Religion 3.0

Religion is can be very influential depending on your background, surroundings and lifestyle. I did not grow up going to church or practice a specific religion, but occasionally I do go to a service for my friends. I respect people who are religious and believe in a God, but I would consider myself an agnostic, or a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God (Google). 

Religion never played a significant role in my upbringing, but as I’ve gotten older I see the effect it can have depending on where you live. I was born and raised in Southern California where religion was quite diverse. I would say half of my peers growing up were religious and the others were not. California’s breakdown of religion goes as followed: “45.00% of the people in California, California are religious, meaning they affiliate with a religion. 27.89% are Catholic; 2.07% are LDS; 5.28% are another Christian faith; 0.58% in California, California are Jewish; 1.18% are an eastern faith; 0.73% affiliates with Islam” (BestPlace). With such an assorted group of religions around, there was no pressure to be affiliated with any of them.

I spent my first two years of college in New York. This is the melting pot of the world, so of course I witnessed a variety of religious representation almost every time I was in NYC. New York’s religion breakdown goes as followed: “51.21% of the people in New York, New York are religious, meaning they affiliate with a religion. 33.17% are Catholic; 0.41% are LDS; 3.10% are another Christian faith; 4.05% in New York, New York are Jewish; 0.62% are an eastern faith; 2.03% affiliates with Islam” (BestPlace). I’ve been fortunate to live in arguably the most diverse states in the nation where the acceptance of varied religions is reasonable.

I must admit that transferring to Dixie has been an adjustment due to the religious dominance of LDS. Utah’s religion breakdown goes as followed: “79.11% of the people in Utah, Utah are religious, meaning they affiliate with a religion. 6.01% are Catholic; 69.14% are LDS; 0.83% are another Christian faith; 0.06% in Utah, Utah are Jewish; 0.39% are an eastern faith; 0.18% affiliates with Islam” (BestPlace). I grew up with some Mormon friends so I wasn’t completely oblivious to the practice, but the fact that one religion is dominate is new to me based on my previous and current living experience. 

Today, I see many of my friends posting on social media to express themselves religiously. In a World Religion News article “5 Ways Social Media Connects Religion to Young Generations” it talks about how learning or practicing a religion has become more accessible through apps and how apps like Instagram or Twitter are platforms for more expression. There probably isn’t a day I could recall where I didn’t see at least one post about a specific bible scripture, a religion or even God and that’s perfectly okay with me.

I have complete respect and appreciation for anyone who devotes their time, effort and energy to practicing a religion. My one rule is to not influence me to join or judge me because I have no religious affiliation. I will respect your way of life as long as you respect mine.

http://www.bestplaces.net/  

http://www.worldreligionnews.com/religion-news/christianity/5-ways-social-media-connects-religion-to-younger-generations

OTM#2- Reporting Zika, Without Panic

Zika is a mosquito borne illness by Aedes aegypti mosquito that is sweeping through the Western Hemisphere and has been reported in southern areas of the United States. Symptoms have been observed to be associated with microcephaly and the potential effects lead the World Health Organization to declare Zika as a global health emergency.

Reporter Johnathan Katz was in Haiti last month, showed symptoms of Zika, and shared his experiences in New York Times Magazine. Katz believes that Zika is not medical emergency even though he felt rundown and experienced rashes on his face and chest. He has experienced mosquito borne diseases before like Chikungunya and described Zika as mild in comparison.

The question is should we as a nation be seriously concerned? Personally, this is the first that I’ve heard of this disease. Obviously if you live in warmer areas that are susceptible to mosquitos I think you should be aware and educate yourself of your surroundings. Katz stated, “As the planet gets warmer the range of this particular mosquito and other mosquitos will expand and more areas will be affect by mosquito borne diseases than were in the past.” Similar to the Ebola outbreak, I think it good to be knowledgeable about this, but I don’t think we as a nation should be freaking out. Katz illustrated that these diseases start in international places of poverty with little to no power and they have been reported in U.S areas such as Boston that have a slim chance of transmission due to the weather and mosquito history.

Katz commented, “People will only start pay attention to something when they freak out about it. This leads to another problem. Not everything you prepare for is going to happen to you, but you always needs to prepare. The way that human nature seems to work is that If you tell people to prepared something and it doesn’t happen, there is a little “Boy that cried wolf” syndrome.”

I believe that the U.S should not panic. I just think of Ebola and how hyped up it became for a week and then we never heard of it again. Although this is new to the Western Hemisphere, It good to inform the public of what the knowns and the unknowns, but until Zika has shown serious signs of outbreak we should not worry so much about ourselves, but for those suffering overseas.

