Technology and Relationship

Technology can have a negative impact on the relationship by being a big distraction for either party. Instead of having important conversations, one or both partners are more focused on their phones and checking social media. Lastly, heavy use of technology can actually lead to negative mental health. 

It’s easy to become distracted by text messages and social media updates. When conversations between family members are constantly interrupted by technology, it may become difficult to “be in the moment.” This may cause children to share less information with parents as well. Feeling unimportant. 

Technology has been increasing at a fast pace since the late 1990’s and 2000’s, making it difficult for parents (and adults in general) to handle the challenges of changing technology in their workplaces and homes. 

This increase in technology adds a new dynamic to parenting: challenging meaningful communication and strong relationships with our children. It can challenge our adult and family relationships as well. 

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Why does a family divide happen? 

Family divides can happen when there is a breakdown in communication and connection among parents and children, or between adults. A breakdown in communication might involve dishonest, disrespectful, and distant (not being present) conversations, or simply having no conversation at all. 

It can create innocent misunderstandings, distrust, and a feeling of distance between family members. When a breakdown in communication continues, the problem can snowball, furthering the distance between family members. 

The difficulties in communication between working parents and their children 

Working parents often have an obligation to work long hours away from home, resulting in “latchkey kids” that come home each day and spend time without parents present. During that time, it’s easy for children to spend their time playing video games, visiting social media sites, and checking in with their cell phones to connect with friends. 

Technology such as cell phones and online gaming allows for children to be constantly connected to friends, making peers one of their largest influencers. In these cases, some children turn to friends for advice instead of their parents. 

The difficulties for parents in mastering technology  

Technology is changing at a rapid pace and in order to master the latest technology, parents must continuously spend time learning new devices, apps, social media sites. For some parents, this becomes a real challenge. It can be difficult to balance family, work, household activities, and social calendars, let alone learning the latest technology. Therefore, mastering technology often falls by the wayside. 

In addition, many parents (and adults in general) today were raised in a culture where technology was not as large a part of everyday life as it is today. There were no Smart Boards in classrooms, cell phones were novelties, and online gaming had not yet been invented. Some homes didn’t even have a computer. 

The learning curve for parents and adults to learn and master technology has been steeper than it has been for children that grew up with computers, tablets, smart TVs, and cell phones at their fingertips. 

Now parents can’t monitor their children’s communication 

In the beginning, social media sites could easily be monitored by parents. It was common for parents to “friend” their children and monitor their online communication. Today, children are using social media platforms such as Snap Chat where messages disappear within seconds so that parents can’t see the messages stored on their child’s phone. 

Some children create separate profiles that their parents aren’t aware of: one where they connect to family and friends, and one where they only connect with friends. Other common methods children use to avoid parent monitoring are deleting text messages or apps from their phones daily. 

How to Reduce Technology 

Block Out Tech-Free Time Together 

Make it a rule that devices are not allowed at the table during meals. Go for a walk and leave your devices behind. Plan a date night and leave your devices at home or in the car. Designate a time of day or day of the week to be tech-free. 

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Example from my family, during fall, spring, and summer season we tend to create activity for my family members to engage and spend time together. Due to time, jobs, and many conflict, but we choose to go for a walk around the neighbors or to the park to have a picnic. The kids really enjoy it and we they them every evening to distract them from using technology. We spend time about 3 hours a day and by the time they get home, we ate dinner, clean up our selves, doing homework, and by that time it already time for bed.

These two link provide pro and cons of using technology and how it affect our relationship toward one another. Meanwhile it also gives information of how people should educe the use of technology and set-up rules in their house.

