###### tags: `CDA`
# Reading Responses (Set 1)

- Checklist for a [good reading response](https://reagle.org/joseph/zwiki/Teaching/Best_Practices/Learning/Writing_Responses.html) of 250-350 words
- [x] Begin with a punchy start.
- [x] Mention specific ideas, details, and examples from the text and earlier classes.
- [x] Offer something novel that you can offer towards class participation.
- [x] Check for writing for clarity, concision, cohesion, and coherence.
- [x] 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

### Sep 23 Tue - Learning

No pain, no gain. "The research in the classroom and the experience of Matt Brown in updating his knowledge-point to the critical role of retrieval practice in keeping our knowledge accessible to us when we need it" (Brown, Roediger III, & McDaniel, 2014, p. 20). Brown et al. argue that although reading and cramming keep us stay in the comfort zone, they do not help us memorize knowledge in the long term. Instead, harder practices such as retrieval, spacing, and mixing topics make the knowledge take root in our brain. Specifically, the story of the pilot Matt Brown exemplifies this truth. When his plane engine failed, he could process his thinking and solution quickly because his training forced him to recall immediately under stress and not merely review notes. Therefore, the essence of learning is lasting through the struggle, just as growth is not linear and easy but rather ascends step by step, like climbing stairs.

While reading, the habit that many students rely on such as highlighting, rereading, and reviewing until the words look familiar, which the chapter terms an “illusion of knowing” reminded me of the concept of continuous partial attention (Chayko, 2017, pp. 184–186). Rereading and cramming might seem effective, but they are similar to multitasking, such as scrolling, chatting, and studying, which we discussed in the previous class. A student who only highlights passages is the same as a student who skims multiple screens, where difficulty is actually a sign of growth. To apply this through my lens, besides how difficulty helps us mentally, triathlon is also an example from my personal perspective, in which we physically experience "no pain, no gain." Even as triathletes, we often questioned why we joined this sport to torture ourselves. Nevertheless, it is the pain that makes us fulfilled. The heaviness of every step, the numbness in our legs, and the soreness spreading through our muscles. I believe all things follow the same principle: without shooting an azimuth like Kiley Hunkier, we never know if we are heading in the right path (p. 21).

### Sep 30 Tue - Cooperation

In evolution, defection is the rational choice, but gossip is why cooperation survives. Reagle (2019) claims that what truly makes cooperation happen is never any formal rules but the gossip, which is actually "evaluative social chat," a way of sharing judgments about what can be trusted, who has betrayed, and who belongs. Specifically, Reagle (2019) references Dunbar's research on how gossip forges bonds between humans to let them live in big groups but with a limit of Dunbar's eponymous number of 150. Once the number is crossed, cooperation falls apart because human brain can not manage. In the online world, this phenomenon appears where strangers replace familiar ties and fights over moderation rise. As Reagle states, "The known personalities and easy cadence of the group have been replaced by strangers and bickering about unruliness and the need for moderation."

Nowak and Highfield (2011) make the point through the Prisoner's Dilemma. In its classic form, "no matter what your partner does, it is best for you to defect" (Nowak & Highfield, 2011, p. 13). Defection is a dominant strategy that results in "natural selection actually opposes cooperation in a basic Prisoner’s Dilemma" (p. 15). However, it creates a paradox that although defection benefits ourselves, groups that cooperate work better overall, which could apply to platforms like Wikipedia as a "public good" where free riders and people who sabotage benefit while others contribute the hard work. Nowak and Highfield argue that instead of eliminating gossip, evolution solves this by harnessing it, as "knowing who uses what resources will allow those who contribute to reap reputational benefits" (p. 29) to make reciprocity possible.

In the Northeastern Taiwanese Student Association, when our Line group chat had more than a hundred members, it became harder to know everyone. Gossip about who is being responsible for helping at events shaped their reputation and even decided who became the core member. As the reading we discussed last class, Boyd (2017) notes that fixing online disorder takes more than labeling fake news and requires rebuilding trust. If gossip is "an evaluative social chat,” we should reshape the environment where cooperation can last.

