I played a lot of video games growing up. My first game was on a gameboy that my mom had handed down to me and my brother. I was obsessed with playing Pokemon Ruby. I could play this game for hours without even noticing. With a game like Pokemon where the objective is to collect and train and battle with the creatures, you can also spend hours just searching the game for new pokemon and you can totally abandon the main storyline. When I was younger I actually didn’t understand the storyline at all, so I  just ran around the game strengthening my pokemon without even knowing. When I came back to it several years later I finally understood how to play and beat the game. What was so amazing about a game like this is that you could just play, and you did not have to be constantly reaching a goal. It was just as much fun to enjoy the world it created.

(Amazon.com)

For a brief game analysis of Pokemon Ruby, The choice comes from the first time you play the game. You have to pick who you want to play as, and what your starter pokemon will be. This choice somewhat leads you down a certain path, but all are very similar. After this the challenge arises, you have to defeat a certain number of “gym” leaders. To do so you have to explore the game and find them in different areas, all while collecting pokemon and training them more and more to defeat new and stronger opponents. The change comes from how you play the game. You can take your time and level up as long as you need, or just go as quick and lose a bunch until you level up. As you beat gym leaders the difficulty changes, you start meeting stronger pokemon and other trainers that increase difficulty. And finally the chance portion of it is that the pokemon you encounter is pretty random. You can run around a little pathc of grass one time and encounter a weak pokemon, and the next time it can be a strong, rare pokemon. This keep you very engaged with the gameplay, almost like a gamble if you will find the rare one or not.

(Youtube.com)

This game left an impression on me because of how easy it was to play. You didn’t have to keep progressing like I said earlier. You could just play the game by running around finding new pokemon. This made it very appealing to my 7 year old brain. There was no stress that came with it. Also the portable nature of the Gameboy was very helpful in bringing it on road trips where I could play for hours. As time went on more and more pokemon variations came out on different consoles, making it something that was always being upgraded. Even today I can play the new pokemon and have the same level of excitement.

Based on the readings (and the videos in the 06 Data & Information chapter) above, do you think that big data and data analytics introduce real threats to human culture or do they promise revolutionary changes that will ultimately benefit human life? What can we do to ensure that our digital technologies work to improve human and nonhuman lives?

Right now, I see big data as more of an immediate threat, but it also seems futile to resist because we’re all continually complicit in its spread. It really is a double-edged sword and it is easily abused. Whoever wields its power can use data for financial gain through behavior-monitoring or to track/eliminate dissidents. We need to make sure everything is above-board and stay constantly vigilant.

Big Data has its positives. It fosters social innovation and creates a more informed scientific community. Analyzing large amounts of data can give us more insight into carbon emissions, help increase quality of life, cure diseases, design better infrastructure, etc. 

Ethical standards regarding the use of data must be imposed and closely monitored. It should be incredibly transparent and available to the public.

After reading the Social Media chapter, the Rushkoff chapter on Identity and watching the documentary Life 2.0 (above), write a blog post about being in two places at once in the digital age. How has this “virtuality” changed our ideas of self, society and community? How might VR social media impact our embodied relationships? If you were going to design a VR social media platform what would it be like? What concerns and/or hopes do you have about the future of a virtual social life? 

Many people lead double lives through their virtual avatars. In MMORPGs you can work hard, collect the most coveted gear, overpower and dominate opponents, form friendships with others that share the same goals, get married, take on a new gender identity or sexuality, etc. People often feel safer living their truths or speaking unpopular opinions under the guise of their avatar. Many have more confidence in their virtual form than they do in their corporeal form. When people speak truthfully ideas can flourish and society can become more socially progressive. However, there could be a downside to this as well. There’s the physical: our bodies could start wasting away form malnutrition, lack of exercise and sunlight, etc. We might be too timid in real-life situations.

I am very excited about the future of VR. While my mind does sometimes drift to dystopian themes involving VR-addled junkies, I do see infinite potential for good. More VR programs could be developed that help with immersion in content. Imagine Instagram feeds, but the ability to live out a simulation of the picture instead of just seeing your friend there from one angle. The more immersion of the senses, the more experiences will resonate with others. When people feel something on a multi-sensual level they might be able to empathize more deeply.

