# Reading Responses (Set 1)
***Checklist for a good reading response of 250-350 words***
- 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 responses 5 out of 5

## Jan 17 Tuesday - Attention
Technology and the way it has rapidly advanced through the world has both its positive and negative sides to it... As a young girl living through a generation that is significantly influenced by technology, social media has influenced many aspects of my life. The book "superconnected: The Internet, Digital Media, and Techno-Social Life" written by author Mary Chayko, does an outstanding job of showing us how the internet has completely changed how we communicate and access information and even how it interferes with how we perceive our relationships.

Reading this chapter, I noticed a similar pattern on atittudes that I struggle with today which are being influenced by the media. For example, I noticed that when finishing up a task or getting to work, I can be easily distracted by my phone this is shown in the chapter when Chayko states how "when students check Facebook, text, or instant message for personal use while they are studying for example, grade point averages and overall study time suffer." I agree with this section of the chapter. As a student, I find myself getting easily distracted while studying by wanting to check my phone to respond to a text or get distracted by a pop-up notification on Instagram or Tik Tok. In addition I can say that we are putting too much time and priority into our phones and technology. Due to our phones being such a stress reliever for us, we tend to look for the easy way out of things; for example, if I want food, "I order it," when wanting to talk with a friend, "I text her," when wanting to buy a shirt "I order it online," but what about going outside: visiting the restaurant, meeting up with your friend, going to the store. These are all essential things we as humans need to embrace more, and we must embrace life behind the screen and enjoy the wonders that life gives us!

## Jan 24 Tuesday - Crap Detection
The internet is packed with unreliable sources, which fills us with unreliable information. This is why it's our duty to know if the information the internet feeds us is reliable. But how exactly can we detect fake news and fake media sources? I gathered three main points that caught my attention from the school of library, "Truth, truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a "post-truth" world. The first step we have to look at is the author's credibility by investigating the author's name(Valenza 2016). By looking at the author's background and credibility, we can get a sense of what the author is trying to portray and if his opinions can be valid to yours. Secondly, another step that can help you sort your resources is checking the urls, "edu domain, followed by .co or "lo" is likely a fake or deceptive site"(Valenza 2016). These domains may look familiar to you and seem like safe websites to look into, but they are actually manipulated. Moreover, Another step that caught my attention is going back to the source: going back to the source when reading an article and verifying the sources and studies that the article provides can come in very handy to get accurate sources and information. This can be done verifying the links on the website, taking a closer look at the information, and looking for backups to what is provided. Overall, getting reliable sources on the internet is very complicated, which is why if we want to get reliable and trustworthy websites, we have to dig in on the information and not get the first website that we see pop up on our google search.

## Jan 27 Friday - Learning
The key to more extensive and brighter success is learning! As we all know, learning shapes us at a young age; we start acquiring skills, gaining knowledge, and creating our views on things.

When reading the chapter on "Make it stick," a book all about the way that we retrain and learn information. In the chapter, we can see different techniques and strategies by the author on how to enhance information for long-term learning success:

- Retrieval Practices: by recalling information from our memory, we create a more efficient way of learning and remembering. Example: Flashcards

- Spacing out information: Spacing out the information and not just trying to learn it all at once creates more time for practice and can make lasting learning.

- Solve the problem before being taught the solution. When you try to solve the problem, instead of asking your instructor/teacher for the answer, you challenge your mind and force yourself to understand the problem.

When it comes to learning, you have to find what's best for you and look for the ways that you acquire learning. In class, we learned about the different learning styles visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. First, visual learners acquire information more efficiently by looking at videos, images, and charts/diagrams. Secondly, auditory learners prefer learning by hearing information, for example, in lectures, audio recordings, and listening to the professor speak in class. While lastly, kinesthetic learners learn more efficiently by doing physical activities like projects and examinations. Understanding the different learning styles made me realize I am a visual learner. I learn more efficiently when I am provided with pictures, videos, and real-life examples. By knowing this about myself when learning, I will implement more visuals and create better ways to add visuals to my learning, such as videos, maps, diagrams, etc.

What's your learning style? And how will you implement these learning styles and skills that we read today to make yourself better and seek better future success?

