# Reading Responses Set 2 #### Gabriella Playa <br/> ## Reading Response 1 ### November 1, 2022 - Finding Someone & living alone People lie online, but they can lie in real life too. Online dating has really blown up in the past two decades. Not only has it allowed people to meet someone they would've never met otherwise, but it is also influencing a shift away from societal norms of the past. "Online dating is efficient. We're a fast food society and now you have a pool of eligible people to choose from." A quote I found online when I was researching online dating is a good jusitification for online dating. First, and I never thought about it in this light before, but online dating provides so many opportunities for people in the LGBTQ+ community. It also provides opportunities for people who are shy to meet people and express themselves freely. The dating pool has expanded to such a large quantity of people that we don't know where to start. This ties into the increase of people living alone in America, and the enlightening article "Living alone in America." "America is in the midst of a transformation in household living arrangements with one in seven adults now living alone, amounting to more than one-quarter of all U.S. households." The exact reason behind this is not stated, but we can only assume it is because people are marrying later, and spending more of their time "exploring their options." I have seen such a negative light shined on online dating because of possible catfishes or liars. The OkCupid dating blog is entirely correct, as my friends have mentioned to me they have had these experiences before, especially about money and height. My friends always ask me for advice about *when* they should text back and how to say certain things as well. Lies and fabricated conversations are definitely as real online as they are in real life. I thought about how we talked about in our last class that people always lie saying they're a year or two older than they actually are, because of the age limitation on Tinder. ## Reading Response 2 ### November 18, 2022 - Algorithmic discrimination Is racism built into the model of our society? The model of systemic racism in our society has been being built and added to from before we even know. The case that O'Neil first presents, there is a quote included, stated by psychologist, Walter Quijano, that race was most definitely a factor in his level of danger. I like this quote from "Weapons of Math Destruction": "The question is, however, is whether we've eliminated human bias or simply camouflaged it with technology" (p.12). It is simple, but automatically reading that sentence, my first thought was, "It's been camouflaged." It all begins to make sense, how people had to push so hard for a sentence of just 20 years to Derek Chauvin for murdering George Floyd, as well as how people get away with daily microaghressions towards minorities without blinking an eye. As for the "Here's Why People Think Google's Results Are Racist" article, it all ties into exactly *why* minorities and people are color are excluded from certain searches and stereotyped into others. Society has been built this way since before we can remember. The thing about models is that they can be changed and warped with the right amount of effort. During the era of raging COVID, it was almost a trend to post pictures with activist quotes on them, to showcase that people were anti-racists. I don't believe this can be shown through social media, or in Google's case, an empty apology. ## Reading Response 3 ### November 29, 2022 - Collapsed Context Over the course of its app life, BeReal has become, to an extent, "BeFake." I was very interested in the "BeReal and the Doomed Quest for Online Authenticity" article specifically because I had BeReal from its very beginnings. My friend who goes to UCLA actually sent me a link to download the app, in which I believed it was almost a "hidden" or "underground" platform for people on the internet who so badly want to be portrayed as "anti-social media." This was back when the app had very few users, so many people I knew actually had no idea what I was talking about when I was talking the app up. I had maybe 3 friends total for the first couple of weeks. I believe some of the "fakeness" of BeReal came about when it gained user population, about a month after I really heard about it. This is where the term "reactive dynamism", coined by Salisbury and Pooley, comes into play. Once the creators had critiqued other social medias too harshly, it began to become like them. People aren't posting at "real" times, and others befriend people on the app that they hardly even know. Originally, the app was meant to be used for closer friends, or networked audiences, to create a tight-knit community feel. That has also been taken away when people friend each other on the app, with no real connection. ## Reading Response 4 ### December 2, 2022 - Authenticity, work & influence Is being an influencer a legitimate career? Many influencers have made their way up to fame, only to be torn down by their anti-fandom. This reminded me of a situation during the uproar of COVID in the summer of 2021. There were a bunch of "COVID parties" that influencers would throw and caused outbreaks. Specifically, Nikita Dragun was "canceled" by people on Tik Tok after throwing her friend a birthday [party](https://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/a33456922/nikita-dragun-threw-another-party-after-getting-called-twitter-reactions/). It was a very inconsiderate event, as other influencers posted videos of people drinking and dancing, not wearing masks or distancing. While it was not a smart thing to do, Nikita and others received death threats, and other comments nitpicking and "canceling" her. Lorenz's article made me think differently about influencers and how they cultivate brand relations. I never truly thought about how more ads could equal more "credibility" or more "street cred" as an influencer. The high standing of a brand may also impact the amount of "street cred" that one may receive. It is also all about the money for these influencers. Lerman explains that the standing of a brand, how many posts, and the following of the influencer are essential to achieving a sponsorship. "Influencers hold outsize power to speak to their hundreds of thousands of followers, and often earn between $100 and more than $1,000 per post, depending on how big their following is." This all ties together debunking that any type of "authenticity" exists being an influencer online. You can apologize, post for a brand, post a video of "friends", but no one will never know *all* of the details going on behind the camera. ## Reading Response 5 ### December 6, 2022 - Pushback Are *we* the negative commenter we claim to hate online? When reading "Commenterrible", specifically the section about "Hot or Not", I realized we absolutely are. Back when I first got Instagram, around 2014, my peers would post a screen that said, "Like for a TBH & rate", then proceed to rate you on a number scale and make a comment on your personality. Now, I'm not quite sure what exactly the criteria were for the number rating, but I believe because we were 11 years old, I will say it was how much they liked you on a scale of 1-10. This trend was very toxic, just as "Hot or Not" most definitely was when it was at its peak. Morrison touches exactly on the toxicity I am discussing here. The study "Why Facebook is Making People Sad" directly correlates the amount of time students spend on media -- specifically Facebook -- and their recorded level of unhappiness (5). These days you will see forms of "digital detoxing" when an influencer needs a break from hate comments. I myself have had to take a break at times, committing some form of "Facebook suicide" by deleting or deactivating certain accounts. The entire question is if we are actually better not reading, or just overall turning off our comments online. A lot of influencers tend to turn off their comments when they enter a scandal, to avoid being mocked. My stance is that we should not turn off our comments and read them. Commenters will always find another place to comment their thoughts. I believe it is at times the person reading the comments that gives them power, though in some cases, when receiving serious threats, I would definitely adjust my stance.
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AKA Crabby Gabby Syllabus - COMM 1255 Assignments Wiki tutorial Web search and evaluation Filter and label your email Adblocking

