How the Internet gets into our heads

 Read this article first, then my blog post response:  Google Search Results Can Influence an Election 



Someone sent me a link to this article about how Google can influence an election and I found it to be a little frightening. We are all so connected to our devices these days, that I think we forget that the constant stream of information coming at us can affect the way we think about things without us even realizing it. I know for a fact that Facebook has done social experimentation on its members. They admitted as much in 2012 when they altered the feeds of 700,000 member to see their reactions to a variety or negative posts. (Facebook's Not-so-secret Mood Manipulation Experiment ).

I've also heard rumblings about the"gay marriage rainbow profile filter" app that was made available to Facebook users following the Supreme Court's decision to uphold gay marriage. Rumor has it those were a social experiment too. I've read various reports that never definitively corroborate or disprove that it was, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if it were true. Can you imagine what an immensely powerful tool that would be to have access to the thoughts and feelings of a wide and varied range of the population? Old, young, conservative, liberal, crunchy, hipster, religious, atheist, ethnic, white...they're all represented on Facebook.

To be fair, marketers and politicians have always tried to figure out which ways work best to sway us, so none of this is really new.  There have always been polls and surveys and even controversial social experimentation, like the Obedience Experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram, but I think there's a fine line between trying to figure out what makes humans tick so you can learn about human nature either for purely academic reasons or to hopefully persuade them to choose something, and controlling people with manipulation. Some of this stuff just plays out to me a little bit too much like some of the dystopian literature I've read (Fahrenheit 451, A Handmaid's Tale, Nineteen Eighty-Four etc). What are your thoughts? Do you think the "powers that be" are using our Internet activity to manipulate and control us (or at least working hard to figure out how to do so)? If so, what can one do to counter it?

PS: I promise I was not wearing a foil-hat while writing this.  :)

The Titanic II: To Ride or Not to Ride?

A billionaire has built a replica of the RMS Titanic (see the article) and it is slated to sail in 2018. I wonder if they will completely flout fate and sail its maiden voyage for April 10?

Titanic set to sail in 2018

To ride or not to ride? That is the question. Not that I could afford it, this is strictly a rhetorical question, but is an interesting quandary. On the one hand, statistically, it should be safe. It should also technologically be safe. I mean, what are the odds that TWO Titanics would sink on their maiden voyage? Right?

On the other hand, the first Titanic was also supposed to be "technologically safe" too and my primitive, superstitious inner monkey-brain thinks it goes against all sense of self-preservation to ride anything that is modeled after such an ill-fated ship.

 

Welcome to our adventure!

Welcome to the blog for Professor Jamy Gearhart's 8:00 am English 101 class at North Carolina A&T.  This class is filled with students of uncanny intestinal fortitude. They forsake sleeping in on cold and frosty mornings and slog their way to class while the sun still struggles to gain a foothold in the sky.

Instead of keeping a journal this year, my students and I will embark on a blogging journey where we will polish our writing skills, improve our technique, and explore how we can use writing to benefit ourselves while in school and into the future.

Writing Prompt:

Introduce yourself and tell me about something that makes you laugh every time you think about it, see it, or hear it.  You can create a new blog entry to respond or reply directly to this blog post.

For me, there are a lot of things that make me laugh every single time: movies, commercials, pictures, even that stupid guy, Markiplier, who my son and his friends are into, he can make me laugh. There are, however, some things I like to take out when I'm having a bad day because I know that no matter how rotten my day is going, they will pull a laugh out of me.  This dreadful Walmart commercial is one particular favorite. I laugh until the tears squeeze out of my eyes every time I watch it.