### Oct 03 Fri - Social networks

In Gen Z culture, the term "hot take" implies leaving an unpopular opinion online that is controversial and unproven just to catch eyeballs. People who control the power never come from the platform itself but from the ripples of reactions among many users, as Rheingold (2012) states, “Power does not reside in institutions… It is located in the networks that structure society” (pp. 201–202). From Milgram and Travers’ six degrees of separation to Watts and Strogatz’s small-world network theory, which means that by adding a few random distant links into a highly clustered network long paths are transformed into short ones (p. 193), social networks determine how influence and behaviors move. Meanwhile, power law distribution and the long tail are also why some supernodes get most of the attention and unpopular nodes are valuable as well when combined, just as Rheingold (2012) illustrates in the beginning: the same atoms form either graphite or diamond depending on their bonds, network also influences its overall properties. Lastly, concepts like Reed’s Law, Sarnoff’s Law, Metcalfe’s Law, and Social Network Analysis (SNA) all explain that value in a network are impacted by the shape and scale of their connections.

When I first learned about social contagion, it was back in my AP Human Geography class. We discussed how the luxury brand design viral marketing campaign to target influencers on social media such as Instagram for wider diffusion. This links to Rheingold's argument on invisible ties in network spread cognition even happiness. Nevertheless, Dunbar’s limit number of 150 warns that if the group expands too large, the positive effects of cooperation will disappear and lead to detrimental phenomena such as smoking, substance abuse, and obesity (p. 198), which connects back to the idea that the risks of networks come from how connections are formed.

### Oct 14 Tue - The Darknet

When Neo first sees the code behind the Matrix, he realizes that truth can hide behind encryption. This scene in the movie *The Matrix* is like the darknet. The darknet is an invisible part of the internet where freedom and danger coexist, which means the same tool that protects freedom can also control it. Wright (2015) explains how the Onion Router keeps users anonymous. The process works by wrapping original data in layers of encryption and sending it through volunteer relay. Each relay only knows where it received the data from and where to send it next, which means it is impossible to trace who sent what. This "onion" design protects user privacy but also hides what people can't see or judge.

If Tor hides who people are, Bitcoin hides how people pay. Bitcoin becomes a story of digital apples being shared with a public ledger, which is the blockchain. As Custodio (2013) imagines, "the ledger lives in everybody's computers" and "is not controlled by one person." In other words, transactions no longer need a third-party like "Uncle Tommy." However, as Thompson (2025) wrote in the Trump and Melania meme coins, many critics and skeptics who claimed that back-to back launches were “a cash grab." The same system that is supposed to have digital freedom has become a "money-making opportunity" now.

Tor and Bitcoin share more than anonymity. Rather, they reply on systems "not controlled by one person," where everybody can maintain trust through "open-source." This connects to "How HTTPS Secures Connections" by Hartley Brody in our previous reading. HTTPS uses cryptography to build trust between strangers online. Similar to how HTTPS teaches us to "trust the math," technologies like Tor and Bitcoin change math into the foundation of social trust online. Yet, as Brody (2013) reminds, even systems that are trustless depend on who holds the key. As someone who relies on encryption everyday such as Wi-Fi logins, it makes me wonder how much privacy I am willing to trade for my safety, and where exactly the line between protection and danger is.

### Oct 24 Fri - Shape

"I'm beautiful in my way 'cause God makes no mistakes"
This lyric from Lady Gaga's song, *Born This Way* show up as a light for self-acceptance encouraging many LGBTQ youth to embrace the way they are in this digital communication age. Reagle (2019) described how Jamey share his hope and mental process of accepting his sexuality in the It Gets Better project on YouTube but confront with cruel anonymous comments on Formspring. Through Jamey's story, Reagle embodies how digital communication can be healing when Jamey "spoke of the difficulties," yet harming when "the harassing comments that followed" appeared at the same time. As Reagle observes, what begins in social platforms is "not a simple broadcast,"; we "craft a sense of ourselves that is subject to the comment and approval of others," and those reactions "come to define how people see themselves." Most importantly, it is how one does not easily let digital communication affect one's ability to be mindful or lower self-esteem.

While reading about how online user try to seek affirmation of their identity through performing post that seem "authentic," it reminds me of Evita March's (2023) article, *"What Kinds of people 'catfish'?"*, which people who fake their online identities tend to exhibit traits of the dark tetrad, including narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism. These two readings both exemplify how people build their self-esteem on others' reactions. Indeed, back in 2022, Instagram released a function called "liking stories," which differs from liking a post. Instead, the like is valued by viewers' reaction and lead people to become more performative. Returning to the topic, it is never actions like deleting accounts but pausing and taking a breath to adjust the intention. To apply a philosophy that I have internalized with my life lessons since high school, " What matters in this life is to live by your own philosophy of life. Otherwise, without a standpoint or a reason for *why* you do things, you will end up chasing the surface of the world instead of for *yourself* and what you are *passionate* about.