# Reading Responses (Set 1)
## Sep 27 Tue - Learning
### *Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning*

Ball players deserve more credit. Despite certain misconceptions, they really are smarter than people believe them to be. As Brown wrote, learning is more than just consuming and repeating information. It's synthesizing it. It's giving it new meaning. It's taking it all in and making it your own. And in regards to ball players in the batter's box, they have seconds to analyze the type of pitch that will be thrown at them, where the runners are on base, where the infielders and outfielders are playing, if they want to sacrifice bunt just to move the runners along, if they can't risk anything cause they have two outs with two runners on second and third, and so on and so on. They have seconds to make the decision on how they want to hit the pitch. They have learned every possible situation, and then they make it their own. This is the best type of learning -- experiential learning.


I could not help but be reminded of [The Sandlot](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108037/) when I read this example about baseball players. These little kids prove that there really is so much learning to have been done to understand the game and to play it to the best of their ability.

I found myself having trouble with this reading. For some reason, I had opened it so many times over the weekend and was unable to sit down and really read it. Now, at 10:56pm on Monday night, I finally figured out how to complete this homework. I started to read the article out loud. This article was all about the different ways of learning. It is elaboration, synthetization, retrieving information and more. There is no use in merely repeating information -- it is what you do with it. When I was attempting to reread the same pages over and over, no progress was made. Once I started to *do* something with it, that's when I was finally able to complete this assignment. That's when I also understood the assignment on a deeper level. Engaging with the content is more important than simply consuming the content.

## Oct 04 Tue - Cooperation
### *Super Cooperators* & *Gossip*
The Prisoner's Dilemma is not only applicable to prisoners. The Dilemma describes the actions in which people take when they are faced with a problem. In this table, there are two outcomes: cooperation or defection.
Within the prisoner metaphor, if you were to cooperate but your partner defected, you would receive four years in prison, while they only get one. If you both defect, you both get three years (which is wholeheartedly undesirable as you know if you both cooperate there is a better outcome). And yet, why do people feel inclined to NOT cooperate?

Nowak wrote, "the first ingredient of cooperation is information". We are in an information society, with so much information readily available at our fingertips, and once again, people still do not cooperate. What exactly is the information we are looking for?

The environment is harshly affected in a similar manner to the Prisoner's Dilemma. If there is already litter on the ground, people may feel it is appropriate to litter as they were not the first ones to drop something. However, every person everywhere knows the harm that littering and trash does to our world. So is the first step of cooperation *really* information? I am not too sure. Maybe it is a different type of information that people are looking for? Gossip perhaps? [Reagle](https://readingthecomments.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/dtys4tyk/release/2#gossip) wrote "that it is central to understanding humanity". Gossip has been and forever will be engrained in the human lifestyle from sharing secrets at the playground to yentas on the phone with each other at the 65 and up housing development (like [Beverly Goldberg](https://miro.medium.com/max/750/1*2cRourjTZeRs5AVD2LQQlQ.jpeg) from [*The Goldbergs*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2712740/)).

Maybe it isn't gossip. Maybe it is something else entirely. How do you get people to cooperate even when they already *know* it is in their best interest? Knowledge means nothing if no actions are taken.

## Oct 07 Fri - Social Networks
### *Social Has a Shape: Why Networks Matter*
While fax machines are *pretty* useless now, the VERY first fax machine was **entirely** useless. It was created to be a means of communication with other machines. The first one, therefore, held no value as there was no way for it to do its intended purpose as no other fax machines existed yet. Their value is derived from their communicative ability. This principle can then be taken into a larger conversation about social networks.

Is it really a social network ... if people are not social? What exactly does it mean to *be* social? Rheingold wrote, "social cyberspaces [...] are small-world networks, because they are electronic extensions of human social networks". Perhaps since the framework is there in a social network, there is still value in its communicative ability? Even if people are not using it to communicate? 

While social networking existed prior to the creation of social media platforms and the internet itself, analysis of social networks really took off in the digital age as there is so much information readily available to be studied. From texts to blogs to post to photos to videos and more, the internet has provided the opportunity to really learn more and more about the ways in which people communicate.

One thing I really enjoyed about this reading was the analogy of people serving as nodes in a network is a good way to wrap my head around the concept -- connecting a new technological concept to something that already makes sense in my head. I really appreciate when articles make me understand new information in a way that encourages me not to just consume it, but to remember it long-term.

I am curious to know if anyone in this class has previously taken [Social Networks](https://catalog.northeastern.edu/undergraduate/arts-media-design/communication-studies/#coursestext) here at Northeastern and if they have any input on this reading that we would all benefit from.

## Oct 11 Tue - Haters
### *Reading the Comments & Facebook*
To some, anonymity provides the guise of protection. They thrive under the circumstances where they believe there are no repercussions on the internet. However, the internet is very difficult to *actually* be anonymous from -- from ip addresses and countless data always tracking back to a specific user.

Whenever I think about anonymity on the internet, I am always reminded of this image.
As many of my communication classes talk about the internet in some context eventually, almost every single time we look at this picture. Even though we do not *really* know who someone is at first glance, somehow in some way something can always get connected back to the person who originally posted something.

One specific example from the [reading](https://readingthecomments.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/euf2ckop/release/2) was about Luka Magnotta. I first learned of him through watching the [Netflix documentary](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11318602/) about him. Luka used the supposed protection of anonymity on the internet to act without morals. He would comment on multiple accounts to bolster conversation about himself and his horrible acts of violence. As the reading wrote, he was arrested in an internet cafe reading and writing about himself on the internet. Not only were the police after him, but so were animal rights activists after they caught wind of the violence he committed to cats (and later to a human). No matter how safe he thought he was behind the computer, he really was far from it.

There truthfully is so much hate and violence on the internet -- across all platforms, as shown by Magnotta for example. Once again, people feel protected from behind the screen. As [Bond](https://www.npr.org/2021/11/09/1053924352/facebook-instagram-bullying-harassment-numbers) wrote, Meta now publishes a quarterly report on what content was taken down from their platforms. This is in an effort to make these spaces safer, but with so many people having bad intentions -- is it ever possible for it to really be safe?

## Oct 14 Fri - Exam Review
### Exam Questions

What concept, for example, makes trick or treaters feel comfortable taking more candy than they should?
* disinhibition
* depersonalization
* deindividuation
* disengagement

Which information disorder has both falseness AND the intent to harm?
* malinformation
* misinformation
* disinformation

After learning about learning, what are some ways that do not prove beneficial to studying material? What are other methods that do prove beneficial?

Are digital natives better at multitasking?

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Answers:
- Deindividuation
- Disinformation
- Rereading, highlighting, and cramming the material do not hold long term benefits in learning. They provide a false sense of knowledge of the material which encourages students to think they actually know information that they truly do not know. On the other hand, methods like summarization, elaboration, and interleaved practice will prove to improve a student's understanding of the material. These methods better stimulate how a student interacts with, and therefore, remembers information.
- Digital natives are not inherently better at multitasking. Many of them have grown up multitasking, but it does not necessarily mean they are better at it. As written in the slides, "researchers found that 2.4% of college students can talk on the telephone while operating an automobile simulator without degraded performance (Rheingold 2012, “Net Smart”, p. 37)". To combat this, working on only one thing at a time and potentially even using the Pomodoro method will greatly improve performance.