Opinion Analysis – Negative Effects of Social Media

I found an interesting blog post outlining someone’s detailed position on the negative effects of social media. To begin, the post explains how it will show how social media negatively effects society because of privacy breaches, electronic relationships, and other relationships.

The first argument for why social media is negative from this post is that it allows people and businesses the opportunity to “facebook stalk” others, which could lead to a potential breach of privacy of that individual. It also mentions how companies are able to do this on a larger scale to gain advantages over competition.

The next reason why this post claims social media is negative is because of the somewhat “fake” relationships that are built online. This post describes how because we only put our best selves forward on social media, we are not forming real relationships. It also claims that trust can only be built in person, so online relationships can also never fully be trusted. The post also mentions that this draws us away from the people we really care about.

The last argument that this blog makes is that spending too much time communicating on social media sites like Facebook negatively effects the way we communicate in the real world. It claims sites like Twitter that limit users interactions to 140 characters or less, are going to effect peoples spelling and communication. It also makes the claim that teenagers are communicating much less face-to-face any more.

While some of these points are somewhat valid, I feel this is a very poor argument overall. Yes these are negative effects of social media, but they do not even come close to comparing to the positive effects that social media has had on the entire world.

The first argument has a simple solution; change your settings to private. Almost every website like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram have the option to change their profiles to private. If people fear potential employers seeing their information, they can simply switch their profile to private. Also, everything that is put online is voluntary. People don’t have to post things that they don’t want others to see or know about and that solves the problem as well.

Relationships that are built online sometimes allow people to be more themselves. A lot of people have troubles with social anxiety, so to eliminate this allows people who possibly would not have interacted with others at all in person, the chance to build friendships online. Real relationships and trust can be built over the internet, even stronger in fact, as all barriers are removed and people can just be themselves.

Finally, the effects of social media on communication are debatable. Just because relationships are primarily built over social media does not mean they lack substance and value within peoples lives. Again the people communicating this way are people who feel they are really unable to do so in person, and thus without social media they would have no social life at all.

6 Business Benefits of Instagram

Of all the social media networks that has come and gone in the last ten years or so, Instagram has probably been the one I’ve enjoyed the most. Seeing peoples pictures of their daily lives in places such as Indonesia, Switzerland, and Iceland is one of the coolest aspects of Instagram, as it lets people into each others lives like never before. I was interested, then, when I found this post on Koozai about some of the business benefits to using Instagram.

Here is the link to the article that was posted over the summer about 6 business benefits of using Instagram. It focuses more on how small businesses can use Instagram to create a a personal experience between them and their customers, allowing them into a behind the scenes look at the company. It overall details how Instagram can help reach a target market and work to keep and grow such a market.

I can comment from personal experience that this does help to build a sort of relationship with the customer that overall adds to the business. My younger sister just recently became certified as a hairdresser and took to enhancing her salons Instagram account to build clientèle for herself and co-workers. She has had a great amount of success in doing so and is now solidly booked with loyal clients almost everyday. Considering the fact she works in a small town of less than 5,000, I can see she has been successful in bringing business in.

Mark Zuckerberg Q & A

This article posted by Josh Constine on the site Tech Crunch summarizes a recent Question and Answer session with the creator of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, including many of the actual questions and their responses. Zuckerberg answers questions such as whether or not Facebook will incorporate a “dislike button” and why people are not able to change their names. But more importantly he answers questions like whether he sees Facebook as a waste of time, or about how Facebook can contribute to “civil engagement and discussion”. It is interesting to see this perspective of Facebook from the creator of it himself.

Misconceptions I Had, Too

I have never outright denied the existence of climate change, but I have definitely found myself questioning how much global warming really has been happening on those -40 days. I really liked this video because I felt it addressed many of the misconceptions I had in a way that was informative and entertaining.

I found that this video helped me start to rethink the ways I have been viewing global warming and climate change. After seeing all the evidence that there is such as the sea levels rising and the melting of glaciers and ice on Antarctica, it is clear that has been and is an overall change in the climate.

Considering the dependency that our world has on fossil fuels which emit the most Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing the most to the overall increase in temperature on a global scale, it is apparent that the activities of humans are undeniably contributing to climate change.

Whenever this problem of the amount of fossil fuels we burn is brought up, it always seems like the solutions are always up to the individual. We are told we must stop driving cars or stop creating so much garbage, which I do agree people individually should consider, but I feel like the biggest contributors to fossil fuel emissions are neglected. What about the companies that ship their products from China, creating more pollution than whole neighbourhoods are capable of? If people really want to decrease fossil fuel emissions, I feel like it needs to be on a much larger scale. Shipping products across oceans and countries has to contribute enormously to the amount of Carbon Dioxide released into the atmosphere and in if we want to decrease emissions overall, we must also consider this.

