Happiness vs Utility

I am such a scrooge when it comes to apps. My sister gets angry with me because I refuse to play games with her and yet I will spend hours on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube. I justify my time spent because those are the five apps that I subscribe to. I don't often have apps that I get addicted to.

While these particular apps may not provide actual utility to me they do. Facebook, and Instagram allow me to keep updated on people I don't get to see daily. Twitter is a news source, YouTube and Pinterest are simple entertainment and make me happy.

The utility comes because it provides me with hours of something to do. If I am sitting in a doctor's office I can pull out my phone and browse while I wait.

I think these particular apps have made it because they do provide both happiness and utility. People use them for entertainment and function. They are not one or the other. When you look at what apps have failed and what ones have worked there is a strong balance between the two.

Is Social Media making us dumber?

Is there an argument that social media is not only making our social skills diminish, but also ruining our brains? Yes. And that has to do directly with Brooke Gladstone's "...the zing of authenticity".

You know the ringing in your ears that occasionally happens? Well the social media has become that shrill humming noise that never seems to go away. It is just constantly there muddling our brains and making it almost impossible for us to think independently for ourselves. Because of the humming it is easy to go along with whatever social media says because it is almost painful to think beyond the humming.

In this age of communication we are constantly overwhelmed with information. Some valid, most of it not. Because of social media we are awarded the privilege hearing news almost immediately after it happens. However, with all the good comes just as much, if not more bad.

When we hear news so quickly it is almost always inaccurate. The only accurate part of the news is the fact that it happened, everything after that is pretty much always wrong. Not intentionally, but because they are reporting it so quickly there is no time to check facts or even know enough about the situation to report accurately.

In a survey done by the Pew Research Center, one respondent summed it up, “I believe Facebook is a good way to find out news without actually looking for it.” This is the problem with social media in today's world. We find news without looking for it, and we never bother to search it out and verify it. Most of the time the fact that it was on a social media site gives us the false sense of security that it is accurate because it is a form of citizen journalism. 

The most recent example of this is the Bunkerville showdown (I coined that term for future reference), the entire event unfolded before our eyes via social media. 

There is a possibility that I received the brunt of it being related to three Bundy's, my news feed was full of 'news' from the showdown. There was an almost constant humming to the tune of Bunkerville. 

I saw that a majority of people would re-post articles or pictures with a zeal that they were the first to have it among their friends. 

While social media has been bombarded with this news there is a pattern across the board of what it really means. 

People do their best to select the exposure that they have to certain news stories. If they don't like a particular story they tend to ignore it. By being selective of the exposure they receive people tend to get only the side that they want and therefore continue to assume that their side is the correct side.

So when people hear the first side of a story and it happens to match their already clearly formed opinions, they don’t question its authenticity.

Brooke Gladstone’s ‘zing of authenticity’ is one of the best description for what has happened to our ability to critically think about things that happen around us. We often take the first word of news as the truth, that is what we remember the most, and for the longest amount of time.

This can also be compared with selective retention. Where we retain only that which we think is pertinent to us and what we align ourselves with. Therefore, if the first news that we hear happens to meet that criteria, we can (and do) remember that and take it to be the truth. 

Social Media has not helped in this regard. We hear news quicker and in more abundance than ever before. However, this does have its downfall as the news we hear is more often than not inaccurate. But because we see it coming from our peers we assume its validity. 

Social Media has made us dumber. I can't prove this as dumbness is subjective but social media has played a part in our brains not being able to think critically and in depth about our surroundings. Leading to us being victim to the 'zing of authenticity'.

http://stateofthemedia.org/2012/mobile-devices-and-news-consumption-some-good-signs-for-journalism/what-facebook-and-twitter-mean-for-news/

http://www.journalism.org/2013/11/14/news-use-across-social-media-platforms/

THE LONGEST 48 HOURS OF MY LIFE.

...And not in the way that you would think.

The weekend of March 22-23 I chose to do my abstinence. To be honest it was a lot harder than I had thought but not nearly as hard as I was imagining.

I decided Friday afternoon that I was going to do it. I didn't need to do anything and I was finishing up my homework sooner than expected so I went for it.

I have been procrastinating this project because there really isn't a day that I don't use a computer. I am on one constantly at work. Homework on Saturday's and I teach a Sunday school class that requires me to use a computer and projector so I am pretty much attached so some form of technology 24/7.