Digital technology easily remediates the narrative arts of all other media (radio, movies, tv, fiction), but it also introduces new possibilities that may challenge our very notions of narrative – that a story needs a beginning, middle and end, for example. Which of the above digital texts engage you most and why? Discuss how we can approach new digital works that present stories in unfamiliar and challenging ways. What are your thoughts/experiences of how the digital, hyperlinks and the web are changing the art of storytelling.

I enjoyed “With Those We Love Alive” the most.  I liked that we were prompted to put on headphones since it allows you to block out distractions and hear things more clearly. The music was almost trance inducing. I feel like the multi-modal mediums used really helps with engagement in the project. It sucks you into a fictional world, the choices seeming nonsensical and dreamlike. I naturally want to make meaning out of the randomness. Many lines read like poetry.

I appreciate this attempt at immersion within a HTML-based world. I think focusing on creating an immersive experience with digital art going forward will really push the boundaries of how art is felt and perceived. Virtual reality will continue to advance, becoming more and more seamless, which in turn will allow people to resonate more with storytelling and simulated experiences.

Storytelling is already being explored in new ways. The Black Mirror movie on Netflix is one major example I thought of which reflects the “Choose your own adventure” style of these hypermedia pages and twines. The viewer can choose how the story progresses based on prompts during pauses. I have also seen numerous video games that are time-based and have options of how to respond in quick-thinking situations. Your decisions or indecision can result in many different outcomes.

Ex.)

With all of the current social media apps, and the new ones that come along, people can find themselves living their lives through the screen. Social media is a way for someone to escape their lives or make their lives look much more “interesting” then it really is. Like Dwight, from The Office.

(The Office)

With all of these platforms people can create another type of them. Maybe someone wanted nicer things, being successful at their dream job or create a profile to get the courage to talk to someone they are interested in.

The main reason why I like social media is because I can stay connected to my family who lives through out the US. I think that actually having a “real life” connection with makes it more important. When random people want to “be friends”, it really makes you wonder if the person in the picture is the person behind the screen.

My concern for a second life is that you don’t know who is on the other side of the screen. It makes me worried for my daughters, technology is going to change so much. Even though people can make is so believable right now, I can’t imagine what the next step will be to catfish someone. I worry that with it advancing so much, predators can be so much than then they are now.

After reading the Social Media chapter, the Rushkoff chapter on Identity and watching the documentary Life 2.0 (above), write a blog post about being in two places at once in the digital age. How has this “virtuality” changed our ideas of self, society and community? How might VR social media impact our embodied relationships? If you were going to design a VR social media platform what would it be like? What concerns and/or hopes do you have about the future of a virtual social life?

Depending on how much time, effort, and resources you put into “being two places” at once I think the effects can be quite disconnecting or leading to a polarization between the “real you” and “virtual you”. I only speak from experience of personal use and online presence when I say that I believe that VR platforms can be used for immense good but can also be a significant fork in the road when it comes to distraction and how we choose to pursue recreation in a healthy way. I think conflict of interests are in order that may drive certain people from real-life obligations and could potentially lead to full-fledged neglect in certain areas of your own life – that is to say that VR has big potential to for escapism of massive proportions that may lead some of us to divide ourselves from our real-life self, society, and community, just to pursue it online or in a VR world. This, factored in with how much more unappealing future Earth could potentially be due to climate change and a myriad of other reasons, would be a prime set up for overindulgence of time and resources towards setting a bigger foothold online for ourselves as opposed to taking care of what we have in the flesh.

The abovementioned ironically plays into how I would build a social media platform if I could. I would look to the example Ready Player One has provided and almost completely replicate the format of this book/movie. A moderately decentralized network or world where people can jump in and do pretty much anything they could imagine in a virtual setting. I feel like this format would be entirely conducive to all the anti-social aspects VR that I previously mentioned, but it’s a fantasy of mine, nonetheless.

As far as embodied relationships are concerned, it seems like a bit of a tricky play when it comes to its tie to VR and how we already carry ourselves online. If you are yourself online, you will make proper decisions with how you conduct yourself because it is your own reputation at stake. Avatars annihilate this idea and enable to act less like themselves or how they want to be perceived with little to no consequences. There is also margin for creating a version of yourself that is nothing like the real you, but if this relationship is for the sake of VR connections with no intent to expand past it then I suppose it would be suitable for people that are in mutual agreement.

