Technology has now advanced in ways that affect our emotions. It for a fact affects everyone differently because some are able to distinguish real from fake and reality from our fantasy. This is all a smart trick to get people to use their apps and spend as much time as they can so they can make money but when emotions are involved you don’t see it that way. They are giving people what they think they want or need. It all starts off with curiosity then leads to entertainment and lastly emotional attachment. Digital life is now being confused with real life because real live people are on social media talking and sharing experience. Replacing people with robots is another extreme that I can’t get with. All the movies I watched with robots started off a good idea until the robots became dangerous and tried to control the world, for example “I, robot” with Will Smith. We are at phase 1 where robots can talk and text us on our cell phones. For example, Siri and Alexa are on our phones to help us communicate what we want and need. The next phase could be physical robots that are replacing people at work like reseptionist and cashiers and door means in means to make experiences easier for people. I don’t like it but I can’t stop it. It’s coming within a matter of time. 

In the podcast Note to self-Talking to myself the lady made a point where she said that we were once talking to the waitress when we were at a restaurant instead of being on the phone and in this case the guy was talking to his replika on an app which imitates him. That just shows how much society has changed. People no longer have genuine in person connection with people that used to happen when technology wasn’t in the palm of our hands. The Episode of Black Mirror “Be Right Back” was a very emotional episode that ended in a way that should teach people that robots can’t replace a person even if they look alike, sound alike. The way people portray themselves on the internet is not the same as in person. The lady wanted her dead husband back but that was impossible so she used a technology that would bring a robot that looks just like her husband and sounds just like him too. Though spending time with these robots she realized that it was not really her husband even though she wanted it to be so bad especially for her child. At the end I wonder what she told her daughter about the robot living in her attic. That would be an interesting story that would impact the daughter’s relationship with the robot. He was just there to fill the moms void of losing her husband. He technically is a robot right? He can’t sleep, breathe, eat or snore.

Weekly news: 

A Lot of people have been moving out of New York City after the pandemic hit hard. What are your thoughts on it?

https://nypost.com/2020/08/11/new-yorkers-flee-nyc-in-droves/

Social Media companies make most of their money getting people to use their app as much as possible. The idea of social media being used less in the future is impossible in my opinion because social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and snapchat  are finding ways to keep people on their apps as long as they can without thinking about the negative effects it has on the users as long as their money increases. Social media companies targets are kids and teenagers who are easily entertained and become addicted. The older generation are not used to using their phone as much as we are because they didn’t grow up on it. Kids can spend all day on tablets and phones as long as someone doesn’t take it away from them as seen in the youtube video “Why you’re addicted to your smartphone”. People are hired to improve apps to make them more addictive and the changes happen before our eyes that we don’t realize that we are spending more time on our phones. One example I can think of is Instagram making a section on their app for TiK ToK videos. Tik Tok is the new app this generation is obsessed with and would spend hours on it just watching what kinds of videos people came up with and maybe recreating it and posting it. Trump was trying to ban this app because first he said he didn’t want China to collect data off our phones and have the China government have access to that data but then people are thinking that Trump is so surprised by how information is quickly circulating that he can no longer control the information being presented and it’s true. People are about to put information Online whether true or false and it can spread like wildfire but who is he to want to control what people say or information we have access to. He is always on Twitter saying anything he wants to say as President of the United States.

 This leads me to the article “Cicero’s Twitter: Tom Standage on the forgotten history of social media” about how social media is not new but only has a new approach. The older generation were used to radio stations playing popular music and listening to the information the radio wanted to talk about and Television channels that had shows and commercials about what they wanted people to know because it was a one way communication. Now social media has a two way communication that lets the views and audience voices be heard whether they like it or not. Anyone can type on their phones how they feel about a commercial or a tv episode or a comment someone made on live radio or TV and post it on any social media app and get support on the post or backlash because it is now public. 

Weekly News:

I picked this article to go with the point I made about Trump trying to ban TiK Tok. This is the first time I am seeing a President try to ban an App that millions of people use. 

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/06/900019185/trump-signs-executive-order-that-will-effectively-ban-use-of-tiktok-in-the-u-s

Do you think Trump will be successful in Banning Tik Tok?

Some social media platforms were created for people to express themselves  and make everything about them which is called subjectivation.The French philosopher Michel Foucault said that social media is the vehicle for identity formation. Social media platforms are a way for you to entertain and create a performance and get provided with feedback for an audience that can be from all over the world. He would say that there are no guards and prisoners when it comes to things being posted on the internet. You were able to post whatever you wanted whenever you wanted. But the way that social media evolved, people use self censorship in order to not get attacked for an opinion that you believe or feel. People behind screens and some that use fake identity are ready to rip people apart for anything they don’t agree with or feel as should not have been said but the internet is a place for people to say what they want with their platforms. This brings up the idea of the cancelled culture that has been seen lately. People are so fixated on a certain kind of image and spokesperson to be popular but once they say something they disagree with or find offensive, they want to cancel them and discredit everything they have done or said to get to where they are. Social media was supposed to be a place where you sculpt who you are by posting thoughts, feelings and opinions but people made it a scary place where people can get bullied and less confident in who they are.  

In “The Story of the Self”, Charles Fernyhough states “When our present-day emotions change, so do our memories”. Just like in the Black Mirror episode the Entire History of You, the main character Liam felt as if something was going on with his wife and her friend once he saw the way that they were interacting with each other during the dinner all of their friends were having. His wife was laughing at all his corny jokes and he became skeptical of what was going on between them and from there he started to ask questions and would even involve the babysitter. He was sure that something had happened between the two so he asked her to play back her memoirs and she tried to delete them. It turns out she cheated on him with the guy and the baby wasn’t even his. He didn’t know how to handle the stress of the knowledge after leaving her and would constantly replay his life with his wife and it got to the point that he had to remove the technology that lets him replay memories. He decided to move on with his life and try to forget the past. Memories can shape who and where we are in life. “There can be no doubt that our current emotions and beliefs shape the memories that we create.” Here is a fun video of how memories work, Enjoy.

What’s your favorite memory?

Hey everyone, My name is Yassa. I am a Communication studies major and am excited to take this class. I am from New York City, I live in Harlem to be specific. I am on campus for the semester because I have some in person classes. Lets see how this semester goes with everything going on.

This is picture I took with my phone when I was in central park one night. P.s. It looks better in person.