11/21/2022
Adblocking

November 15, 2022 Gabriella Playa Before uBlock origin: Homepage of https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/tiktok Ads for AMC theatres, Vegamour, Equinox, Always, and Forex.com pop up in just two swipes into this news website's homepage. What's interesting about these ads is that some would say they are for traditionally feminine products. I can understand why most people say they would prefer not to have clickable pop-up ads, because most of the time they're just nuisances and not something people will actually click on, or they will click on accident. Davis et. al actually talked more about the purpose of ads. "It is more about informing them than acting as the persuasive door to door salesman." Basically, he is saying that people are misinterpreting the intent of the ads. It makes sense, but I am not sure I'm completely sold on it. I believe there is some intent somewhere in the ad to get someone to do something, maybe even to implant a want in a person's mind, "reminding" them that they wanted or needed something.

11/15/2022
Reading Responses - Set 1

Gabriella Playa Reading Response 1 September 20, 2022 - "How the Web Works" The web is like a long journey to a shop. This metaphor is explained by the MDN contributors, who make the basics of the "behind the scenes" of the web interesting, and easier to understand. The most enjoyable part of this metaphor is that it is very relatable to our daily lives. The basic beginning is to compare "clients" and "servers", different types of computers that respond to each other to access webpages, to your home and the shop you need to get to. Yet, it isn't as simple as that. There are many other factors, such as searching up the address, or Domain Name System, so you may get to the shop, or webpage. Though they compared component files, which are files that make up the content of a website, to the goods you buy at a shop, I believe they could have also compared the IP addresses of websites to the goods you sift through at a shop. Maybe there would be some fault in this comparison, because the "server" is the shop, and the IP address is unique to each webpage attempting to be accessed. I had this idea while reading because the unique numbers of an IP address are like goods at a grocery store: different types, but each unique in what they offer the consumer, or user. In the close of this article, MND explains that information is sent in "packets", or bags of goods you purchase from the shop, from servers to clients, which allows content to be displayed for the user. The metaphor is useful in that it goes through the entire journey to the shop, and back to your home. It seems as though there is more to the web to explain, as this only really scratches the surface of how the web works. I do wonder though, could this metaphor be applied to a more complex explanation of how the web works, as well as this basic one? Reading Response 2

10/21/2022
Filter and Label Your Email

Gabriella Playa After reading Claire Wardle's article "Understanding Information Disorder", I realized that there are clickbait titles in a majority of my emails, mainly on Gmail, rather than my Northeastern email. I did notice I was subscribed to emails from Forever 21, though, which brought me to create my final rule. Reading these articles is disturbing because it feels as though they are diagnosing the people using technology with certain types of "disorders." I believe it's disturbing because it's true. Imposter websites, scam emails, sometimes so believable we feel they warrant a response, are taking over our daily internet searches. This "disinformation", as it is coined in "Understanding Information Disorder" is more harmful than we believe it to be. We would believe that "filter bubbles" are strong enough to block out or at least dismiss this information as false, but because recent generations have become so drawn to the "clickability" of links, we are apt to falling into these "fake news" areas of the internet, if that is even the word for it. I know personally many of my peers use social media instead of actual, credited websites for our "news."For example, a lot of people actually use TikTok as a credible source for all rumors and gossip they believe are "news." This is disturbing because it only furthers our case of "information disorder."

9/30/2022
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