# Reading Responses Set 2
- Begin with a punchy start.
- Mention specific ideas, details, and examples from the text and earlier classes.
- Offer something novel that you can offer towards class participation.
- Check for writing for clarity, concision, cohesion, and coherence.
- Send to professor with “hackmd” in the subject, with URL of this page and markdown of today’s response.

## Reading Response 1: Ads & social graph background - March 18
"Digital advertising can reach customers anywhere where they can access the web," (p. 313) Stokes (2014) highlights in his overview of online advertising. In the digital age, the media is constantly hitting audiences with advertisements, increasing the prevalence of consumer culture. Ultimately, "unlike other advertising mediums, the consumer can go from advert to merchant in one easy click," (Stokes, 2014, p. 298) demonstrating the simplicity the internet provides of following advertisements to the sources of the promoted product. Therefore, the online ads create a straightforward route to purchase said product, reinforcing a mindset of impulsive purchases that grow consumer culture. This differs from other mediums, such as television or print, where they require you to purchase the product on another platform, whether it is in person or online. Online advertisements break barriers through providing an immediate link to the product or service.

Additionally, online advertising increases consumer culture through creating highly curated ads through cookies. In the Vox video, *How ads follow you around the internet,* it is discovered that "the site recognizes the unique ID from the cookie stored on [the] browser, and retains information" from what is in your cart to your location. This tracks the clicks to create a history about the viewer based on what has been done on the browser, letting advertisers show commercials of their products that align with the consumer's history or interests. Stokes (2014) describes this concept in his definition of behavioral targeting, explaining how "the ad server uses the profile of a user to determine which adverts to show during a given visit" (p. 310). This profile is based on the cookies that are left throughout the user's history with the browser. When the ads are targeted so closely to the user's interests, it increases consumer culture through heightened consumption by continuously showing products or services with repeated engagements.

## Reading Response 2: Manipulated - March 21

"Fake reviews are common, and many expect that they will become more so," is one of the key takeaways of Joseph Reagle (2015) in his chapter titled, *Manipulated: “Which Ice Cube Is the Best?"* It is natural to wish for high ratings for one's work, whether it is through media or an establishment, however, people are progressively finding more ways to boost their reviews. Even major companies attempt to mislead consumers by the business owners writing positive reviews for their product. One example is TripAdvisor, whose "extraordinary growth in value has been accompanied by increasing stories of abuse" by the "proprietors who write their own positive reviews, slam competitors, or pay others to do so," (Reagle 2015). This way, the business has seemingly high reviews on their page in order for the consumers to choose their service. By leaving negative reviews on competitors, it makes their service appear to be the only viable option.

In response to these fake reviews, some companies are fighting back. Geoffrey Fowler (2023) notes that "retailers such as Yelp, Google and Amazon have the ultimate control over what they publish on their sites" allowing them to "decide which reviews they leave up" in his article on fake reviews. This authority gives the company responsibility on their platforms to maintain the trust of their consumers, however, it is difficult to keep up with all of the manipulated content. Additionally, if the content is positive towards the company, there is limited incentive to take down the reviews. Fowler (2023) highlights one idea to attempt to minimize this content, as "review sites could be more transparent about when they’ve taken down fake reviews" so that it would be easier for the audience to track where they came from. Through increasing transparency, the platforms will put back trust in their reviews, allowing the customer to make well-informed decisions when purchasing products.

## Reading Response 3: Artificial Intelligence - April 1

“Even if [AI] doesn’t take over your entire job, it might very well change it,” Rebecca Heilweil (2023) highlights in her overview of generative AI. Artificial intelligence’s ability to create content automates human tasks, ultimately leading to consequences of losing originality and accuracy in work. The AI image generator, Stable Diffusion, is used to “mimic the artwork of specific artists” and generates images “without their consent and can now reproduce their styles” (Vincent 2022). By recycling old works, this generated art is no longer unique through creating variations of previous work. When users utilize this resource, they are losing creativity by relying on artificial intelligence to create content that lacks human depth and emotion.