This is the exact reason that I was looking forward to doing it. I wanted to know a life outside of always being connected. I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Friday when I decided that this was the perfect weekend (I was starting over in my block of Sunday school classes so I could get away with not using a computer), I made preparations for it. First was to call work and let them know that I couldn't be on call (luckily a coworker owed me a huge favor so she took it), then I had to call certain people that I knew would panic if they couldn't get a hold of me.

Phone conversations with my mom:

Me: Hey just wanted to let you know that I am going to be turning my phone off for the weekend.
Her: Oh that sounds interesting! What are you doing that for?
Me: For a class.
Her: Oh how fun... You know I was reading this article on families who were "unplugging" for one day out of every week. I think I might start doing that. I noticed the other day we were all sitting in the front room and everyone was on either a phone or an iPod. I couldn't help but think how sad it was that even in the same room as each other we couldn't talk to each other, we had to be entertained by our phones or iPods.
Me: That is kind of funny.
Her: I can't wait to hear all about it. You should come up for Sunday dinner and you can tell us all about how it is going. I bet the kids would be more willing to do it if they knew you had done it.
Me: Maybe, I don't get out of church until 12:30, but maybe.
Her: OK. Either way I can't wait to hear all about it.
(crazy long conversation)

Phone conversation with my brother:

Me: Hey just wanted to let you know that I am turning my phone off for the weekend.
Him: Why? Is everything OK?
Me: Yes everything is fine, I am just not going to be using any technology for 48 hours.
Him: Hahaha.... Yeah I would like to see you try.
Me: This is exactly why I am doing it!
(more mocking then it ended)

The conversation with my brother furthered my resolve to go ahead with my plan. I know that I am attached but I also know that I can be without. I also don't like it when people tell me I can't do something, that is a sure fire way to get me to do it. My dad did this a lot in high school when he wanted me to do something but knew that I wouldn't really want to do it and I was just stubborn enough that I never caught on.

Saturday morning:

As usual I woke up around 8; however, I have a rule that I don't get out of bed on Saturday until at least 9 because I think it's a sin to not sleep in. I usually turn on Netflix and watch The Office  or Bones  for an hour; not today. I got out of bed and had breakfast (I usually only get brunch on Saturday's so this was exciting), while eating breakfast I noticed that the sliding door in my front room had the artwork of the several kids that had visited (from about four months before), I could ignore it before because you can't watch TV in the front room unless the blinds were closed because there is an awful glare on the TV. Not today. So I got out the Windex and cleaned it. I then decided to organize some pictures that I have been wanting to scrapbook but I never got around to it (so much easier to just sit and watch TV).

The hardest part was the fact that I couldn't play any music. All of my music is on either phone or my computer. It was a very silent day. However, because of that silence was I able to read (after I grew bored with my organizing venture). I read through The Hobbit, North and South, and parts of a book on the Civil War that I had bought but never had the time to read.

By 2:00 pm I was exhausted. It is hard work not watching TV. I then took a two hour nap, I woke up feeling like death warmed over but I was so happy that I could just sleep and not be interrupted by my phone going off or other such nonsense. That evening I made myself dinner then went back to reading.

Sunday morning:

My Sunday morning routine didn't see much change except that I didn't watch an episode of The Office while I curled my hair. I instead was able to ponder the ridiculousness of curling one's hair when you are just going to wash it the next morning. Girls are pretty dumb.

After church I came home fixed a snack, started reading but again feel into a nap that when I woke up I wasn't 100% certain it was still Sunday. I assumed it was as I hadn't been awakened by the racket my roommates usually make in the mornings. I then continued reading and decided to make myself dinner (I never cook, I love to cook, but cooking for one is not only difficult but kind of depressing, especially since I can't even share with my roommates as they tend to look on my food as something they wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole). After dinner I sat down to read and ate three creamies, you know I would hate for my healthy dinner to really do what it should for me, I keep it real by eating more ice cream snacks than the taste testers at Ben and Jerry's.

My roommate and I then went on a walk. What started out as a simple Sunday stroll turned into a three-mile event. I kept thinking "Why go home? There is nothing to really do there? I have been reading and sleeping all day so a little outside activity won't hurt." Then when we returned I sat down and read a bit more and was in bed by ten. My perfect day.

The greatest lesson I learned from the 48 hours was, boredom. I use technology to alleviate boredom, more than 51% of the time. The only time that it was hard was the hours between reading and sleep that I was truly bored. Other than that being away from technology was fairly easy.

