# Reading Response Set 1

## Reading Response 1 (out of 5) - Sept 23: Myths About Learning
In this reading, the authors challenges myths about learning. How learning means acquiring knowledge/skills and then having them available for solving problems in new or different situations. They also argue that a lot of what we believe about studying and learning is actually wrong. It partly relies on memory, improves with practice, and is oftentimes lifelong. They use examples such as pilot training, party to illustrate how learning doesnt depend on ease or repetition, but on strategies that require effort and engagement.

One of their big arguments is that learning is oftentimes the strongest when it feels difficult. The authors describe how rereading a textbook passage several times may give people a sense of familiarity, but the “illusion of knowing” often collapses when they are really tested on the material. This goes against the feeling that I think many students (myself included), that if studying feels smooth and easy, then we must be learning well. I thought that this was interesting and it really put things into perspective for me, that just because im struggling with certain material, it isn't necessarily a bad thing. When it feels like hard work, thats often when the brain is actually learning.

Furthermore, the chapter also talk about massed practice, which is basically cramming or drilling the same skill over and over. While it can give fast results to learn the material when studying, the authors argue that it doesnt last. Instead, spreading out studying sessions and mixing different types of problems, makes your learning stick longer. I myself have definitely noticed a difference if im studying “slower” under a longer period of time. While this can sometimes feel less effective, since it “slows you down” and makes me sometimes feel a bit rusty, the knowledge usually lasts longer in the long run.

Lastly, a learning tool that I have used many times throughout my years in school is testing myself. Not only is it a good tool to measure how much and what I know, but it often times improves my learning by forcing myself to recall information. What they authors mentioned in the reading also made me view tests in school in a different way. While I often times view them as just stressful and that I put a lot of pressure on myself, they are also shown as active tools for strengthening your memory.

## Reading Response 2 (out of 5) - Sept 30: Gossip, Cooperation, and Online Communities
If gossip is just verbal grooming, then the Internet is basically a giant high school full of mean girls, endlessly whispering and backstabbing in the cafeteria. That's how Reagle’s reading made me think about it. He explains gossip, drawing on Robin Dunbar, as a kind of “social grooming”- the human version of monkeys picking bugs out of each other's fur. It's supposed to keep relationships strong and help us manage reputations. But when gossip jumps from a small group to the scale of the Internet, it stops being friendly grooming and starts looking more like drama in the lunchroom: cliques, rumors, bullying, and everyone talking about everyone else.

Reagle points out that online comments are reactive, short, and always attached to something else- a video, a blog post, a product review etc. They shape not just how we see content but how we see each other, which is why so many people say "don't read the comments.” He also shows how online spaces go through a kind of life cycle. At first, they feel small, exciting, and personal (he calls this “intimate serendipity”). But as they grow, they attract spam, trolls, and bad behaviour — the “filtered splurge”. Platforms then scramble to fix the mess: some turn off comments, some force people to use real names, others add fees or heavy moderation. In a way, it's like teachers or principals trying to rein in the chaos when the cafeteria gets too loud.

Nowak's SuperCooperators connects here in an interesting way, instead of focusing on online drama, he looks at the bigger picture: cooperation as a key driver of evolution. He argues that humans aren't just competitive — we’re actually “supercooperators”. He lays out five mechanisms that explain how cooperation can survive even when selfishness seems easier: kin selection (helping family), directly reciprocity (“ill help you if you help me”), indirect reciprocity (reputation and word-of-mouth), spatial or network selection (cooperators clustering together), and group selection (groups with more cooperators beating groups with fewer). For Nowak, the big takeaway is that cooperation thrives when the conditions— like trust, reputation, and visibility — are set up the right way. Punishment usually backfires, but rewards and recognition can keep people playing nice.

Read together, these two pieces click. Reagle shows how online cooperation can collapse: gossip turns nasty, reputations get trashed, and communities buckle under their own size. Nowak explains why it’s so fragile and what makes it work in the first place. Both put a lot of weight on gossip and reputation, and both highlight scale as the tipping point. Dunbar’s number (about 150 people) marks the limit where gossip works, while Nowak’s “tragedy of the commons” shows how cooperation unravels when groups get too big without safeguards. Both also make it clear that design choices matter: whether a platform ends up with supportive cooperation or with high-school-style drama depends on how the system is built and moderated.

So is online gossip always toxic? Not exactly. In small, bounded groups it still works like grooming—it creates bonds, builds trust, and helps people keep track of each other. But on the Internet, where groups are huge and anonymous, gossip often turns sour. Rumors spread faster, insults cut deeper, and people don’t face the same social costs they would in real life. Gossip online is still “social grooming,” but it’s like grooming in a football stadium instead of a village. Instead of closeness, you get noise, conflict, and drama. Which is why, at its worst, the Internet really does feel like one giant high school cafeteria filled with mean girls.

## Reading Response 3 (out of 5) - October 3: Participation and Power
Online participation often looks like freedom, but Rheingold reminds us that it is also shaped by invisible systems of control. He celebrates participatory culture as empowering, yet platforms ultimately decide which contributions are amplified and which disappear. This raises the issue of whether participation really redistributes power, or whether it simply masks new forms of control.