In the video they played sound bites of new stations across the nation and the anchors did report with a sense of urgency in their voice. Katz brought up a good question when addressing the media, “What are you communicating when you report the news like that. What are you actually telling people?” When I heard those sound bites, I was concerned I had never heard about Zika and that it was reported on U.S soil. Listening to Katz who has experienced Zika and these diseases put me more at ease because he has credibility. I think the media is moving too fast on the matter whereas Katz is casual and not phase by the situation. “Scaring people just for its own sake, doesn’t really accomplish anything. The more dramatic and the direr you make it sound the worst the boy who cried wolf syndrome is going to get afterwards.”

I think when it comes to these outbreaks the media can’t rush to report as if it is an emergency, but instead just inform. I know that is counter intuitive to their jobs, but we can’t get to nervous about this. The news should report all sides of the story instead of just the negative because that when people start to get concerned. Instead of making the public scared we should be working overseas to help stop the formation of these diseases.

“If diseases can make its way overseas to America, we needs to work together internationally to try to address the systemic roots of poverty so we can prevent those diseases to crop up anywhere.” 

I know this is easier said than done, but like Katz, we shouldn't panic. 

Privacy 2.0

Have you ever googled yourself? Are you surprised what you find? Are your social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook or Instagram just a click away? Once we create a profile on a social media outlet and start sharing pictures, opinions or personal information, are our lives an open book?

Pew Research Center conducted a survey of teens to examine their privacy management on social media sites. “When asked whether they thought Facebook gives anyone else access to the information they share, one middle schooler wrote: ‘Anyone who isn’t friends with me cannot see anything about my profile except my name and gender.  I don’t believe that [Facebook] would do anything with my info.’ Other high schoolers shared similar sentiments, believing that Facebook would not or should not share their information” (Pew).  Even though this survey is a little dated, with this mentality more people are willing to post more intimate details about themselves such as where they live or their phones numbers.

Social media is built on the idea to share what we are doing with pictures, 140 characters or a status update. “All of this sharing may help create communities, but it also destroys privacy…Social media is not simply a collection of online places that allow private information to escape, but social media sites are organized to draw as much participation and information out of us as possible” (American Bar). Social media doesn’t give away our information, but in fact we do it to ourselves. We insist on posting to these apps to inform people about what we are doing constantly or gain followers, likes and retweets to feel popular and less insecure. We have the ability to control how much privacy we want.

 “On one level, many of us broadcast our own photos and videos, reveal our relationship statuses, religions and political preferences, and post our job histories. These kinds of personal details are widely shared – and released under our control” (Guardian).  We are willing to put the information online thinking we control the audience and everything is safe, but it’s the little things that can put us in danger. “However, there's another level of sharing when we become active participants, engaging with social media sites that encourage us to "check in" at various hotspots or connect with other users via our location. We give the power to watch and manage our information to someone else, and prove we're OK with that” (Guardian). When we are constantly allowing apps to use our direct location, this makes us vulnerable to “creepers” or easy targets into our lives without even realizing it.

John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute pointed out that technology has become our worst enemy, “The very technology we hailed as revolutionary and liberating has become our prison, jailer, probation officer, Big Brother and Father Knows Best all rolled into one…Consider that on any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears. A byproduct of this new age in which we live, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior” (Rutherford). Although this is not social media, this opened my eyes to see that we are always under a microscope at some given time. This is pretty insane, but we allow this and won’t do anything about it. 

I personally have all my account public because I don’t put anything online that I wouldn’t be afraid to show my parents. My dad was a little paranoid and concerned that when he googled me that all my accounts came up, but he trust me to be responsible with what I share. I am an advocate of public profiles because when it comes to jobs and how companies got through their application process, I’ve seen apps that request your social media account names. If you’re hesitant to give up your accounts to be checked then you should reconsider what you post. Corey Carvalho, associate director of the University of Massachusetts Student Legal Services Office, said the first thing he asks students preparing for jobs is, “Will you pass your Google interview?” (Recorder). As social media and technology become more important in the way we communicate with one another, it’s vital that you are honest with yourself and triple think if that is what you want your friends or even future employers to see and think of you. I am an advocate that social media is a positive tool for networking and not to keep information behind closed doors because if someone really wanted to know about you, they could find a way. I don’t believe privacy exist anymore.

http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/05/21/teens-social-media-and-privacy/

http://www.recorder.com/news/townbytown/greenfield/11532943-95/nothing-you-put-on-social-media-is-private

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/creepy_calculating_and_controlling_all_the_ways_big_brother_is_watchin

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/14/privacy-in-social-media-age

Learning 2.0

         

On twitter if you follow parody accounts like Student Problems or College Humor, you see a lot of entertaining tweets that pokes fun at the struggles of being a high school or college student and I remember one tweet said, “School isn’t about learning anymore, it’s about passing. Smh.” I think this statement is true and I can say I am a victim of this trend to a certain extent.

