# Reading Responses (Set 1)
This is where I will be doing my reading responses for this semester in COMM 1225.

## Reading Responses 5 out of 5
### September 20
The "web" is a mysterious place to people who aren't the ones developing it. As a Data Science major, I feel that I have more of an idea of what it means to make a website, to build software, to analyze code more so than other people, but even so, it's a confusing idea. What is the internet versus the world wide web? Is it the same? I thought the way that the article layed out a lot of what is seemingly "basic" information was very helpful to get the foundations of what modern day technology is. I appreciated how the article went over things like wifi comparing it to the "street between your house and the shop." When looking at things from a perspective that is easy to understand, it makes the idea of the web less like a big mountain and more like little hills that we can get over and learn from.

### SECOND READING RESPONSE - September 27
Many times, in education we are taught to memorize and recall rather than actually learn the information given to us in classes. It resonated with me when Brown stated that to make learning actually stick, it has to be effortful. As students and learners in life, we often use the learning techniques that are the least productive, such as retrieval practice and massed practice, but it makes us feel like we are being productive. This ties into how Brown states that we are "susceptible to illusions that can hijack our judgement of what we know we can do." I thought this was interesting because it talks about how learning strengthens our areas of weaknesses in our brains. By learning new things and facing new tasks, it makes us stronger mentally. This is extremely interesting and makes sense as to why when you build foundations, it makes it easier to grow on the knowledge you know and also build your mental stamina. Yet, It makes me wonder if the classes that I had the hardest time, like biology, where I had to study for comprehension, I understand it the most? Yet, in classes with easier concepts, I understand it more therefore have to study less. Do I learn at the same quality when I am not challenged as much? Or does it have to be a challenge that the brain has to work through?

### October 4

For most of our lives, we are taught to be a team player, whether it be on our sports teams or in the classroom, but how have our attitudes changed as social media has evolved as we have grown up? Social media shaped Gen Z the most in our childhood. Many of us were exposed to it at a young age, comparing ourselves to others, looking at different lifestyles, or seeing different cultures. I thought that Dunbar's argument was very interesting. It states that people use a sophisticated type of social cognition, called the theory of mind, to infer other people's mental states, and therefore their intentions. This is very interesting to think about in the context of social media. Almost everyone in our generation is addicted to our social media, whether it be Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok. Influencers are a big thing in the social media realm where they are paid to promote products and a certain lifestyle. They can also fall into the trap of putting a "highlight reel" online which can, in extreme cases, create a different persona. Yet, to the receiver the intention is to just sell the product or sell the happiness that they exude. It creates a weird power dynamic and sometimes in bad cases, intentions can be misinterpreted. Dunbar then goes to show that 150 people is the maximum amount of people to have communication with effectively. So, do people on social media have to be "fake" and keep up the persona? They cannot possibly keep in contact with everyone that follows them, so is our generation in less contact with people out of necessity?

### October 11
Growing up in the digital age was sometimes brutal. Not quite in the way that we were exposed to a lot of things all at once, even though true, but by the way that internet bullying was so easy to come by. Putting things on social media gives a lot of people anxiety - they want enough likes to seem cool, enough comments to make it seem like they have friends, but also the fact that it opens the door for people to direct message them and say something mean or inappropriate or just talk about them to other people. People are so comfortable talking about others online because they do not have to say it to the person's face. They do not have to face the moral consequences; they can just type a few words, hit send, and move on with their day as if nothing happened. Whereas, if the receiver saw a mean message about themselves at the wrong time, it could make them spiral. I also find it interesting when people are brutally honest, sometimes to a fault, on things like RateMyProfessor. I doubt that many, if not all students, would not say what they said online to the professor's face - as you said, "online, people exhibit greater status equalization and disinhibition." Yet, I feel as though in the recent years, people have been maturing on their internet etiquette. We have grown with the internet, with its standards, and I think it is generally improving. There was a time when people in my generation were in middle school and high school and the internet was an awful and negative place to be. Now, I think it is a little bit more manageable. As was stated in the NPR article, the vast majority of what is on Meta's platforms is perfectly good content. It begs the question, does the negativity come in waves or are we maturing and going on and on to a better atmosphere?

### OCTOBER 14
Multiple Choice Questions
1) What describes something that reliably delivers data?
- DNS
- TCP
- HTTP
- HTML
2) _______ on social media are provocateurs who use outlandish statements to provoke others.
- haters
- trolls
- negative people
- swatters

Short Answer Questions
3) Please define and describe the importance of media richness/naturalness.
4) Please elaborate on how social media can affect social networks, especially in terms of "tribes".

Answer Key:
1) TCP, take care of package
2) trolls are provocateurs
3) Media Richness is how well a medium can communicate equivocal or ambiguous information. It is very important to be able to take care
4) Open ended; When humans were in tribes, we had a very small network of people that we knew. Thus, the quality of these relationships was higher. Social media has opened our social networks to a lot more people than we are used to being acquainted with. We were not meant to have thousands of people in our contact- maximum 200 people. Thus, the quantity over quality takes over.