###### tags: `CDA`
# Reading Responses (Set 2)

**Nov 01 Tue - Finding someone & living alone**
- How has digital communication changed the relational landscape?

“My maternal grandparents met through mutual friends at a summer pool party … Forty years after that, when I met my girlfriend in the summer of 2015, one sophisticated algorithm and two rightward swipes did all the work” (Thompson, 2019). With the accessibility of online dating apps such as Tinder, people feel comfortable approaching individuals they’re interested in online. In a way, this makes perfect sense, considering how dating apps eliminate the uncertainty of whether a person is interested in you or not after matching with that individual. However, the sad truth is that with digital communication, the possibility of finding love, like in previous years, is fading away. Individuals are used to communicating online since this is what advanced technologies have taught people to be more accessible, which can lead to a less romantic story of meeting a partner.

Moreover, digital communication has led people to live in a world full of lies, which can impact future in-person interactions. For instance, studies related to OkCupid users revealed different lies people are likely to tell on this online dating app, including people’s height, age, income, etc. It is accessible for people to lie online since no one can immediately identify these false statements, and although it is unethical, it is the reality we live in. Therefore, it is more than clear how digital communication has changed the relational landscape of individuals in our current society since people feel more comfortable using media to approach individuals. In doing so, they find it easier to lie and make individuals believe claims that aren’t necessarily the absolute reality. Lastly, this can increase anxiety approaching people in real life, which is something everyone is likely to face daily.

**Nov 04 Fri - Ads & social graph background**
- What are the main types of advertisements available online? This will be relevant to our discussions of algorithmic discrimination, online manipulation, and privacy.

Advertisements have always existed to increase sales, improve brand awareness, and raise the share of voice in the marketplace. Naturally, due to our advancing technology, professionals have come up with different types of advertisements online, including Banner adverts, Interstitial banners, pop-ups/ pop-unders, Floating adverts, Wallpaper adverts, and Map adverts to serve advertising objectives better. Each of these different online advertisements can reach its purpose in different ways. Therefore, these examples seek to retain viewers' attention (even for a few seconds) to increase brand awareness, sales, and profit.

Moreover, these types of advertisements can sometimes be toxic and manipulative. For instance, viewers don't typically agree to watch these ads. Most of the time, a user will go to a website to search for either personal or academic information, and an ad will pop up in the corner, trying to catch their attention. Depending on cookies and how much information a company gathers from a user. These ads will manage to reach the interest of that particular user, which means they're likely to "fall into the trap" and purchase the product of that online advertisement. We live in a world where technology has made it accessible for companies to gather users' behavioral data rapidly and efficiently. Therefore, it is no surprise that companies and brands rely on specifically online advertisements to attract new and potential consumers based on the information they have gathered from them. It is scary to realize that as the digital world and technology keep improving and consumers become more engaged in platforms, everyone will likely have less privacy.

**Nov 18 Fri - Algorithmic discrimination**

Applying extensive research and tracking are great ways to predict what users are likely to use the internet for. Similar to the initial baseball story in "Weapons of Math Destruction," because managers know where players have hit the ball in previous situations, they know and are aware of what to expect. They utilize that historical data and analyze it to calculate what moves to make, which will most probably lead them to success. Similarly, this is how algorithms work. After extensive research on users' actions and online behaviors, they determine what will match people's interests, beliefs, needs, and wants.

In addition, it is evident that, as mentioned in "Here's Why Some People Think Google's Results Are Racist," Google uses "cues" to determine what people might be searching for. A large amount of research comes into play that leads to societal biases by the algorithm, and it is due to this factor that search results for users may appear with specific characteristics on their pages. It is interesting to notice how in general, results differ due to this algorithm. After searching similar words on google, such as "beauty," "woman," and "child," it is evident that results differ depending on the user's race. In my situation, my results varied in race, but most of them involved Latin people. Although it may seem logical why Google does this, it could still confuse users and make them think that the company is being racist. Therefore, this level of assumption is definitely one of the negative outcomes algorithms exhibiting biases might cause.

**Dec 02 Fri - Authenticity, work, & influence**

The internet is undoubtedly scary, and it is always important to remember that what is being posted online isn’t always necessarily the truth. Evidently, the way in which influencers make money is by publishing sponsored content, meaning that what they recommend to their fans and how they deliver their message is manipulated by the brand they are promoting (Duffy et al., 2022). Additionally, Lorenz said that “the more sponsors you have, the more credibility you have” (2018). Although I had never thought of it this way, this claim makes perfect sense. Companies need to witness your abilities and past campaign work to hire you and invest in your promoting skills. It is similar to finding a job; when being interviewed, one of the main aspects an interviewer seeks is your past experience. The more experience and abilities you show and possess, the more likely you will obtain that job position. Suppose brands notice that an influencer keeps posting constant ‘sponsored’ content. In that case, the managers will immediately think, “if many brands are paying this individual, this person must be doing something right” therefore, they will be more driven actually to sponsor that person.

Moreover, it is more than evident that social media platforms will keep growing and that Instagram and Snapchat have millions of daily active users. It is valid to mention how due to the alarming expectation of everyone being on social media for 1 hour and 22 minutes every day, it is no surprise that brands are so willing to spend an estimated $5.2 billion on influencer marketing (Lerman, 2020). This leaves us questioning if we can even trust the most credible and vulnerable influencers on the internet since these individuals profit from being on media platforms by being sponsored. Therefore, it is crucial for us, as consumers, to be highly cautious about the information we witness online and do research to determine if what is being claimed is real or fake.

**Dec 06 Tue - Pushback**

Online shoppers call the moment of "anxious ruminations" as "pulling the trigger" considering the deal is done, no matter the hesitations and consequences (Reagle, 2019). Multiple times in the past, I have had better online shopping experiences by simply purchasing products and avoiding the comments, ratings, and suggestions listed below. Therefore, the starting claim is something I agree with, and the other allegations mention how comments can be helpful, even if sometimes comments aren't fully trustworthy. This is an understandable reason why many prefer to disable and restrict comments on their sites. It is impressive how the chapter mentioned Boing Boing's comments being problematic until the editor mentioned he was likely to permanently disable comments. Sometimes, people's online comments can drive prominent editors to that point, especially after noticing that most of the comment section isn't beneficial and provides the opposite sought feedback.

Moreover, it was exciting to notice the different types of comments and people's varying opinions. For instance, the case of Lawrence Lessig, who had temporarily abandoned his blog in 2009 and found the display of a different website's comments more beneficial, caught my attention. For him, comments that appeared as annotations and were more specific to a certain part of a paragraph was something he enjoyed. Also, witnessing how authors benefited from comments, used them differently, and had diverse opinions on the online presence and comments, allowed me to engage more in the reading. It reminded me that no matter what profession people take, we all will have different opinions on things that we firmly believe in and might find it challenging to open up our perspectives to understand other people's forms of thinking. Finally, seeing how filter bubbles impact comments and what we see displayed on our pages is shocking. This leads to evidence of how these bubbles follow us everywhere we go online, even with how comments are displayed to appeal to people's personal beliefs and find ways to engage them more.