Being a communications major, I’ve tried to avoid math at all cost. The only reason why I passed math was because I memorized the steps to solve the questions on the test and then forget the process right after. If you were to show me a geometry question now I wouldn’t know how to solve it and have to re-read the lesson. I think this common for students and drift to have “short-term memory”, especially in classes or subjects that don’t pique their interests. In Ben Orlin’s article, “When Memorization Gets in the Way of Learning” he said, “Memorization is a frontage road: It runs parallel to the best parts of learning, never intersecting. It's a detour around all the action, a way of knowing without learning, of answering without understanding.” I memorized math to pass, not to learn and to truly understand. People obtain information that is most intriguing to them. As Sugata Mitra said in his TED Talk, “Children will learn to do what they want to learn to do.”  I’m not saying memorization to not be important because it is a valuable skill in certain areas for example rhetoric, but it doesn’t help learn and understand material in the long term. Orlin said,” Memorization's defenders are right: It's a mistake to downplay factual knowledge, as if students could learn to reason critically without any information to reason about. But memorization's opponents are right, too: Memorized knowledge isn't half as useful as knowledge that's actually understood.”

The Huffington Post wrote an article, “45% of Students Don’t Learn Much in College”, that featured UCLA student Yahya Fahimuddin, who said, "Honestly, you can get by with Wikipedia and pass just about anything." Even at one of the most respected universities, mastering material is not as important as meeting course goals and getting through material on time.

My question is- by just doing enough to pass, are you really prepared for your future? A study done by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) did a study that surveyed 400 organizations that have 25 percent or more of their new hires holding either an associate degree from a two-year college or a bachelor’s degree from a four-year college. As shown on the bar chart below from AACU, students consistently rank themselves as prepared in areas where employers do not agree. 

I think this opens my eyes that I need to be more conscious of learning and retaining material instead of just dong enough to pass and not being fully prepared for my career. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/18/45-of-students-dont-learn_n_810224.html  

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/when-memorization-gets-in-the-way-of-learning/279425/

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/20/study-finds-big-gaps-between-student-and-employer-perceptions 

OTM#1- The Many Faucets of Radicalization

This week’s On the Media brought some light to a constant national concern- terrorism. What is our government doing to help fight terrorism, especially online? Recently, government officials traveled to Silicon Valley, the home of tech companies such as Apple and Facebook, to begin the making of an algorithm to detect signs of radicalization similar to a person’s credit score.

Georgia State Professor John Horgan, who studies terrorist behavior, is skeptical about the success of this algorithm.

“Radicalization is such a complex process… if there is one conclusion that has emerged from about 40 years of research is a story of diversity. We have a lot of different people becoming involved in terrorism in lots of different kinds of ways.”

I agree with Horgan and the fact that radicalism is hard to reduce and define in order to be properly measured and detected especially on the internet (it’s not small to say the least). What I think is radical will be different than your definition. What is appropriate behavior to me might be offensive to you. Even Karen Greenberg of Fordham University School of Law said in the segment “Detecting Terrorism Online Raises Legal Questions” that there is a wide range of legal opinion on what can be deemed as terrorism. I think the legal system will have a variety of interpretations of probable cause for criminal activity and in dictating the distribution of warrants.

I appreciate national security and tech companies taking action to protect our nation and making us feel safe as possible. In my mind, I’m paranoid and I always think that terrorists are always one step ahead. Maybe I give terrorists the benefit of the doubt but, when they find out we have an algorithm, they’ll stop searching online or take more caution in order to beat the system. Then what is privacy anymore? Everyone is under a microscope. We’ve probably already giving up this right to the government and I don’t mind as I’m sure many of us in the class probably think its minor price to pay, but I can see push back from others.

Also Horgan said, “Tracking people who have an interest in exploring radical sentiment but that will in no reliable way allowed you predict who is likely to become involved in terrorism. There is nothing wrong with being radical. There is nothing wrong with holding radical views and in some cases expressing radical views.” Many people have radical views, but don’t have any interest in being involved in terrorism. How do you differentiate who is a supporter and who is active? In his research, Horgan stated that some ISIS support begins and ends online with no intentions of actually engaging in terrorist activity. Would we be distracted and waste our time finding just supporters rather than the real active members? Safety first indeed.

I see pros and cons. With this algorithm, it’s a step in the right direction for our safety and hopefully a victory for America on our soil. I think it will detect a few and save grief for many communities. As far as major radical or terrorist personnel, I think its going to be tough to narrow down and detect.