhan’s piece, The Medium is the Message, takes on a paradoxical view of media. He brings up the idea that the essence of a message is based on the medium that it is conveyed through. He makes the claim that the medium in itself has an automatic message embedded into it. The medium, at times, can be even more important than the content of the message itself. McLuhan uses many different sources to display his point including references from history, literature, and engineering.

Though McLuhan’s work was published before most modern technological advancements were made, many of his ideas still hold true to the new generation. His claims are even stronger and more applicable to new technology including the internet and smart phones. McLuhan relates the transition between different mediums to the mediums used in laws and governments. At one point, England rejected the idea of print communication and held on to oral and traditional laws. It was this difference in medium that made Matthew Arnold classify the English as a “barbarian” (6). This idea can be related to modern technology. As soon as the internet was invented, it boomed in popularity. After a very short period of time, in America, people without the internet were considered outsiders. Now, there are many new aspects of life that are only able to be completed with the use of the internet. Smart phones had a similar effect on society. As soon as smart phones became wildly popular, people with regular cell phones could not complete many aspects of life that people with smart phones could. It has even become difficult to find a regular cell phone to buy. Smart phones are the most prevalent example that display McLuhan’s point of the medium is the message. Smart phones have altered the way that people think and act. As new apps are invented and popularized, people change the way that they perceive news, events, and social situations. Smart phones give us the ability to have a constant stream of every piece of information. They can also trigger a person’s brain with tempting distractions and pop-ups. This has lead humans to have shorter attention spans. The distractions that we are fed by the internet keep us glued to technology, giving people social anxiety.

Marshall McLuhan is innovative to think about technology in this light. He has made a claim about technology and media that has carried over to modern times and may become timeless. His argument stands today and even though technology is ever-evolving, I believe that his argument will always stand strong.