Arguing Against Climate Deniers

This article from Global News came out in 2013 after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a 36-page summary of climate change for policy makers, and was intended to show the arguments that climate deniers make.

Climate Change Deniers are described later on in the article and the tactics they use to get their points out in the public. One of the arguments of Climatologist Andrew Weaver says how we cannot understand the kind of impact increased carbon dioxide will have on the atmosphere, and has also claimed that there is no proof that the changes in the Arctic are caused by humans and not some natural occurrence. David Rose from the UK’s Mail On Sunday claimed that the Earth is actually in a process of global cooling right now.

Most who deny climate change apparently do so based on their own alternative climate models, but a University of Toronto professor says it is actually not not based on any model at all. Weaver concludes that we cannot know with 100 percent certainty whether the human contribution to climate change is causing the earth to warm at the rate it is.

This article from the Union of Concerned Scientists explains in detail the science behind global warming, proving why the previous article is essentially wrong. The article explains how we know about the effects of Carbon Dioxide on the atmosphere so from that we can observe and predict the effects of increased Carbon Dioxide on the atmosphere. We know humans are the largest producers of Carbon Dioxide with the amount of fossil fuels that are burned by humans The effects of this can already be seen with the acceleration of the rise in sea level among other things. Scientists agree that global warming is a real concern and humans are the primary cause.

What If It Was One Degree Warmer? How About Six? (Assignment 3)

National Geographic has made a series of six videos that show in each video the consequences of a rise in the Earth’s temperature of one degree, starting with a rise of one degree and continuing to a rise of six degrees.

The first video posted above details a majority of the weather changes that would begin to occur across the world, including droughts in Western America that would impact American food resources, along with the “emergence of new deserts” across America as well.

The second video emphasizes the changes in marine life, especially within coral reefs, that would occur if the Earth were to increase two degrees in temperature. Most people do not acknowledge the importance of coral reef, but this video explains that they are a very important indicator of the overall health of the ocean.

The next 3 videos show the results of subsequent temperature increases on Earth.

The last of the six videos predicts the consequences of a six degree temperature increase on life on Earth. It is devastating to think that even a seemingly small temperature increase could cause almost all of marine life to die, whole continents to turn to desert, and cause floods in some of the worlds greatest cities, such as New York City, that would submerge the entire city.

Freedom!

How iPhone and Android Phones Spy On You

This is a short video from The Guardian about how the latest smartphone technology is used to track the people who use them. Considering it is a rare thing these days to not have a smartphone, this is done fairly easily for most people. In this video it is mentioned that not only do Apple and Google know your location at this moment, but they also have all the data on where you have been in the past year even.

Not only are the people who make these phones tracking where people go, apps are now asking to use location services and are tracking peoples locations as well. Apps such as Snapchat and an app called Brightest Flashlight are among those that have been accused of this. Apps also try to gain access to other parts of peoples phones as well such as the camera and microphone to sell more targeted ads.

This video explains what people with iPhones can do to protect their privacy and keep their personal information safe, but unfortunately there is not much that can be done to do the same for android phones. This is because Apple and Google both have different types of data they wish to collect on consumers.

Edward Snowden

A.k.a. the love of my life (sorry Ryan).

From the time I first heard about Edward Snowden and what he revealed about the NSA, I was blown away. Mostly because growing up I had always been exposed to the idea that this sort of thing possibly existed, so to see it confirmed as actually existing was insane. But also because of the fact that someone did what he did in a culture where people rarely step up and put themselves at risk for what is morally right, just amazes me.

So I really respect Edward Snowden to say the least.

He acted in a way and continues to act in a way that I truly believe people should. Revealing the truth should never be regarded as such a terrible and treasonous thing and a government that so strongly opposes that should be questioned, not the person to reveal the truth. Especially in America where truth, liberty and freedom are (or maybe… were?) at the supposed core of what the country stands for. So to see the government treat him the way they have been treating him is really… interesting.

This Ted’s Talk with Edward Snowden (via robot) is what made me respect Edward Snowden on a whole new level because before I didn’t really know a lot about why he was doing what he was doing before watching it.

One of the things he mentions in the video that really hit home to me was something I had believed before watching this. I always thought that if you aren’t doing anything incredibly suspicious on the internet you have no reason to fear the surveillance. But at the end of the video he mentions that “individuals are born behind closed doors” and that applies to the internet as well. People need that space to be allowed to freely be themselves to authentically grow as people. I never thought before of how damaging that would be to people and how much privacy does matter to individual growth, and how people and their governments should be fighting to protect that right. Not doing anything they desire to invade it.

The Cutest Little Robots

With the best moves!

I love people for making this video happen.