According to Rheingold, participation is both a literacy and a civic act. Collective intelligence— seen in spaces like Wikipedia, citizen journalism, and open-source projects— relies on small contributions from many individuals. His optimistic vision suggests that participation equals empowerment, collaboration, and even democracy. Yet, Rheingold gives less attention to the fact that platforms and algorithms filter participation, governing which voices are visible and which are silenced.

Algorithms on YouTube, TikTok, and X/Twitter amplify some voices while burying others, often based on platform interests such as profit, engagement metrics, and ad revenue. One example of grassroots voices gaining traction is the #MeToo movement, which turned thousands of personal stories into a global demand for accountability. It shows how small acts of participation— posts, shares, retweets— can scale into collective power when platforms amplify them. In contrast, U.S. elections have revealed how participation can be manipulated through misinformation campaigns and selective content moderation. Rumors of shadowbanning or algorithmic bias, such as debates around TikTok's political ties, highlight how platforms filter participation. Together, these cases suggest that digital participation is always shaped by structures of visibility and control.

If platforms shape who is heard, can we really call online culture participatory?

## Reading Response 4 (out of 5) - Catfishing and Scams
The internet has made falling in love easier than ever - through social media and dating apps - and thus being deceived just as simple. The Conversation article explains that people who engage in catfishing often share the same traits: psychopathy, sadism and narcissism. Whitty adds another layer, showing how these traits interact with victims' impulsivity, trust, and emotional vulnerability to create a dangerous equation. The FTC report makes the scale of the problem clear: in 2022, nearly 70,000 people reported romance scams, with over 1.3 billion dollars lost. These scams often begin in social media or dating platforms, where the scammer claims to be living or working abroad, making it impossible to meet. They frequently invent health or personal emergencies that require financial help - emotional manipulation disguised as intimacy or trust

What fascinates me is how online deception seems to exploit the same psychological needs it pretends to fulfill: connection, validation, and comfort. Romance scams reveal a paradox of digital intimacy - emotional literacy and education, rather than protecting women, can actually make them more vulnerable. I used to picture lonely, middle-aged men as typical victims, especially since you hear a lot about the ongoing “male loneliness epidemic” - but Whitty's study shows that well-educated women are statistically more at risk. Education promotes rational thinking but not necessarily emotional literacy in digital contexts. Some may be trained to identify unreliable sources or even research on difficult subjects - yet still respond to carefully constructed messages of care and trust online.

Digital communication deepens this divide. On dating platforms, trust is built through emotional exchanges - messages, confessions, shared interests - rather than verifiable facts. Scammers exploit this by crafting stories that target empathy instead of logic. Whitty's findings highlight how qualities like openness, curiosity, and compassion - signs of social intelligence become liabilities when used by skilled manipulators. Thinking and feeling work in different ways and come with different risks. Rational thinking relies on distance and doubt, while emotional understanding depends on closeness and care. Online spaces blur this divide because people use emotional tools, like emojis and messages, to make rational decisions.
In the end, these readings reveal that the same technologies designed to bring people closer can also turn human connection into a site of manipulation.

## Reading Response 5 (out of 5) - Online Addiction
Silence is a failure online. A post with no likes or comments feels like it never happened. Louis C.K. once joked "we've all basically given ourselves data entry jobs”, and that line captures what social media has done to self-expression, it has turned into self-tracking. Every post, like, or reply becomes a measuring tool of our social worth. In this response, I will explore how social media makes us measure our “success” through engagement metrics and how deeply this affects our self-esteem.

Online comment culture shapes identity, attention and emotion by turning everyday interactions into measurable feedback. Research shows that looking at your own facebook profile can boost self-esteem for a short moment, but comparing yourself to others usually makes it worse. The story of Jamey from the It Gets Better project shows this double side of online feedback, it can both comfort and hurt someone. The rise of “quantification” systems like follower counts, Klout scores, or even dating app matches, pushes us to constantly evaluate our worth in numbers. Reagle ends by asking whether this culture changes who we are or if we can find healthier ways to exist online.

I keep thinking about how this dependence on validation might not be completely new, just amplified. People have always wanted approval, but now it's visible, trackable, and constant.
This constant chase for validation also distorts how we experience real attention and achievement. We can take major steps in life, getting a new job, getting engaged, or having a baby, yet still feel invisible if we don't post about it, as if it never really happened. And when we do share those milestones and get only a handful of likes, it's hard not to wonder: why? Instead of focusing on what we've actually accomplished, we start measuring the value of our experiences by how others react online. I hate to admit it, but whenever I'm going to post something on Instagram, I time it for when I know I'll be able to often check who's liked or commented on it. Reaching for my phone to refresh notifications has become almost automatic. It reminds me of the Swedish book Skärmhjärnan (The Screen Brain) by psychiatrist Anders Hansen, where he explains how these apps hijack our brain's reward system, making us crave each notification. I know it's true, and I know exactly what these apps do to my brain, yet I still fall for it every time.

Social media hasn't just digitized our relationships, it has turned them into data. Maybe real digital literacy today means learning how to separate self-worth from the numbers on our screens.