# Reading Response Set 2

#### Nov. 1st – Finding Someone and Living Alone

Online dating really can feel like a nightmare. With the rise of online dating applications like Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble, dating in the modern age has become a desperate attempt at looking presentable through a screen. As written in Thompson's article, your worth today is based on a profile that is judged 24/7 by distracted and cruel strangers. In addition, I agree that the weight of dating today is heavier than in previous decades due to the widespread practice of finding a partner alone. As described by Thompson, family and friends less often connect individuals to potential partners now, so the recoil from a bad date can feel more impactful. Furthermore, young adults do not inherit certain life-styles, religions, or occupations from their parents and must choose themselves if they desire. The mentioned philosopher Soren Kierkegaard called this anxiety "the dizziness of freedom", which I can agree is an accurate depiction of what choices today feel like. However, online dating is beneficial, as I have found my own girlfriend from an online app. As mentioned in the article, they also serve minority and LGBTQ+ communities, who previously had much harder experiences finding partners.

Obviously, the anxiety from online dating and the need to make good impressions has led to exaggerations or lies about oneself. In OkCupid's article *The Big Lies People Tell in Online Dating*, they share statistics that illustrate how men and women exaggerate features or status to get the most attention. I was surprised to know that this practice did not only cover height disparities, but also income and picture age. It demonstrates that no matter what somone claims about themselves online, it should always be taken with a grain of salt.

In Joseph Chamie's article, they depict the change in the number of American households that are a single inhabitant. Living alone seems to be a now more widely accepted practice that has resulted from increased migration to cities and increased labor force participation among women, as well as other factors. The media ages at first marriage are much higher now than they were in 1950, indicating another factor at the large number of people living alone until an older age. I'm curious as to whether online dating has had a notable effect on the number of single person households in the U.S, as dating has become more complicated to navigate.

#### Nov. 4th – Ads & Social Graph Background

Ads have become an overused method of promotion by companies that bombard potential customers with extreme amounts of information. As Stokes describes, there are several types of adverts that people see on the web. The first are banner adverts, which are images or animations displayed on a website. There are also interstitial banners that show up between pages on a site before the next page is displayed. Pop ups and pop-unders are also common, where a new, smaller window opens and displays an advert. Floating adverts appear in a layer over the content. Wallpaper adverts change the background of the page that you're looking at. Finally, map adverts show on pages like Google maps and are based on keyword searches for a specific market offering. These are the main types of adverts that Stokes mentions and are utilized by companies trying to promote their brand and sell their product/service.

These ads are useful in getting potential customers since they are targeted for those interested in what the ad is promoting. We see these ads everywhere on social media especially, such as Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and others. The video by Vox was informative as their visual explanation of first party and third party cookies illustrated how large social media companies are incentivized to track our data. These companies already have access to so much of our information and are thus goldmines for companies to find out what we want and send ads to us. Although there are options to block cookies and delete them as well, Vox pointed out that Facebook has something called Facebook Pixel that disguises itself as a first-party cookie. In general, what they discussed is that we generally cannot turn this off. It is always jarring to see ads about something I looked up once show up on completely different sites. I believe that companies are jumping at every chance they can to advertise their products and most of the time, they deter me from ever purchasing them.

#### Nov 18th – Algorithmic discrimination

Algorithms inevitably hold bias when created due to the creator's decisions to leave information out. When building algorithmic models, O'Neil describes the impossibility of including "all of the real world's complexity or the nuance of human communication" (p. 20). In other words, some important information will always be left out. Algorithms are created for a specific job and thus only include data that can be easily understood with large blind spots. The example of Google Maps in the text is relevant. While the application shows the roads, tunnels, and bridges, it ignores the buildings when they aren't relevant for getting directions. This may have changed today, as sometimes Google Maps relays directions in relation to specific buildings. One example that illustrates clear bias or exlusion of important information is teacher evaluations. Teachers are evaluated largely on student performances, while data on engagement, specific skill development, classroom management, and other issues are ignored (O'Neil, p. 21). While we would like to believe that algorithms do their job despite the missing information, these models need to be constantly updated to ensure peak performance.

O'Neil mentions racism as a model that runs in the minds of billions of people and is based on "faulty, incomplete, or generalized data" (p. 22). This is true, as many view the information they are given or have experienced about a person from a specific race and apply these views to the entire race, which is a huge leap. The LSI-R questionnaire that O'Neil talks about further enforces racist assumptions about a person based on their race and demonstrates how data can lead to flawed conclusions. The article by Rutherford and White on Google's biased search results further demonstrates the biases that exist within society and media that is coded into the search engine. When looking up various body parts, or hair styles, or beauty concepts, most if not all the results are of white people. Whatever you search up, if it involves people, will show different depictions between white people and other races.

