Hey, you there! Yah you the one that’s reading this. Have you ever thought about how people see the world and the effects to which technology has on it? Well let me tell you this, I’m reading this chapter in a book called “Seeing Ourselves Though Technology” and I’m about to share with you a little bit about what I think about it.
First thing that stuck out to me was when the author stated that Facebook filters our behaviors. I completely disagree with the fact that they say our photos or post get filtered based on what we see from other people’s post or photos. I don’t think that by posting a bunch of positive things, that it would make a difference in what comes up or is filtered through on a person’s news feed. I myself have personally seen people on purpose post negative things like their struggles in life and such and positive things still pop up in their news feed. Also, the articles that we see on our news feeds are all ones that we have either already viewed or we liked. Which there for would then get filtered into our newsfeed. I don’t feel that has anything to do with behavior.
Another thing that I don’t agree with is the fact that the author said that a lot of people put filters on their photo to pretty much please everyone else. Apparently because what we seen other people doing we think we should turn around and do. No, I think we all do what we feel like doing I don’t think everyone is using filters because their best friend is, or brother is. If anything, I think people would do it more to have something different then just a basic picture. That is if they were to decide to use a filter or not.
While we are still talking about filters. Let’s talk selfies and their filters. The author tries to push the subject that people are more likely to use a filter then to just leave the image raw. I don’t think that is anywhere near accurate. I know many people who would avoid using a filter because they would feel that it would cover their true selves. And that it would alter their true beauty. Even when it comes to landscape photographs not all people use filters because the sky was not a certain tint or was a tint off. They would care more about keeping the photograph alive and true as its own without a filter.
So, after reading this chapter in this book you can kind of see how just by my arguments about certain things that just maybe all people have different views and or thoughts about filters. Maybe if you read this book you would challenge my arguments and agree with the author. And just maybe it might make you think twice before you post a picture on Facebook whether to have a filter applied or not. I feel that a lot of people are unaware of what the word filter really means. Or if people know if a filter can mean using it in more than one form. Now it’s your turn to take all this in and make your own interpretation.

Summary-  Chapter 2 in the book Seeing Ourselves Through Technology talks a lot about filters. And how we use them in our daily lives especially when it comes to using them in a digital media form. And the adjustments we can make on the pictures we take and post on social media such as Instagram or Facebook. It goes on to talk about how filters can be related to how we regulate things that dont necessary have to do with social media or taking a picture. But has to do with simply tracking things like how many steps we take in a day. Or if we were to search a certain subject on google. The search engine in that web site is going to filter through all its sources and sites to give you a list of the best sites to look at or click on to find your information. Another way to think about how filters work are how some people can go about when making or creating a baby journal. As the parent or parents would log information such as the baby’s first step or first word the digital journal would filter through all of the recordings and tracked information and put them all in order. Going forward they start to talk more about how filters have impacted our selfies and or photographs we take and post. The author states that there is a mass variety of people who tend to use filters when taking a photo. She talks about a lot of the reasoning behind why people use filters on pictures. One of them being that people based weather or not to use a filter by seeing what others are posting. Which has a lot to do with self-representation.

Keyterms

• Discursive- digressing from subject to subject.
• Terministic screen is a term in the theory and criticism of rhetoric. It involves the acknowledgment of a language system that determines an individual’s perception and symbolic action in the world.
• Neoliberal – relating to a modified form of liberalism tending to favor free-market capitalism.
• Aestheticism- the approach to art exemplified by (but not restricted to) the Aesthetic Movement.
• Defamiliarize- render unfamiliar or strange (used especially in the context of art and literature).

Main idea

The main idea of this chapter is about filters and how they affect the world and how we use them in our daily lives. Filters can be use for a variety of many different things.

Making Connections- I agree with a lot of the stuff that was said in this chapter. I use Snapchat quite a bit and i am constantly using all kinds of filters. I never thought about filters being a big part of my daily life or all the ways you can actually use the types of filters for a variety of things. I always thought of them as something that was fun or funny to do. All though i can admit that changing the tones on a landscape photograph can make it very vibrant and outstanding.