## Feb 10 Friday - Haters

"Haters gonna hate," I am sure we have all heard this phrase… but why exactly do people take the time to hate on others?! Hate comes from others' insecurities, jealousy, and lack of power. With today's advancement in social media, we can see a lot of "haters" online, people who transmit hate to people they know or even people they've never met before. Haters feel safe by hating others because they are behind a screen and are not exposed to others' confrontation.

When reading the article by Shannon Bond, which discusses how harassment and bullying are shown in the media, I got shocked by the results that harassment has on teenage girls; it described how "Instagram worsens body image issues and other mental health harms for some teen girls" (Bond). While reading this section from the article, as someone who has seen a lot of people close to me struggle with these types of insecurities brings so much anger to know that people willingly harass individuals they don't even know to make themselves feel better by doing this hater have the ability to create a negative impact on teens body image, as they can express comments which are body shaming and comments which promote unrealistic beauty standards.

So what exactly has been done to decrease the amount of harassment and bullying that is seen in the media? As described by the article "Facebook is now revealing how often users see bullying or harassing posts," there has been a "ban on content that degrades or sexualizes public figures, and removal of coordinated intimidation and harassment campaigns" (Bond). These types of restrictions and bans have to be implemented to bring structure and order to the media and create a better environment for users who are simply trying to be on social media apps and enjoy the advancements technology brings us.

## Feb 14 Tuesday - The Darkent

The darknet is the area of the Internet that is hidden from search engines and lurks in the shadows. So what exactly is the darknet? The "darknet" is a section of the Internet that cannot be indexed by search engines, making it "a space where anyone, including criminals, can remain virtually anonymous" (Kushner). The only way that it is accessed is by using specialized software or setups, such as Tor and Bitcoin.

Tor:

Tor is an anonymity tool used by those who want to stay private and uncensored when browsing the Internet. The article "How Tor works" explains how Tor works by routing traffic through a series of nodes, or relays, to conceal the origin of the traffic. The three types of relays are:

- **Entry Guard Relay:** Tors entry point. Guard relays are chosen when they have already been stable and have the bandwidth for a while.
- **Middle Relay:** In the middle relay, data is moving between the exit relay and the guard relay, which means that the guard and exit relay can't get to know one another because of this.
- **Exit Relay:** "These relays are the exit point at the edge of the Tor network. These relays send traffic to the final destination intended by the client" (Wright).

Bitcoin:

Bitcoin enables users to send and receive payments without the support of a bank or any other intermediary. This can be protected and be used anonymously through the use of pseudonymous addresses. Not only can this transaction be made for money exchange but as explained in the article “Explain bitcoin like i’m five” you can even attach other things like say a contract, or a stock certificate, or an ID card…”. The darknet currently relies on these transactions to facilitate anonymous communications and data.

But how dangerous do you think this is? What types of illegal transactions can be made through these sources?

## Feb 24 Friday - Gender, Communication, and Contribution
Gender cannot be overlooked when it comes to digital communication, participation, and contribution; it affects everything from the platforms we utilize as far as how we communicate and express ourselves online.

When it comes to women performing in cognitive skills, the article "The Actual Science of James D'amore's Google Memo" by Megan Moltenai and Adam Rogers describes how gender variations in cognitive capacities are minor, and there is more variation within genders than among them. The article concludes how "a wide range of sociocultural forces contribute to sex difference in STEM achievement and ability, including family, neighborhood, school influences, training experiences, cultural practices, and, yes, some biological factors." Meaning that it is not exactly what people consider women's ability that can affect their contributions stem but rather their cultural and social factors that can influence women discouraged from participating in the technological industry

When it comes to social networking systems, gender plays a significant role in the way that both contribute. Women can use social networking sites to maintain relationships via the media and socialize with others, while men use SNS to gather information and maintain entertainment. For example the journal "Why men and women continue to use social networking sites: The role of gender differences" states, "men are more likely to ask technology-related questions on SNS" while on the other hand, women are more likely to ask questions and write about "about family, romantic relationships, friendships (Jones et al., 2008). These points can be a good representation of the roles that gender plays in social networking, but are they accurate? Is this evidence on gender roles really valid, or do they just fall into the "stereotypes" that people categorize both female and male figures?