Time to maintain our impulsive appetite for irrelevant online lurking and gain control of a balance to what we spend our time viewing. Algorithms are deciding what we see and are not showing us what is being tailored out of our search results or newsfeed. There is no standard google search?! It is an eerie concept that we are being limited to the news we receive due to our prior interests on the Web. I do not want to be locked into the digital filter bubble that the algorithms have assumed for me. I want to be able to see what I want as well as what I need to see. I have created several different social media profiles and it is reassuring to know that there are free dashboards available to help me juggle the information overload. Now that I have been introduced to Netvibes, I feel confident and ready to handle my digital life. On Twitter, I follow different users that do not have any relation to each other and they are both posted on my newsfeed and thus get lost in the mix. With Netvibes, I am now able to make different categories for the news I want to receive. For example, I have made a new Tab and named it “Health”, now all of my health related news will only be in that tab and will not get lost in the various other topics I am interested in. I can make new tabs for sports, fashion, and any other topic I can think of. The information overload can be managed in a clear dashboard. After reading and viewing enlightening articles and speeches on algorithms and how to avoid the info junk food, I feel motivated to lead a balanced digital lifestyle, much like keeping a healthy diet. Netvibes is almost like my own personal food chart, but manages the news that I subscribe to view. I can rearrange my Tabs from most important to least and even change the viewing of the Feeds in each of the tabs. I can check the authenticity of sites that I wish to add with Snopes.com, Hoax-slayer.com, Delicious.com etc., just as one would check the Nutrition Facts on a product of food they were considering to consume. Very excited to personalize my Netvibes and work towards my future aspired self!
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Maintaining the digital life
Social media is so strange. It truly is another world and somehow slightly another limb to the anatomy of ones’ identity; which can be an unfortunate consequence when your privacy is not what you thought it was.
I have come to terms with the fact that I need to use all of my social media profiles as tools rather than a social playground to interact with friends in. I am currently taking an introductory course in sociology and I have learned and personally noticed the different languages I use with the different groups of people I interact with. I do not use the same vocabulary as I do when speaking to my family, professors, or friends. I present myself differently during certain circumstances but deep down I am still the same person with the same character and morals and beliefs. It is not that I am fake, it is more like a subconscious reflex that is driven to pursue appropriateness. Since my generation is using more social media and more of our random and nonsense blabber is being recorded and or documented on these social network sites, (sites that do not offer the amount of privacy we believe we have), it is in my best interest to keep a better eye on what I share on the web. These comments, shares and likes could somehow come back to haunt me, and cause others to form a misconception of who I truly am. After reading that Apps can gain access to your account and post, share, and like without your knowledge, I immediately began to investigate. Luckily I had not added any Apps to any of my profiles so there was no “cleaning up to do”. I would hate to think that some random nonsense that slipped out of my keypad in the mere half a second it took me to type it and perhaps had barely a millisecond of thought behind it, could cause any damage to my reputation and or brand.
“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots”, said Albert Einstein. This generation is so locked into the bubble of their peers daily lives that we are not taking advantage of the tools that are at our finger tips. These social networks are like digital communities. Much of our free time is spent mindlessly lurking into the profiles and observing the posts that our “friends” have shared to our newsfeed. We are processing a lot of irrelevant information about others and failing to focus on ourselves or more important tasks at hand; and possibly sharing extraneous information about ourselves as well. Having a normal conversation with a stranger has turned into an almost extinct and absurd interaction, most people are too busy with their noses in their devices. “Social relationships are the primary focus of daily life” for young adults, which would explain why they would want a digital community of people their own age and thus flee Facebook due to the massive adult presence.
In a positive perspective, these new social media tools have been pushing me to know my brand and therefore, be my brand. These articles have really made me concentrate on figuring out who I want to share with the world. I have made a Linkedin, AboutMe, Twitter, and Goggle plus profile in the last three weeks. With so many new open slates to portray myself on, I feel like I can truly build a strong digital identity that is true to who I really am. After reading these articles I feel more aware and safe with the privacy settings I have set for my accounts. I feel determined to set a true projection of my character and brand on these sites.
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Internet Stranger
Zap me with a bolt of lightening immediately! I nearly threw myself out of my one-story home when I saw a terribly embarrassing video I had made in high school on Youtube. Although there were only 82 views, my stomach still sank and I exploded with panic. The video was on a random Youtube account which I could not access because I had no idea what the email or password was. After several grueling hours I finally found an old notebook containing the glorious email and password I was searching for. I have never been so relieved to click the delete button.
Who knew I was on the Fashion Institute of Technology's Facebook banner?! After googling my full name Shannen Nicole Gallardo, I discovered my orientation common project group and I posing in the breezeway! I had noticed this same picture of us in FIT's spring 2014 orientation booklet but I had no idea we were also on FIT's Facebook banner as well. Our common project group was called Red Group 36 and the Youtube video I edited and filmed was also on the web; I included the link for our video below. Our group actually won the Fall 2013 orientation project so this brought back happy memories of my start at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
After viewing images on the google search I discovered my legs! I actually remember that day when a nice woman asked to photograph me from the waist down for a worldwide project she was working on. At first I was puzzled because I was trucking my way through the sea of fellow pedestrians to get to my morning class at the Fashion Institute of Technology; but she was really cool and it only took a minute.
I love the fact that all of my running stats are online at my finger tips. Running as a captain for my high school cross country, winter and spring track teams meant a lot to me. It was a sport I participated in but it was also a passion and still is today. This sport makes me tear up because it is so beautiful in a way that no other sports can compare to. At the end of a race, we shake hands with our opponents, we congratulate each other because in a race you either have it or you don't. We push each other to train harder. I loved running for the Fashion Institute of Technology for the fall 2013 cross country season. We won in our division and that was awesome! I even ran personal bests in my spring track 2014 season with my FIT track girls!
I continued to look through the various links attached to my name, and to my surprise someone is using my identity on a website called Houzz to sell curtains? I attached the link to this mysterious site below. They stole an old profile picture from my Facebook and used my full name, pretty creepy. I'm very confused and I have no clue how to settle this... But if those curtains begin to sell out I think I deserve a chunk of that change?
After accumulating all of this information about myself floating around the web, I have come to the conclusion I definitely need to google myself more often.
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