The problem with algorithms that are used to display information about groups of people is that there would inevitably be some bias. While I do believe that coding can be changed and reviewed to avoid extreme bias, I agree that it is impossible to avoid mistakes. The example that O'Neil talked about in relation to the criminal justice system is one that I still hear today. Perceptions of black criminals and white criminals are vastly different, and stop and frisk rates between the two still have a wide gap. If previous criminal history is used against defendants, it would largely put black people at a disadvantage. Things can and should change to place everyone on equal footing. When I search on Google the various body parts talked about in the text, I see that there has been improvement. This means that changes were made to the search engine algorithm and illustrates that bias can be accounted for.

#### Nov 29th – Collapsed context

An imagined audience deeply impacts the decisions we make when posting content online for our friends and connections. Profiles are largely dictated by the perception that specific groups of people online follow and read specific types of profiles, rather than simply sharing day-to-day life moments with people we know. As Marwick and boyd state, "... many writers, bloggers wite for a 'cognitively constructed' audience, an imagined group of readers who may not actually read the blog" (boyd, 2006a as mentioned in Marwick & boyd, 2010). Our word and content choices change when engaging with an imagined online audience, compared to face-to-face interactions in real life. In truth, Marwick and boyd describe that anyone on online platforms, such as Twitter, are able to read and view posted content even when they are not part of the targeted audience.

Being authentic online is a difficult thing to achieve, in my opinion. Many people want to present themselves differently compared to real life and see social media as an opportunity to not only show a different person to friends, followers, and strangers, but also to themselves. Marwick and boyd do mention that some people from their Twitter experiment are able to express themselves truthfully with little regard for who is reading their tweets (Marwick and boyd, p. 119). However, they argue that it's difficult to tweet context-independently while ignoring audiences and therefore suggest that "authenticity" online lies in what users perceive it to be (Marwick and boyd, p. 119). Whether people want to become influencers or have a place to express themselves freely, social media is a tool for most to share things that they normally wouldn't to a large audience.

The BeReal app is an app that I use because I did view it as a way to share with friends while being authentic to what my current state is. While I agree with Duffy and Gerrard that BeReal will not be able to change the practice of curating posts to social media, I do hope that the app is a first step towards untangling that mess causing online fatigue. Given only two minutes, I notice that people around me are using the app more and that they race to post a picture as soon as the notification pops up. This seems especially true when with other friends. Personally, I use BeReal when I feel like seeing what others are doing online, meaning that I sometimes purposefully skip days. After deleting the Instagram and Facebook apps on my phone, it is much easier to avoid scrolling through social media and only occassionally posting to BeReal.

#### Dec. 2 – Authenticity, work, and influence

In today's society where status online is largely dictated by sponsorships, activism, and authenticity, it has become increasingly difficult to separate these three factors from each other. Especially during the coronovirus pandemic years, influencers were harshly criticized for any actions not deemed authentic by the public, specifically by those who work to "cancel" those online figures. While influencers work harder than ever to gain recognition and popularity, influencer audiences are now combating these efforts with "hateblogs" and cancel cultures, significantly so against female influencers. However, as described by Duffy et. al., the views that hateblogs are gossip or hate are polarizing and "fail to fully account for the role of gender-coded norms in the functioning of site like GOMI" (2022). What they do is dive deeper into the foundation of these hatebloggers' actions and frustrations, identifying that they are rooted in gendered ideals of authenticity, labor, and privilege (Duffy et. al., 2022).

In the article by Lorenz, the idea that Instagram Stars post fake sponsored content is a new one to me. I was among those in the audience who believed that every post framed like sponsored content was one in reality. After reading this article, however, it makes complete sense that one's popularity is heavily influenced by the number of sponsors. Faking that number will increase followings regardless and give those companies free advertising. Despite that these are fake, it benefits the influencer-company relationships. However, in my opinion, I believe that it hurts the trust that audiences have in their influencers. Many do desire authenticity, even if it showcases a life that "has it all". To find that it is staged and made is something that can break those connections.

It is difficult to maintain influencer status in this day and age. On top of seeming popular and successful, they must also be active in the current social movements that are happening. Balancing the supportive messages for groups like Black Lives Matter while maintaining their own source of income has drastically changed influencer's jobs, as Lerman describes. With these players of authenticity, activism, and popularity, it's extremely difficult to find the right footing, especially when they are in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation (Lerman, 2020).