Harper J's Blog

     After watching the second hour of In the Age of AI , I realized that artificial intelligence is a much bigger part of our lives than I ever thought. Before this documentary, I mostly thought of AI as ChatGPT, Siri, or the videos that show up on my TikTok page. I knew it was becoming more popular, but I did not realize how much it is already being used in healthcare, businesses, and even national security. Watching the documentary made me see both the good and the bad sides of AI.      One thing that really stood out to me was how much AI can help people. It can help doctors find diseases earlier, make businesses run faster, and even do jobs that are too dangerous for people. I think it is really cool that technology has come this far, and I can only imagine what AI will be able to do in the future. It is exciting to think that it could solve problems that people have been dealing with for years.      At the same time, the documentary ...

     Before this class, I had never heard of confirmation bias, but after learning about it, I realized it is something that affects me almost every day. Confirmation bias is the tendency to look for information that supports what we already believe while ignoring information that challenges those beliefs. I think everyone experiences it at some point, even if they do not realize they are doing it.      As a college student, I spend a lot of time on social media, especially TikTok and Instagram. I have noticed that once I watch or like a certain type of video, my feed starts showing me more content that is almost exactly the same. After a while, it can seem like everyone has the same opinion that I do. Learning about confirmation bias helped me understand that social media is not always showing me every side of an issue. It is mostly showing me what I am most likely to watch.           I also see confirmation bias when I talk...

The First Amendment is important because it gives people the right to speak out, even when their opinions are unpopular. After watching the assigned videos ( https://www.youtube.com/watchv=0he_OScdFec    https://www.youtube.com/watchv=RbZ2eaCIttg&t=8s   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwrUvjkRMI8&t=67s ), I learned that during World War I many people who opposed the war were arrested or sent to jail simply for expressing their opinions. Even though the First Amendment existed, the government still punished people for sharing antiwar views. Looking at today, it seems like strong antiwar opinions are much harder to find in mainstream news. Before this assignment, I had never heard of Antiwar.com  or The American Conservative . It made me wonder why these viewpoints are not discussed more often. I think one reason is that mainstream news tends to focus on stories and perspectives that appeal to the largest audiences. Antiwar opinions can be controversial, so the...

     After watching the TED Talks about privacy, I realized how much personal information is collected about us every day. Before watching the videos, I mostly thought about privacy in terms of social media, but I learned that privacy concerns go much further than that. Technology can track where we go, what we search for, and even information about our daily habits. These videos made me think more carefully about how much information I share online and who might have access to it.      One TED Talk that stood out to me was "Your Online Life, Permanent as a Tattoo" by Juan Enriquez . In his TED Talk, he explained how information posted online can stay there forever, even if we think it has been deleted. This was surprising because people my age share so much of their lives online through photos, videos, and social media posts. It made me think about how easily our digital footprints can follow us into the future and potentially affect opportunities later i...

  Instagram: A Communication Technology I Use Every Day For the Each One Teach One project, I decided to research Instagram because it is one of the communication technologies that I use the most. I open Instagram multiple times a day, whether I am looking at what my friends are posting, sharing pictures from a trip, or just scrolling through reels when I have free time. Before researching it, I knew Instagram was popular, but I had never really thought about how it was created or how much it has changed communication. One thing I learned was that Instagram was created in 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. They wanted to make it easier for people to share photos through their smartphones. Today that seems completely normal, but before Instagram, sharing photos online was not nearly as simple. People often had to upload pictures from a computer or use websites that were much less user-friendly. Learning about Instagram's history made me realize how quickly technology has change...

When I read through the Eight Values of Free Expression, the one that stood out to me the most was individual self-fulfillment. As someone who is studying communication and minoring in photography, I think being able to express yourself is extremely important. Whether it is through speaking, writing, photography, or social media, people should have the freedom to share their thoughts, opinions, and creativity. I never really thought about free expression beyond it being a constitutional right, but after learning about these theories, I realized how much it affects everyday life. I also connected with the Marketplace of Ideas theory. I see this theory in action every day on social media. Like a lot of people my age, I get a lot of information from TikTok and Instagram. Whenever something major happens, people immediately start sharing videos, opinions, and reactions. Some people agree with each other, while others have completely different viewpoints. Even though social media can someti...