# Reading Responses - First Half of Semester

### Sep 17 Fri - Response #1

"People expect one another to be available at all times" (Chayko, 2017). This quote seemed to jump off the page at me while I was reading through Chayko's *superconnected* because I couldn't agree more with this statement. Because we carry around a device pretty much at all times we really are expected to be constantly willing to connect with others. It's mind boggling to think that someone can always be available to you and yet I find myself waiting for someone to respond to my text and thinking to myself *they have definitely been on their phone it's been 10 minutes why is there no response*...

Being so connected can be a lot to handle. Chayko describes how before we carried around the world of technology in our pockets, it was possible for people to have relatively small circles of other people that they connected with - this seems impossible today. In today's world we don't have to search for more connections. Instead, as quoted in Chayko's *superconnected*, "individuals must decide exactly how available they want to be'' (Castells 2011; Chayko, 2008; Fortunati, 2002; Katz & Aakhus, 2002; Marwick & byod, 2011). What I mean by this is that often in life people start small and work to get bigger, or better, or faster at something. With technology and being connected it's the opposite. You quite literally start with the world at your fingertips and then you, individually, need to decide how you will use this power to stay connected - carefully evaluating how much technology you can handle.

Chayko writes that "The internet and digital media are not responsible for the stresses and pressures of modern life; more often than not, they help people manage these stresses" (2017). I don't agree with this. While I understand that the internet **can** simplify things: you can call your loved ones easier, find out necessary information about the world around you, and so on - claiming that the internet is not responsible for stress or pressure, is too broad of a statement for me to get behind. While I agree with a lot of what Chayko wrote, after reading this piece I believe that I think the world of technology and its power can be more frightening than Chayko does.

### Sep 28 Tues - Response #2

Ever heard of the time Hilary Clinton sold weapons to ISIS? What about when she was actually disqualified from ever holding federal office? (Silverman 2016). These sound like totally crazy headlines that would be immediately rejected, right? Well I guess hindsight is 2020 for us but that wasn't the case for the "**roughly 2,953,000 engagements**" that these and other posts had (2016). We have a real problem here. I always knew that so-called *fake news* was buzzing during the 2016 election and now beyond, but this [BuzzFeedNews article](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/viral-fake-election-news-outperformed-real-news-on-facebook) really put it into perspective just how big of a problem we have with understanding what is true and false online. I was astonished to learn that some of these false stories were actually being promoted by Facebook, as "**a top trending item**" (2016). At some point I can start to understand why people would believe such things - this isn't something that your grandpa is sharing on Facebook, it's literally trending and a featured story.

What's even scarier is that [Boyd](https://points.datasociety.net/did-media-literacy-backfire-7418c084d88d#.d46kox6e1) sees what I may have suggested as potential solutions as "likely to fail" (Boyd 2017). This is because fake news can't always be traced back to a single post - Boyd claims it's more of a cultural issue, and I agree with her. We have been "telling young people that they are the smartest snowflakes in the world" and to "lift themselves up by their bootstraps" (2017). This mentality has resulted in a population of people who lack the ability to correctly evaluate if a source is trustworthy or not. Not to mention we are putting our resources in the wrong places. Boyd recalls that the students she spoke with knew "that Wikipedia was untrustworthy..." (2017). We are harping on things like that when we really should be educating our students on the real dangers that exist in much more hidden places than possibly doing some research on Wikipedia.

There are now whole [Life Cycles](https://mediamanipulation.org/methods) dedicated to media manipulation and countless examples of said cycles playing out in our world. How do we stop this? Can we stop this? This is not a question I have an answer to, but one way to move forward is to take time to educate yourself on the dangers of fake news and share these thoughts with those around you.

### Oct 1 Fri - Response #3

What exactly is a "fire hose lecture" and why is it that many "model students" don't know the first thing about studying? (Brown, Roediger, McDaniel 2014 p. 12). Whether we have heard the term or not, most of us have certainly sat in a fire hose lecture. This is referring to the constant spewing of information that has become the norm in schools. I see it myself in my classes when my teachers try to cram as much information as possible into the class time they are given. The teachers are not to blame here, though. Like students, many of them have expressed frustration with the system that has created this misunderstanding of learning.

The model student may not be able to study because after we sit through these fire hose lectures, there is an understanding that reading the textbook and going over our notes is enough. In reality, what we need to be doing is a "three step process" that involves encoding, consolidating, and then retrieving (p. 100).