I really was not sure about this reading at first. The title itself “Imagining the Blogosphere” made me wonder to myself what could this article be about. The first thought that came to my mind was relief when I opened it up to see what it looked like or how long it was. I found it easier to go back and look and find different arguments and important parts of this article that came to me because it wasn’t so lengthy. When I started reading the first paragraph I found myself having to go back and read it a couple of time to kind of grasp the idea of what they were talking about. But after I did that everything came together and my understanding of it came clear. I agreed with a lot that was said in the article. I do believe that bloggers are able to keep things more alive and moving. And they also have more of a way to show their creative side when doing so. Rarely today I will pick up a newspaper unless I am at a place for and appointment and I see the newspaper laying there. But when I see it laying there what attracts me to it is what I see on the front page. If its something that I don’t find interesting I wont pick it up. On the other hand this had me thinking about the older generation and how a lot of them are kind of what you would call “stuck in their old ways”. Which is completely fine for them. I thought about my grandparents when this came to mind. My grandmother is more adapted to technology such as using  a computer and gets on there and finds information that she is looking for. Unlike my grandfather that wants nothing to do with technology and keeps to finding his news from the news channel on TV or a newspaper. But he does from time to time ask my grandmother to look something up for him as well. Anyways getting back to the thought of the blogosphere I had many different thoughts about the whole thing. They mentioned how bloggers have a more wide range of subjects to blog about and are more freely to do it verses writing an article and getting it published in the newspaper. I kind of felt that even though they said that they gave bloggers some credit for keeping up on the current events of 911, they should have made it more apparent to people that bloggers work hard at what they do even if it’s on their own time and are not getting paid for it. Times are changing and technology is getting more advance each and everyday and sooner or later we might be looking at being totally reliable on the internet and bloggers. Newspapers are great but are we looking at the percentages of people who are looking on the internet or blogs for information verses people who are looking for their information in the newspaper. I think the blogosphere will rise more and become a new way to look at things as time goes on.

Summary- In this article at the beginning it will talk and explain what they mean when they use the term “Blogging Iceberg”. A survey was conducted by the Perseus Development Company to figure out how frequent blogs where being used. While researching they found that a mass amount of blogs that people start get abandoned. And that the life span of an abandoned blog usually only last for about 4 months give or take. Most blogs that’s stay a float are typically ones that are by teenagers that are updating and posting about their life and there journeys they have been on. As the research goes on they start talking about community blogosphere and how they really don’t exist. When thinking about a community, you think about others exchanging feed back or even getting to know each other. With saying this its does not sound or look like a community. Going forward Benedict Anderson goes on to explain that when a person gets up in the morning and read the newspaper that person is reading things that millions of others might be as well. While talking about this he relates this to blogging Saying they are a lot similar, but just in a different form of reading information. Instead of reading through a paper, when blogging you can jump from link to link finding new information. The difference in printing publication and instant online publication is that the mass majority are amateurs that are posting about whatever they want and not getting paid for it.  Although bloggers need or still rely on traditional media for current events or sources of news they still have their own unique way of broadcasting the events or news. When big events happened like 911 bloggers where able to provide more news and reviews about it then a mainstream media could. Bloggers could create memorable obituaries or keep up with the current news and stay on top of things. There for unlike mainstream media a blogger can catch and hold on to a lot more sources that are easier to find.  A rise in technology and texting and the fact that with only a hit of a button information can be spread in seconds. This is what makes the blogosphere rise!

Making connections  Thinking about the blogosphere brings a wide range of ideas to your mind. Today a lot of people go to the internet for information verses printed published newspapers. It is a lot easier and faster. Although there are still a lot of people who rely on only a news paper for information they need when it comes to a community base or maybe a major current events that are going on. I have found that I use the internet for more wide-spread information myself.

Commentary- I think the author brings a very valid point when it comes to the comparisons of the blogosphere. I agree that it is a lot easier and more gratifying to be able to jump online and search for anything you are looking for. But at the same time a lot of stuff that a person could be blogging about can be perceiving and not knowing if it is the real source you are looking for. That’s when you look at the basic main stream media where your information may take longer to find but will have a more definite source or a reliable one at that.

 

As I started reading this chapter I felt like It was never going to end. There was a lot of history about writing that I did not know. I really enjoyed how they would relate the history of writing back then to the way we are writing today. I was really fascinated when Katie Warfield talked about selfies and her thought behind them. I think a lot of people would benefit from reading about this and then turning it around and looking at them selves and seeing where this reading could fit into their own lives. I found it pretty self absorbing when It came to thinking about myself and all the selfies and things I post on Facebook and Instagram. It even made me think about snapchat. Which is another form of social media I use myself and find that I use it quite a bit. Before reading this chapter I never really gave too much thought to why I posted the things I do or that they were a self representative of myself. I also never really thought or looked at the idea of  when a person takes a picture of them selves or even a picture of anything that it is a form of recording. I more thought of  it as saving or keeping it as a memory. Later in the chapter near the end they start talking about twitter. Now ive heard about twitter and at one point in my life I actually created a twitter account and signed up. But when I created it and got on there I had no idea what I was doing or even where to start. So I never kept up with it and kind of just forgot about it. But as I was reading about twitter in this chapter it got me thinking and I began to somewhat understand it. So with that being said I recently decided to make a new account and give it one more try. And so far it has not been that bad. Maybe a little overwhelming but most things that are new can be. I really found the history of reading and writing very interesting. Learning that not a lot of people knew how to read and write and that later most of the people who did know how to read and write were priest and nuns. While reading this I began to wonder and think to myself how did they even learn how to read and write from the beginning. And if the majority of people who could read and write were nuns and priest how would other people be able to know that the spiritual or religion beliefs that they wrote were true. Thoughout the chapter from the beginning I really noticed how over the years how we as human beings have evolved. Going from not being able to write to paper being so expensive so people didn’t write much. Or people writing but only about one thing or for only one purpose. Today we have evolved to hardly using paper for writing. If anything when it comes to using paper its more for when someone is printing something off the computer. It leaves me thinking whats next? One day will we become completely paperless? Will we only rely on technology? What do you think?