Write a blog post about being in two places at once in the digital age. How has this “virtuality” changed our ideas of self, society and community? How might VR social media impact our embodied relationships? If you were going to design a VR social media platform what would it be like? What concerns and/or hopes do you have about the future of a virtual social life? 

I believe that virtuality has made people more comfortable to express themselves and be themselves than ever before. The Second Life documentary showed us that many people often view their online personalities or personas are an extension of themselves and they can create just as meaningful of relationships online as they can in person. Many people find it easier to open up to strangers online than people in real life and as a result, virtuality has allowed connections that have influenced millions of people which would not have otherwise occurred. Today, the word community can take on many meanings which are not exclusive to physical locations. Online forums, games, podcasts or talk shows all have their own communities where people can connect just as substantially as pre-internet communities.

That being said, I am concerned as technology advances that deepfake videos have the potential to ruin the trust people put into their online communities and groups. Thankfully it seems that there has been research put towards detecting deepfakes but it still should be something that people should be wary about especially since many deepfakes are created with the intent to spread misinformation or slander others.

Watch this 30 second video about misinformation

Vannevar Bush and Ted Nelson were visionary thinkers seeking solutions to the problems of information overload and hierarchical storage systems that seemed to stifle human creativity and associative thought. Now that we have the World Wide Web, in what ways have these visions of Bush and Nelson been realized?  What remains unrealized?

“Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready-made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified” – Vannevar Bush

This quote basically predicted the internet, but more specifically, Wikipedia. This and every page on the internet contains Nelson’s “hypertext” idea, linking you with a click to infinite amounts of knowledge. The linking goes even further with “hypermedia” which explains JPEGs, GIFs, Flash players, embedded Youtube videos, Spotify, etc, etc.

People naturally want to categorize everything, but the hierarchical structures of the past couldn’t possibly arrange all data at the time in a truthful, accurate way.  Like an old library, this is a branching system, not like the rhizomatic system of the internet.
Nelson’s “Xanadu” concept still remains somewhat unrealized. If you post some artwork online, for instance, the source of the creation will sometimes be lost and you can lose credit for your work. The hyperlinks we have don’t trace back to the original. The state of copyright today is in disarray.

According to Benjamin, how does mechanical reproduction change culture? What do you think are the consequences of digital reproduction on cultural expression today? Can a digital work have anything like an “aura? How does the culture of remix confirm of refute Benjamin’s ideas?

Mechanical reproduction created a cultural shift in how we understand and process art. It allowed the masses to engage with artworks that were normally reserved for the eyes of higher classes. Art has the ability to manipulate and influence the spectator, and it can be used as a political tool to change socio-cultural attitudes. Mechanical reproduction resulting in the printing press allowed Martin Luther to nail his 95 page theses to a Wittenburg church door, forever changing history.

One specific consequence of digital reproduction in today’s culture expression is what I see as the ‘death of photography’. Our social feeds are flooded with Instagram selfies, highly polished photoshops, 3D recreations, better and better phone cameras, etc. Capturing something in its temporal essence through classic photography might be a thing of the past.

I think there are indeed ways that digital art can retain an “aura of authenticity”. Certain types of VR experiences come to mind. Although, Benjamin might reduce to this to just a fake simulation.

I generally am not a huge fan of the idea of an “aura of authenticity. Even the remix can be made into something original and even be original in a temporal sense. Everything is a remix of something ideas that came before. Remixing and sampling can be manipulated in ways that sound completely different than the source material, essentially becoming its own thing. The live of experience of a DJ show exists in an aura.

I think big data and data analytics has two sides, and it is really dependent on your own personal role in life to which side you align with. For me I see potential benefits with the use of data analytics and the potential for better technology in the medical industry. One of the videos from the textbook highlighted new possibilities for data and how it can be used to improve people’s ability to track their health. This type of technology uses data to tell a person what their health is looking like now and warns them of potential changes that could affect them. In my opinion this type of technology would be amazing for the health of people in our world. It would also give health care workers more information to go off of when treating patients. This same situation can be applied to things outside of medicine, and are potentially more harmful. The ability to track ones future choices with a set of data would change lots of things.

(nbs.net)

I personally see a lot of benefits with the algorithms that show me what I want to see on the web. I can simply look at my YouTube homepage and I am given many things of interest. Because this makes it easier for me, I like it.

