TED Talks

I think these TED Talks were eye opening. I really liked the metaphor that was, explaining how our lives on social media can be like a tattoo, but a digital one. What it means is that a tattoo has a story behind it mostly, it tells something about you and your life. Same with your electrical tattoo, the more information you tell about yourself on social media is adding to your story. I thought that was almost scary because if you really keep track of everything that you post and share and talk about I don't know about you but my body would be COVERED in tattoos, which is scary. It all adds up and you don't realize it, It seems constant that I talk about going a vacation to Florida and immediately after in my Facebook page there will be a advertisement on house to stay at in Florida. Thats some creepy stuff, but we do nothing about it. Instead of protecting ourselves we continue to add to the tattoo. 

The TED Talk about police surveillance explained how just by simply tracking our vehicle so show where we go can tell the police so much about you. They can know where you got to church, if you have been to drug or alcohol counseling, where your kids go to daycare. This information use to be private and now police departments can make their own assumptions about you without even knowing you. We also face license plate readers, this helps the police collect mass qualities of data of where Americans are going. Date, time and location  are just some things they can collect, along with photos of who the driver is with as well. All this information is pulling into a large data base with hundreds of millions hits about where Americans go. 

Moving onto wire tapping. Computing has changed everything, our phones and networks where used as a type of surveillance before they were used for everyday life. This means anytime we speak, someone would listen, it could be out government, other governments, or even stalkers that have hacked into our personal conversations. Government Officials are becoming anger because tech companies are working on incriptions to keep others out. We all use the same communications outlets, so if agents can hack into the "drug dealers" phone, they can hack into yours. It can be a scary thought, anyone at anytime can be listening. The problems with most communication technologies is the back doors they have made for themselves that can also be easily hacked. Back doors allow bad guys to have the same access as the good guys. Thats a big risk we take because we allow tapping and back doors within our communication devices. So they whole message in the talk was that we should be using devices with encrypting tools, because they are secure. 

The last talk was about privacy. The speaker Darieth speaks about how naked photos of her had leaked and surfaced the internet. She was in total shock. A man created a website, in her name and posted photos, videos and personal informations that was inappropriate and explict  She learned that 1 in 10 women will experience revenge porn. Revenge porn is when a ex lover can not physically harm the women, so they hurt the victim digitally. The suicide rate is climbing because women are loosing jobs because of revenge porn, women are depressed because they is no laws to protect them from revenge porn. It took Darieth months to get her content removed due to third party internet companies. Stalking and harassment from other countries does not protect us in the United State. It was not until Darieth handed over everything she had to Homeland Security, exposing and humiliating herself to receive justice. There should be laws, many laws protect human from revenge porn, because 1 in 10 women will face it.

Online Presence

What is online presence? Online presence is any existence of an individual or business that can be found via an online search. An example of an individual who is not active on the Internet but who has a online presence is one who is a member of an association that has a member directory listing online.

I recently read the article "I am 14 and Quit Social Media" the article was very interesting. It made me think of my digital footprint much like she did. The girl became aware of the dangers of social media and they effect it can play on your life, if you are not mindful. I started to digest my own signal footprint and ask myself some hard questions. 

How large an online footprint do you have? If were being very honest I would say my signal footprint is large. I love social media, I like to post to keep up with celebrities and also my friends. I also need some dignal aspects, a far as Instagram, SnapChat and Twitter I do not need but I use several other outlets for school. I spend a lot of time on my computer whether it is backboard or watching videos so an assignment, I can not live in college without my computer. I do not have a personal website but I several forms of social media via apps.

Which social media sites do you use?I use Instagram the most, I love seeing what others are up to. I also have SnapChat, Twitter, Facebook and my newest addiction TikTok. I can accidentally spend an hour on TikTok and not even realize it, which defiantly contributes to my digital footprint the most. I most post about what I am up to as well, often photos that I think I look good in. I am not someone that obsess over likes, so that is something that decreases my footprint. I do not feel the constant need to check on likes. What information about you could a visitor glean about you, even indirectly, by visiting your pages on social media? My followers can see what city I live, what college I attend and how old I am, that is all information that is typed out. Information they can gather from my social media is that I run Track and Field and HPU, I am in a relationship, who my friends are and sometimes I will tag the location I was at. I have never given out my phone number, email and address so that makes me feel a bit safer while using social media. 

Some people say that social media can isolate you or even depress a person. For me personally I love social media, I think it is fun and entertaining. I love staying in touch with long distant family and friends through social media. I believe that any form of social media is good thing and a bad thing. I think it can be dangerous for our younger generation. I did not get social media until age 14 and I think that was an appropriate age, there are some children on social media at age 10 and I believe they are not at the maturity level get to handle have social media. 

Social media can give a false image, that can effect younger and more influenced user. I will admit I try my hardest to look beautiful on my forms of social media but I do not get discourage when I see someone prettier or skinner on social media. But some people are deeply effected by images, they think the only way to get likes is to dress in a bathing suit or to be 90lbs. with lots of make-up on. This can defiantly isolate and depress people and also give a since of false advertisement. Social media is full of photo shop and enhancement and it hard to spot what real and what not.

I think that the 14 year old girl was smart to get rid of her social media, this way she won't have as large of an opportunity to struggle with self image and originality. I wish that I had been more aware when I started out on social media. I feel I am slightly addicted and I am working on that in the future, because like I states social media can be a very good and bad thing for our society.