The emphasis here needs to be on the retrieval step. Due to something called the "familiarity trap", we can feel safe and prepared when really, we are doomed (p. 64). This safe feeling can come when we simply review our notes, highlight a few things, and are able to recall what we think we have successfully learned. But we must remember that "we don't know what we don't know" (p. 17).

This is my favorite takeaway from the entire reading. There is no way to know what you don't know before a test - you can only prepare in the best way. Learning seems to happen best when you space out, or delay, your effortful retrieval of information. I think in the back of our heads, we all know that cramming before a test isn’t a healthy study tactic. This article goes beyond that to speak on the fact that even if you think you have the best study tools in the world, it’s worth reevaluating and maybe going against the norms.

### Oct 12 Tues - Response #4

How much digital capital do you have? How do you manage it? What's even the purpose of it? These questions were swirling through my mind while reading the piece from Rheingold. Since I came to Northeastern, a phrase I've heard about 1 million times is that "networking is everything" - this reading gave that phrase a whole new meaning. I love how Rheingold touched on the fact that yes, bell curves and averages are important, but it's so important to consider the obscure networks. "If you can aggregate all the fans of an obscure opera singer, people who breed a rare king of dog, or those who collect antique Balkan tax stamps, you now have a market" (Rheingold 2012). Yes, these are funny examples but that sentence has so much value because finding common ground and networking is essential for human connection.

Although it was said that "networked individualism, virtual communities, and smart mobs are redefining society", I also appreciated how Rheingold stated that things like social capital have always been around in some form of human behavior before the internet, but have now reached a new level that "online media made possible" (2012). Social capital is now at a point where it's somewhat necessary to possess to "get things done" (2012). Building trust and creating connections come along with the right amount of social capital.

"Absent ties have suddenly become more significant in the network society..." (2012). I loved this quote. I saw it first hand at home last year when my Dad joined Facebook. His face lit up as he rediscovered and reconnected with people from his past. This was honestly amazing to watch because it's something I will likely never experience because the thought of losing complete touch with someone in your network seems almost impossible because of how interconnected we are currently building our personal brands together. I like to think about what the future of this interconnectedness will be. Is there a limit to social capital for a healthy human lifestyle? Will we still use the same social platforms in 20 years? These are important, unanswered questions.

### Oct 26 Tues - Response #5

"Females preferred plush dolls and males preferred trucks" (Molteni, Rodgers 2017). Could this simple statement solve the debate about how our gendered tendencies are "hard-wired" into us because of our biological make-up? I think it's alarming, to say the least, to conclude this. We can all agree that there are some biological differences in Men and Women and we refer to these differences when we are discussing **sex** but **gender** is learned, taught, constantly reinforced through society, so claiming this just doesn't make sense to me - and did I mention this quote that I have at the beginning is about an experiment done on female and male **monkeys**?

Gender is something that I have been quite passionate about lately because I am currently taking a class in Communication and Gender and a lot of what I read reinforced ideas that we have discussed in class. One discussion in particular that I was able to recall when reading the article about the James Damore Google Memo is that it's *extremely* dangerous to look at an environment where people don't feel "secure, safe, and empowered to do their best work" and blame this on biological differences. (Molteni, Rodgers 2017). This is dangerous because if we blame science it becomes very easy to think *that's just the way things are in the world*, and makes it seem impossible to create positive change. I think the authors align with this idea perfectly when they write "It's an attempt to make permanent a power dynamic that shouldn't exist in the first place" (Molteni, Rodgers 2017).

Something else I've learned this year is that society commonly pressures women into having closer relationships - having one best friend that you can tell everything, whereas men are often socialized into groups growing up. Krasnova gives great insight into this from an SNS perspective finding "women are motivated to stay on SNSs because they can maintain ties with close friends and gain social information on these close connections... (2017 pg. 13). Not only this, but the male gratifications expressed on SNS completely supported the gender expectations placed on them by society. Whether it's checking how many friends their peers have online, following sports accounts, and creating posts involving sex or alcohol - these gratifications all support the masculine *rules* in our society (Krasnova 2017).

Gender is a complicated topic and it's clear that our societal expectations for gender have translated into our world of media. Moving forward it's incredibly important to have conversations about gender differences and how our societal schemas can cause havoc in our world.