Now, why would I name this post "The longest 48 hours of my life"? Usually the weekend's fly by, I am so excited about them, I think I am going to rest and be completely refreshed by Monday morning but they almost never happen that way. I usually blink and it's Monday again. However, this weekend was different. The hours seemed slower, more laid back and relaxed. Who knew that the key to a relaxing weekend meant no technology?! I certainly didn't. I now know better.

Not to sound like a puritan; however, technology does in fact take away from the human experience, as well as add to it. I enjoy technology, I really love having a car that gets me from point A to point B faster than my feet. I enjoy having electricity. I enjoy having the internet and being able to almost instantaneously communicate with my friends around the world. However, I enjoy the uninterrupted face-to-face communication that only human interaction without technology brings.

As wonderful as technology is, I do see the merit in not having it. We are a society driven by the need to be connected. In that need we have lost sight of the fact that some of our most important connections happen face-to-face. If we loose that basic human function then our connections through technology will have no value because we won't understand their worth because we will have lost the comparisons.

Radio Convergence

HISTORY

Radio began in the 19th century. In 1894 the young Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi began working on the idea of building a commercial wireless telegraphy system based on the use of Hertzian waves (radio waves), a line of inquiry that he noted other inventors did not seem to be pursuing. In 1895 he built a radio wave system capable of transmitting signals at long distances (1.5 mi./ 2.4 km). Marconi found from his experiments the phenomenon that transmission range is proportional to the square of antenna height, known as "Marconi's law."

Early uses were maritime, for sending telegraphic messages using Morse code between ships and land. The earliest users included the Japanese Navy scouting the Russian fleet during the Battle of Tsushima in 1905. One of the most memorable uses of marine telegraphy was during the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, including communications between operators on the sinking ship and nearby vessels, and communications to shore stations listing the survivors.

Marconi's experimental apparatus proved to be the first engineering complete, commercially successful radio transmission system. In June 1912 after the RMS Titanic disaster, due to increased production Marconi opened the world's first purpose-built radio factory at New Street Works, also in Chelmsford, England.

Radio was used to pass on orders and communications between armies and navies on both sides in World War I; Germany used radio communications for diplomatic messages once it discovered that its submarine cables had been tapped by the British. The United States passed on President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points to Germany via radio during the war. 

Broadcasting began from San Jose, California in 1909, and became feasible in the 1920s, with the widespread introduction of radio receivers, particularly in Europe and the United States. Besides broadcasting, point-to-point broadcasting, including telephone messages and relays of radio programs, became widespread in the 1920s and 1930s. Another use of radio in the pre-war years was the development of detection and locating of aircraft and ships by the use of radar (RAdio Detection And Ranging).

A girl listens to the radio during the depression.

This was, for all intents and purposes, the first transmission of what is now known as amplitude modulation or AM radio. The first radio news program was broadcast August 31, 1920 by station 8MK in Detroit, Michigan, which survives today as all-news format station WWJ under ownership of the CBS network. The first college radio station began broadcasting on October 14, 1920 from Union College, Schenectady, New York under the personal call letters of Wendell King, an African-American student at the school.

That month 2ADD (renamed WRUC in 1947), aired what is believed to be the first public entertainment broadcast in the United States, a series of Thursday night concerts initially heard within a 100-mile radius and later for a 1,000-mile (radius. In November 1920, it aired the first broadcast of a sporting event. At 9 pm on August 27, 1920, Sociedad Radio Argentina aired a live performance of Richard Wagner's opera Parsifalfrom the Coliseo Theater in downtown Buenos Aires. Only about twenty homes in the city had receivers to tune in this radio program. Meanwhile, regular entertainment broadcasts commenced in 1922 from the Marconi Research Centre at Writtle, England.

Sports broadcasting began at this time as well, including the college football on radio broadcast of a 1921 West Virginia vs. Pittsburgh football game

Today, radio takes many forms, including wireless networks and mobile communications of all types, as well as radio broadcasting. Before the advent of television, commercial radio broadcasts included not only news and music, but dramas, comedies, variety shows, and many other forms of entertainment (the era from the late 1920s to the mid-1950s is commonly called radio's "Golden Age"). Radio was unique among methods of dramatic presentation in that it used only sound.

Bakelite radio at the Bakelite Museum, Orchard Mill, Williton, Somerset, UK.

IMPACTS ON SOCIETY AND PEOPLE

People thought that family and society would be ruined by phones, radio and TV. By 1930, 40% of households had radios. 