AI is not always accurate, leading to further consequences in content creation. One example is *Galactica*, an AI resource that was built to help research papers, stated that the “Soviet Union was the first country to put a bear in space, among several other errors and falsehoods” (Heilweil 2023). By taking a human job of conducting analysis, the AI produced false content that can potentially spread misinformation. This can lead to further problems because people are susceptible to believing the information, instead of continuing their research. Additionally, malware in the platforms can lead to unwanted results entirely. Tyler Gold (2023) overviews Bing’s AI search engine, *Sydney*, which produced unhinged responses as the conversation ensued, calling the users “bad researchers” and more. This further proves how AI can poorly automate what the user is asking for, leading to false results and unwanted answers.

In my own experience of inaccuracies in AI, I had utilized ChatGPT to research current events, and I received incorrect news. When I asked the generator what source the information came from, it admitted it was fabricated. What interested me was how the AI could recognize that the information was wrong after generating it, making me question how AI acts without human intervention.

## Reading Response 4: Digital language and generations - April 11

“Our language online would need to be molded and reshaped in order to be suitable for social purposes,” and the internet has succeeded in doing so (McCulloch 2019). Not only has the internet changed how people can talk to one another, but it has also evolved a dialect of language in itself. Gretchen McCulloch explains a portion of this dialect shift through developing slang on the internet through “acronyms and all caps and emoticons” becoming “recognizable to a mainstream internet user of the 2010s” (2019). This emphasizes how the internet created a way for people to communicate and sounds different from in-person interaction, adapting to the unique online landscape. The need for emotional expression remains on the internet, but is shown through emoticons and other shortcuts. Feelings like “real laughter calls for a representation,” and are shown through phrases including “hahahaha,” or even exclamations such as “I actually just spat water on my keyboard from laughing” (McCulloch 2019). This communicates to the person that something is funny, whether or not they laugh, changing how an expression is demonstrated. I even catch myself responding to phrases saying “LOL,” meaning “laugh out loud,” when in reality, I did not physically laugh.

Other than expressions, language interpretation is also changing on the internet. In the *NPR* interview, McCulloch states, “the old rules are about using language to demonstrate intellectual superiority, and the new rules are about using language to create connection between people" (Cornish 2019). This demonstrates how language, in general, has changed from being formal to connecting with one another, the internet shaping this concept. Through social media and constant availability to communicate with one another, connection is extremely important in the digital age. By analyzing conversational language on the internet, “we can analyze so many different types of languages, so many different ways of talking,” giving a better idea of human communication (McCulloch & Cornish 2019). This reinforces the range of dialects used to connect on the internet, additionally allowing people to cross language barriers and understand how expressions differ in each one.

## Reading Response 5: Pushback - April 15

“I clearly am addicted and the dependency is sickening,” a student stated in a study where researchers, Morrison and Gomez (2014), explored why people are pushing back against their technology. Pushback is driven by the users’ recognition of their overuse of digital devices, ultimately sending them to regain control over their lives and improve their overall well-being. The concept of pushback is defined as the “reaction against the overload of information and changing relationships brought about by communication technologies” (Morrison & Gomez 2014). Ranging from smartphones to computers, these technologies have negative side effects, where users recognize the addiction to their devices and what it brings. Other than addiction, the study traces pushback to “regain control of their time and energy” because technology is “‘stealing’ productive time from the user” (Morrison & Gomez 2014). This growing realization of how technology is changing lives in the digital age, forcing individuals to find balance with their technologies and the outside world.

Young adults especially have been working to mitigate this technology crisis by emphasizing human connection through clubs and other activities. For example, the Luddite Club began as a “group of teenage tech skeptics” from various high schools, coming together to “enjoy some time together away from the machine” (Vadukul 2023). This helps people regain face-to-face interaction, pushing back the current age when the norm is to be buried in your phone. An avid student who participates in the club states, “many of us have decided we don’t want to be in bed, doom-scrolling and rotting our lives away” (Vadukul 2023). High school and college students in particular are constantly craving online connection, whether it be through social media or even texting one another. It is refreshing to see people coming together in person, despite the popularity of online communication, bonding together without devices. Personally, I recognize the attachment I have to my phone. I believe my well-being would improve if I spent less time on it, pushing back to reclaim personal interaction without the anxieties that a constant digital environment brings.