Bridging the Gap Between Social Media and Advertisement by Accessing How Audiences Are Targeted

Quinton Miller, MDST 485 Communicating with New Media, Public Relations Major, Metropolitan State University

January 22nd, 2021

This scholarly journal keys in on the increasing popularity of CBD products. Through algorithms set for identifying certain words, this passage explains the analysis taking place surrounding the conversation concerning attitudes towards cannabinoid (CBD) and its purpose. Terms including anxiety, stress or nausea were identified as indicators for therapeutic necessities. This could help with uncovering what language companies who sell these types of products would use in their advertisements going forward. It may also provide insight into a drug policy that needs revision for places that do not allow it due to the products legality based on those first hand accounts documented from forums. This includes Cannabinol/CBD, hemp oil and Cannabis. There are pieces of qualitative data from these findings which is what some new age advertising services utilize. Not only does this tie into the cannabis sector of public relations in new media through explanation of a methodology professionals can use on social media platforms, this academic journal is relevant to us as citizens. When using social media, we often find advertisements geared towards something we’ve recently posted, viewed or talked about. The algorithm, similar to a control F function in a word document, gives an example of how our data is utilized in studies. Once we, as users of these platforms, think outside the box and consider other ways our words are used, we can conduct other research as to how social media and advertisements have played hand-in-hand.

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Does this remind us of anyone who whistle blew about this in the past?

This news article was originally written in the beginning of 2018 and revised in October of 2020. This article includes a video experiment of a couple conversing about cat food to see if ads would begin to appear in relation to their conversation. They concluded that facebook had been listening for keywords in their conversations due to the fact that cat food advertisements begun appearing days later. These readings seem distant on the surface, but with a little critical analysis in the mindset of media communication, people can bridge the gap between an obvious new age of targeting methods and terminology. Both articles involve keywords instead of age groups. All users of either the forum or social media who used certain words were taken into account. Each of these had different ways and different purposes, but they could relate to the ways companies use new media to gather and target data on potential consumers.

Take a look below and try it out for yourself !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0SOxb_Lfps

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Of course this isn’t the real Edward Snowden’s instagram. (I doubt we’ll see the real Snowden on social media). This is a instagram fanpage dedicated to the man who informed the world of what the NSA had been doing.

Narcity Media, October 2020, Why You Keep Getting Ads For Things You’ve Talked About But Haven’t Searched Up Online https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.narcity.com/amp/why-you-keep-getting-ads-for-things-youve-talked-about-but-havent-searched-up-online

International Journal of Drug Policy Vol. 77, Mar 2020, Social Media Surveillance for Perceived Therapeutic Effects of Cannabinol (CBD) Products https://www-sciencedirect-com.mtrproxy.mnpals.net/science/article/pii/S0955395920300293

Social Media’s Influence on Human Interaction

I’m sure if you are reading this that you use some form of social media.  It’s everywhere you look. Social media is a fixture in our lives in the United States. The internet and social media are so embedded in our daily life that it dominates our language. It’s also starting to influence the way we interact with one another.  Social media sites are supposed to bring people together but sadly it seems to be ripping us apart. My goal is to shed light on the issues surrounding interaction via social media and a few simple techniques to mitigate toxic behavior on the internet.

The political climate of the United States is quite turbulent to say the very least.  Everyone has a platform to express their views on the internet without a filter. Our echo chambers are becoming cauldrons of toxicity and it’s changing the way humans interact with one another. It seems as though we are not capable of engaging in debates of any sort without it dissolving into insults, personal attacks and even violence.

How bad is it, really? Well, according to Chamath Palihapitya, former vice-president of user growth at Facebook, claims that social media sites like Facebook are creating “tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works”. What a terrifying thought.  We are supposed to be more connected than ever but we seem to be disconnecting ourselves from one another.

So what do we do? An article written by John Coate, dating all the way back to 1998 covers many steps to maintain an online community. In his article he discusses free speech. I think many of us in the United States take that right for granted.  Our online communities are derailing into silence brigades.  Individuals with opposing view points are expected to hate one another.  These tools of social media are creating online communities that have no chance to incubate thought provoking dialog between two parties.  Coate goes on to explain in the same section covering free speech that public online interactions should be moderated to ensure that the online community is preserved. However, Facebook has no official moderator. There are guidelines Facebook follows to delete or censor content but it is not a transparent process nor does it ensure a healthy interaction between two parties online. I think the solution to this divisive pattern of social media is to use Facebook less and use other moderated forums such as Reddit.com or Sputnik.org.  It would be foolish to say drama and divisive actions do not occur on other social media sites. However, taking into consideration what Chamath Palihapitya has disclosed about what Facebook is doing to our society, we do not have any other choice but to change our actions to ensure we progress as a society.