Radios brought the family together in a way that no other news medium could. For the first time the family could listen to the news at the same time. 

The radio also brought things that were previously out of the families reach into their homes. Never before had the voice of the president been heard until FDR began his "Fireside Chats". They were a series of thirty evening radio addresses given by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 1944. These brought the president into the private homes of the American citizens. 

This is what I imagine the families of the time were

 like listening to the "Fireside Chats".

The War of the Worlds is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds (1898).

The first two thirds of the 62-minute broadcast were presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested to many listeners that an actual alien invasion by Martians was currently in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a sustaining show (it ran without commercial breaks), adding to the program's realism. Although there were sensationalist accounts in the press about a supposed panic in response to the broadcast, the precise extent of listener response has been debated, particularly since the show was not drawing a large share of the radio audience. Many more Americans were listening to Edgar Bergen; however, when Bergen's opening comedy routine ended and gave way to a musical interlude, many people may have started turning the radio dial to see what else was on. Those people found a radio show that sounded like a real account of an alien attack. The show did issue a disclaimer at the beginning of the show, but the people tuning in late did not hear that announcement and so a small panic did occur.

In the beginning of radio it was used for information to the masses it has sense moved to a medium of entertainment.

APP Review

While contemplating this app review I realized that I don't use that many apps. I have my basics: Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Instagram, Netflix, Hulu, Flixter and Voxer (my nephews and nieces have Voxer and they love to chat). I have a few others that I use on a regular basis but they aren't "amazing": Kindle, Audible, Amazon, Dropbox and YouTube. I then have the few apps that I use but only about once a week or sometimes even less: GasBuddy, Blogger, Zedge ( a ringtone app that is pretty cool), Tonight Show and Gmail.

 My conclusion -- I am not using my "smart"phone to its full potential.

I know that I could have hundreds of apps that help simplify my life but in doing that, it makes it more complicated because I have to remember that they simplify my life.

I downloaded at least 10 different apps that I thought were cool and after about two days I had forgotten all about them.

So I went boring, I am; however, going to review two apps because they are ones that have made my life easier and also because I couldn't decide between the two.

GasBuddy -- While this may sound super boring it is more than helpful on road trips.

Dustin Coupal and Jason Toews founded GasBuddy Organization in April 2000 in Minneapolis, Minn. It filed for Minnesota for-profit corporation in April 2004 as Buddies Forever Inc. (As of 2013, gasbuddy.com lists the operator as "GasBuddy/OpenStore LLC".)

Coupal worked as an eye doctor prior to starting the company. Toews was a computer programmer. Toews and Coupal started GasBuddy to help people find the cheapest gas in their area.

HOME SCREEN

In March 2013, UCG, a privately held, business-to-business company headquartered in Rockville, Maryland, announced that Oil Price Information Service (OPIS) had acquired GasBuddy; OPIS is a UCG subsidiary established in in 1977 as the Oil Express Newsletter and specializing in worldwide petroleum pricing and news for businesses.

GasBuddy operates apps and websites for the public to report and see prices of motor fuel in many areas of United States and Canada. Users report motor fuel prices in their area, which is made available to other visitors. Each entry is time stamped. As of April 2011, data on the website and in apps is provided by spotters, stations and relationships with credit card companies.

Although registered users are not directly compensated, they are given points for their participating which allow them to obtain electronic tickets to games of chance in which they can win prizes, such as prepaid gas cards.

Its website offers additional features such as fuel log book which allows users to record fuel purchases, odometer miles and keep a log of fuel usage.

I went to Corpus Christi for Christmas this year and because I am apparently the most "tech" savvy person in my family I was put in charge of finding cheap gas along the journey. On the home screen it gives the option of putting in a zip code or just "Find Gas Near Me" that saved a ton of time because traveling you never know what the zip code is unless you are some sort of zip code freak and know every possible zip code.

The app connects to the GPS on your phone and works with the maps app on the iPhone. So all you had to do was click on the gas station you wanted hit get me directions then it would redirect to the maps. The only bad part about this was that it would ask you every time if you really wanted to leave the GasBuddy app. I screamed at it every time because if I didn't want to leave the app I wouldn't have clicked "Take me to the maps".

The trick was that one vehicle required gas and the other diesel. GasBuddy was amazing in that it would bring up the gas places first then all I had to do was click on the diesel and it would knock out all of those stations that didn't have diesel.

The second app that I am doing (just for fun) is The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. This app brings the convergence of TV and the third screen to a whole new level. 