I am not sure that we will ever be able to make something that solely has a role of improving lives. Someone will always use it for their own gain rather than others. We discussed much of this today during class, where digital technology made for one things is almost always used in a way it was not directed for, and ends up threatening other users in some way. An example of this is the use of Youtube for monetary gain that takes advantage of children’s viewing habits to make money.

But I think that humans will always need to be involved if we want to make sure these digital technologies work to help people. Maybe people will have to oversee these algorithms and kind of keep them in check. Reporting on uses and if things are actually being used to improve lives rather than gain off of them.

Big data and data collection is certainly an uncomfortable thing to think about. Several different servers owned by massive corporations are collecting each and every piece of data we produce by living in an online society. The idea that big data and data analytics is inherently good or bad may be a bit too black and white for the issue. I would say it’s both a give and a take, inherently it is a good thing, but when misused it becomes a bad thing.

On the inherently good side, AI and data analytics are there for humanity’s convenience. A computer keeping a record of your interests and search histories will be able to help recommend similar topics to you as it learns about you. These newly introduced topics or pieces of information can help lead someone to a place where they can find new interests, discoveries, or even lead you to new topics worth exploring. This is one of the revolutionary changes as it mimics the way human curiosity would lead them to bigger and better things at a fraction of the time it would normally take.

Inherently, this revolutionary change is a very good thing, as it advances humanity’s interests in learning as well as helps provide an easier way to live for many. However, most of the time these recommended interests are manipulated by big corporations in order to turn a profit. Companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon all have been known to collect and store the data of their users and sell it off to those wishing to make a profit off of certain demographics. This process of selling off data that should not be for sale is where threats to human culture are introduced, as it ignores human desire for inherent learning and instead focuses on the profit of one large corporation rather than the individual human’s interests. Another threat is the unwanted collection of data through our devices with built-in microphones listening and recording what we say for specific targeted ads. This may just be an anecdotal fallacy on my end but I have had the experience of my devices listening to me saying something completely out of the blue and then showing me ads related to that topic not 10 minutes later. This is a total breach of privacy as that is proof that devices are listening in carefully to hear exactly what you have to say at all hours of the day.

What are ways we can combat this? Well put simply, there needs to be restrictions in place on what data can and can’t be stored. There also needs to be laws and regulations in place that restrict companies from selling or trading customer or user information with other companies. With laws against trading as well as selling data will keep corporations from making a profit off of sharing data with each other, as well as keeping their users safe.

With new emerging forms of social media, a person can find themselves being able to engineer their lives through a digital lens. They can structure the way in which someone see them through what they choose to post, or completely remain anonymous and post whatever they may feel. Digital communities such as Second Life incorporated the ability for people to live out an entirely different life online. This opened the eyes to many of the way the digital world can incorporate itself into our own while remaining separate.

(Wikipedia)

This “virtuality” changes the idea of what is the real world, and allows for more interpretation and ability to access new “lives”, much like what second life does. It gives the user an opportunity to leave this “real world”, and do something else, even be someone else. What this does is makes new societies, communities and identities. Ones people can use differently than their real world ones.

VR has potential to affect our relationships with who we are now. It allows for another life to take place, another community to form and so on. This could be dangerous for some, who choose to escape from their real life for something else that they can engineer, putting other relationships at risk. This idea of VR social media could affect many societies in that people are disconnected due to other connections in “other worlds”.

(G2 Learning Hub)

What I like about social media is the way to hear about what my friends are up to. I want to see their experiences. But what I think is most important to me is that I already have an existing “real life” relationship with the user. I just use the digital technology to access their experiences that they choose to share. My perfect social media would be one without anonymity, much like Instagram where real people can share their real experiences.

My concerns for virtual life is the loss of people experiencing what the real world has to offer. I am talking about earth. Virtual life can take us to anywhere we could possibly imagine, but I don’t think it could ever replace the real feeling of visiting a location like Yellowstone National Park. The pictures do not do it justice, the actual personal experience shared with a location or person is much more important in my opinion. I am afraid we may lose this with too much virtual reality driven pieces of technology.

(The Chronicle of Higher Education)

But I do see lots of benefits as well, and this comes from a scientific standpoint. As someone who wants to become a doctor, this technology would greatly improve the practice. This would allow surgeons and other professionals a different looks at healing the body.