 

Gender Bias

 

Gender Bias is a discrimination that often goes unnoticed on a day to day basis. This Bias has been push through each generation from early history when all women would stay at home to care for the family and house while the man went to work to provide the income for the family. For history to have a period of time like that creates a bunch of stereotypes for what boy and girl should be and act like from an early age. It was up until the nineteenth century when women were allowed to partake social life, education, and politics. These ideas where pushed through movements like Christianity and the age of enlightenment. It has taken women movements and acts from the government for women to be respected by institutions of the government. Although women are still fighting to this present day to still have equality between men and women. Our history allows us to see there has always been separation of fair equality between men and women. Overall both of these links below talk about gender bias in different and similar ways but both educate you on gender bias in the world today. They both also touch on how gender bias has progressed over the years and through movements.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-marie-jenkins/unconscious-gender-bias-e_b_7447524.html

http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/271/Gender-Bias.html

Sunday, Monday… Smonday.

I think it’s fair to say that the above meme expresses a universal feeling.  At least one time or another, if not every single sunday, of every single week, we’ve all felt this exact feeling.  And I don’t know about you, but some smonday’s, it can get pretty dark and depressing.

So, what can we do about it? We must choose to look at Monday differently.  If we want something different, to feel something different, we must DO something different. Easier said than done for sure, BUT, we are the only ones who can do it.  I think sometimes we need to be reminded that we can’t wait for someone else to help change our ways of thinking or of doing.  With that being said, lets get some ideas moving in our heads so we can start thinking different and changing the definition of “Smonday’s:”

https://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2016/01/how-to-beat-the-sunday-night-blues.html

Life is hard enough.  The last thing we should be doing is creating anxiety, negative thoughts about things that haven’t even happened yet.  We as humans are wired to worry about what has already happened to us and what has yet to happen to us, instead of living in the N O W.  It’s time.  Let’s focus on the now, while we prepare the what is to come.

https://www.thirteenthoughts.com/sunday-habits-better-week-ahead-beat-sunday-night-blues/

Sunday is coming in 2 days.  Are you going to take control of the day or are you going to let the day control you?

Cyborg Nation

For some time, the focus of education has been squarely on collecting the skills required to obtain a job. I think that this lacks vision and is dismally underserving society. How can we expect our education system to be effective, when that system cannot agree on what the purpose is?

Yes, it is important for students to have core skills. It makes sense to have a focus on STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and math). Especially, when that is where we predict the greatest growth potential for future jobs exists. We do want students to get and retain quality jobs. But, I would argue that if the purpose of education is only to get a job, then we end up with members of society who settle for the standard set for them.

What is the true purpose of education?

This has changed over time.

It is my opinion that education is a civic duty.

We need societal members who challenge the status quo, who think critically about our world’s problems, and are equipped to solve them. Not people who can just work a job.

Every person in an institution ought to be well versed in ethics and their individual responsibility. Each should question what they are told and understand the implications of the choices they make. If the purpose of education were only to get a job, it would seem that all that society wants us to be is cyborgs. Human, but just robotic enough to not cause trouble. But, trouble (something that instigates change) is what we need! We need people who are willing to challenge the way that things are in an effort to make them better for
everyone.

Because the way that things are isn’t sustainable!

Education develops individuals into contributing members of society who are equipped with the tools necessary to make life better for themselves and others. Ultimately, those who are educated can give back.

Educated individuals should give back through payment of taxes, contributing to lawmaking and the legislative processes, and returning to the education system as teachers, and as mentors to those newly entering the work force. This is how societies progress… But, it can happen outside of the institution(s).

While jobs are a necessary component of this process – without which the process fails – acquisition of the job is not the end of one’s line.

We learn… We grow… We progress… We give back.

This ought to be considered in the pedagogical and andragogical models of education.

To those who have received, it is your duty to society to give back.

This passing on of knowledge to future generations is what will cause us to progress forward or fall behind as a society. It is each of our responsibilities to learn as much as we can, so that we are well equipped to give back.

What do you think?
Tell me in the comment section below.