Through this app you can watch a highlight from the most recent episode, and see whats coming up for the next episode. 

Every week Jimmy does a hashtag where he creates a hashtag, then tweets his experience with that particular hashtag then invites everyone else to join in and send in their tweets about the subjects.

From the app you can read the tweets that others have posted, you can also post directly from the app instead of having to go into twitter. 

The show also has a YouTube channel that you can access and subscribe to right from the app. 

This app shows just how incapable we are of focusing on just one thing. 

Assesment

Is public opinion really public opinion or is it "our" public opinion? By this I mean is it the public opinion of the "friends" that we have or follow on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. 

In recent years our social world has changed and increased dramatically. We are no longer confined to the social circles that live in our same city or that we see on a regular basis.

The technological determinism of social media has changed the way we see our reality. Our reality is skewed, to include the delusion that the "friends" we have on our social media sites actually care about our lives and our opinions. If our "friends" like our opinion status they will share it with their "friends" and so on. Facebook has allowed for a widening of "public opinion" that has never been seen before. Before Facebook to get your opinion heard you had to write a letter to the editor then if someone liked the opinion they read they might have liked to the people sitting next to them in the room; however, with Facebook and other social media outlets the spreading of opinions is much broader, some might say out of control. 

Because we have fallen into the false sense of security thinking that because those on our "news" feed express the same opinion as we may have we think that it must be the majority opinion thus validating, albeit falsely, our feelings of being correct in our opinions. Through this process we have lost our ability to think critically. We no longer take what is being said with a grain of salt and do our own research. If someones opinion, which they claim is based on fact, mirrors our "feelings" of being right we don't do research we just take it at face value. We then come to rely on said people for our news and we base our future opinions on whatever they say. Not only do we lack in critical thinking but we fall victim to group think, which almost always leads to making horrible decisions. 

On the issue of gay marriage in Utah, in my opinion, (I have not done any studies so it is strictly an opinion not based on fact) the polarization of the opposing views came from group think and the lack of critical thinking. For both sides. Here in Utah unfortunately there is a polarization in almost every aspect of life, and it stems from this polar, you are either LDS or you are not. If you are LDS then you must think the same and have the exact same opinion as everyone else that is LDS. If you are not LDS then you can only think one way and have the same opinions as those who are not LDS. This has been made worse through the controversy of gay marriage. There is a huge problem with group think and lack of critical thinking on this particular issue. 

Because Facebook and our mobile devices have made information available to us almost at will, we are able to come together instantaneously. Protests or Rally's can be organized quickly and very efficiently, with almost no effort or planning beforehand. Basically a "if you think this way come and rally or protest with us, who cares if you know the facts". Through social media there is also a call to action that when it goes unheeded it can cause embarrassment.  All of your friends can see if you acknowledged a rally or protest that would align with your beliefs (mainly what they think you should believe because its what they believe) and if you ignored it there is this cloud of disappointment over your "friends" because you are either a jack Mormon or you don't care about others. When in reality you are refusing to take part in group think and believe in critically thinking before jumping into some protest or rally that you know nothing about.   

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-fiorella/facebook-likes_b_3175615.html

http://www.webpronews.com/social-networking-leading-to-less-critical-thinking-2008-04

Technological Determinism

Has technological determinism entrenched social communicative values or are we still in the driver's seat? We are in a stretch limo sipping champagne and eating chocolate covered strawberries. We haven't been in the driver's seat for many years. However, we enjoy the security of knowing that we are not in the driver's seat, that somehow our lives are easier and better because of our comfort in the backseat. We are somehow excited to have our lives controlled even more by TNBT, simply because it may make our lives run smoother. When in reality we have fallen into a false sense of security. My life is controlled by technology. My day begins and ends with technology. I wake up to an alarm on my phone and setting the alarm is the last thing I do before I go to bed at night. Everything I do at work is done on a computer, even our phones are internet based. 

Unfortunately there hasn't been anything invented in the recent years that is truly life altering. The internet revolutionized the way the world communicated. Computers and laptops made that communication even easier. Smartphones and tablets brought the internet and communication right to our fingertips and even more mobile.  Since this we haven't had anything highly revolutionary. However, we have tricked ourselves into thinking that TNBT will be revolutionary even though it hardly is and something newer and more improved comes along within months. 

Although I disdain the fact that I am completely under the control of technology. I am in no hurry to give up the technology that so thoroughly enslaves my life.