Blog #6

 

What I Learned

I learned a lot about the history of social media that I didn’t know before. I thought that social media came in the early 2000’s with the computer but from what I learned from the power points and presentations, I learned that it started back in 1844. Social media in 1844 seems impossible but it does make sense because a telegram being sent is like a direct message on a social media platform. The impacts of social media to me are pretty clear in how communication is spread. In my opinion there are a lot more positive effects that come out of social media than negative. Deleting social media altogether could solve so many problems that people deal with. I know it sounds like what is the best way to ski, don’t ski but it is a realistic thing in which they could delete it and the majority of their problems go away. 

What I also heard was that there are about 4.7 billion social media users in the world today. I think that number is probably correct because people have multiple instagram accounts, multiple twitters, etc. All of these are counted as users and the numbers keep adding up. For example, I have my personal account for myself, a business account for my podcast, and when I was in high school I ran my hockey team's instagram. Already there are three users for one person in myself and that’s not counting other people who have the same.
Overall I learned a lot about these presentations that I previously did not know about technology and social media we have today. I had no clue the Abraham Lincoln used an emoji for an example. 

Blog #5

 Anti-War

From what I have learned on the news, social media, and class, the government loves war. It is a time where they can tell you what to do, get more money, and almost have full control over the citizens. We have to access these websites because the government will shutdown and block it if it goes on mainstream news. They don’t want us to see all the talk about antiwar because they are scared of what the population would do if a war broke out and stuff like this was written on mainstream news. The government manipulates us so that we see what they want us to see and our opinions are totally on what they think. Which is against what our founding fathers once said and wrote down. We should have the freedom of speech and it should be on mainstream news whether the government likes it or not. War is terrible and not a good thing for the world. If WWIII breaks out in a Nuclear War, the next world war will be fought with sticks and stones (paraphrased from Albert Einstein). The government still thinks that promoting all this news about war is going to scare us into thinking we need to go and step in in Europe. 

These websites that we have scratch and claw to get to are there for a reason, so we don’t see what the government knows is true, but is too scared to find out what happens if we find out the truth. 

Blog #4

 The typewriter is an invention that we take for granted because of the technology that has surfaced today. I am currently typing on my computer keyboard which is a direct descendent of the typewriter. We use the keyboard for almost everything today because of how much technology has advanced. The typewriter was first invented in the 19th century where inventors laid the framework for the modern typewriter we see today. In the 19th century the typewriters were almost the size of a piano and were slower than writing by hand and proved that they were not necessary at the time. The thought and end goal was there for the original prototypes of the typewriter, but at the time it was hard to build because of the lack of technology. 

In 1867, Christopher Latham Sholes created one of the first modern prototypes of the typewriter. After trial and error, his second model in 1868 wrote faster than somebody writing with a pen which proved that the typewriter would have an impact on everyday life in the 1800’s. Sholes added improvements over the years and in 1873 he signed a contract with Remington to manufacture his second model which first hit the market in 1874. The typewriter changed the game for printing, newspapers, authors, and more. 

The only problem with the typewriter in 1874 was that it had no shift key, which was a problem at the time. Eventually in 1878, the first shift key typewriter was put out on the market. 

The typewriter changed the business world forever as it cut down the time to create documents and encouraged the workplace to have a better system in order. It also was cheaper because it didn’t take as many people to write stuff down because of the speed of the typewriter.  The typewriter not only changed the business world but also the world of journalism. With the typewriter being traversal, reporters could type articles faster. It also changed the way authors wrote. The invention of the typewriter made it faster than pen and paper. Authors like Mark Twain could write books faster. Mark Twain was the first author to write a book via the typewriter. 

It also added a lot more jobs in the workplace, especially for women. With the Civil War just wrapping up and with a men and labor shortage. Women were encouraged to get into the workplace. None of them wanted a factory job and a typist job was more appealing to them. Thanks to the typewriter, 45,000 jobs of typists were filled in the 1870’s after the Civil War. 

The typewriter's impact was a lot bigger than we think. I am currently typing on a keyboard which is based off of the typewriters set up. The typewriter laid the foreground for what we type on today. The keyboard on our laptops and even the digital ones on our phone are all thanks to the typewriter. The typewriter's original goal was to write faster than pen and paper, we have evolved past that as the laptop and phone can type faster than the typewriter.

Blog #3

 Blog #3 

Garrett Escala

One of the things that we are lucky enough to have in this country is the freedom of speech. Today’s political climate has torn the US apart with the Democratic Party and the Republican Party disagreeing on almost everything. With the freedom of speech comes the freedom of expression, one of them being Stable Change. Stable Change allows us to talk about our country, our problems, and other concerning things freely. One of the things that we have talked about in class and is a current issue in today's world is the Ukraine War. 

The Ukraine War has been going on since last winter/spring and has torn the United States apart because of it. Joe Biden and his administration have sent billions of dollars over to Ukraine and it does not sit well with a lot of Americans. Thanks to the freedom of speech and freedom of expression many Americans can create social media posts saying what they think of the war and Biden for sending money. I have seen most of my news about the war in Ukraine mainly from Tik Tok, whether it be from CNN, Fox News, or somebody randomly telling the news about the war. Even though the sources can sometimes be unreliable, the information is still absorbed by the viewer/reader. 

We as a country and the people in it are able to express their opinions about the war and the Biden administration without any reprimands because of the freedom of expression and one of our values that come with it is the value of stable change. With this we are able to “vent” about the government and it is also a plus for the government to identify dangerous threats to people about planning stuff such as January 6th when we saw on Twitter as people stormed the Capital. We watched as people online “vented” about what they thought was right and wrong about the situation that was going on. 

With all the current events going on today I rely on a lot of social media apps to keep me up to date with mainly all of the posts being related to one of the values of expression. With Tik Tok, it is mainly a person telling me the news, I have either seen it before on a big name media sources page or this is the first time I have heard it. It is mainly somebody personally saying what he thinks of the situation. This is what is going on in our country today. Everybody thinks they have to say what they think about the situation and that whatever they say is the truth or is what actually matters. Nobody gives other people a chance to hear their side, they think that whatever they say is the truth which is why our country is being torn apart. Going back to the Democratic and Republican parties, both of them are not willing to get along because they are so deep in a war with each other about how the country should be run. And the followers of those parties are venting on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms about their thoughts on what the world is going through today.