Summery- At the beginning of the chapter it talks about Parmigianino an italian mannerist painter from 1524. It goes on to talk about how we can relate his self-portrait that he did using a convex mirror to the way be shape ourselves through technology today. Today we use technology and things like Facebook or Instagram and also fitbits to compare and see parts of ourselves just as Parmigianino did in his self portrait. We see the same things he seen. As the you continue to read on it become kind of pattern or a sense of growth when thinking about writing or painting. A lot of people didn’t know how to read or write in the seventeenth Century. It really wasnt till the nineteenth century that people really began to read and write. Most of the people who did read and write were priest or nuns. But the writing was done more for religion and ones self-examination of it. As time goes on paper becomes more accessible and affordable and people started using it for other things like a diary or for keeping track of businesses and their funds. A very popular tradition of writing  was in a diary about ones sins. This was a method used to reflect on ones actions or sins.

Photography has evolved so much over history. Especially when it comes to self portraits. From painting to taking a photo of ourselves that in the past you might see in an art gallery. Today when you see a camera used more is when taking selfies. Quantitative self-representation refers to keeping track of thing like what we do on our phones or fitbit. In the past people use to track things by using a form of a check list. Like for example things that they would need to get done or how many things they have accomplished.  Self tracking was also used to record time and events. Just like today when we use Facebook to post on a time line. Which keeps track of the date and time or place of when it was posted.

Commentary- In about the middle of the chapter the author talks about Katie Warfield and how she researches selfies. She talks about how we can look at ourselves in the mirror but cannot record it. When we take a selfie and post it, it keeps record of it. And we do things like share photos of not only ourselves but the things we do. We are not only doing it for a reaction from the audience that is viewing what you are sharing. We also do it for ourselves. As I would see it as a self-esteem booster. Maybe when we post things like a new house we are trying to compete with others and what they have and post.

Making Connections-  Reading about Katie Warfield and her studies and how she speaks about selfies hit home for me. She goes on talking about how we take all of these photos and post them as if we are doing it to show everyone else. But what we don’t think about is how what we are posting represents who we are or what we perceive ourselves to be to our audience. Today everyone wants to have the nicest things or look the best. Which is fine. But I also think there is a line where we have to ask ourselves are we posting these things for self acceptance or for people just to view them with no underline meaning behind it.

Reading this was not a easy task. I mean it wasn’t hard to read some of the paragraphs, but a lot of them switched up a lot and very fast. So trying to stay focus and make sense of the paragraphs was kind of frustrating. Ultimately it thought this reading was more of a way to get our mind thinking harder and more in-depth. I questioned a lot of what I was trying to read and what connection the paragraphs had with each other. It seemed like some of the island would change paragraphs, but they would say the same thing but it would be worded differently. While a few other paragraphs changed so fast that it was hard to keep up with understanding what they were trying to say. Overall this reading was a not so easy task, but it was a good way to make a person really think about what they are trying to read.

Main idea–  In the reading “how to read like a writer”  describes the ways to read and how you can have a understanding about what you are reading and how you are comprehending it. Like the author in the beginning of this reading talks about how he reached out to his fellow students that were also in his class and asked questions about reading. The reading also explains or sets examples of all the different ways to look at ways to read. For instance one good way to do this is when beginning to read something is to ask common questions. Like what is the auther trying to let their audience know or what is the purpose that the auther is trying to make. It also explains how it is to read like a writer. It is a chance to change the way of your thinking when you are absorbing what you are trying to read while reading.

Key Terms-

Context- the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.

Writerly- of or characteristic of a professional author.

Techniques- a way of carrying out a particular task, especially the execution or performance of an artistic work or a scientific procedure.

Making Connections-  I can make quite a few connections to the reading “How to Read Like a Writer”. Like the author was referring to all the different ways to think about reading, a couple of things stuck out to me. One of the biggest thing that popped out to me was when they auther was talking about questioning the reading before you continue to read. I find myself doing that more with being in college and having to think more in-depth about what i am reading and how i am absorbing it and being able to retain the things that i read. I also can relate to the thought of what kind of writing i will be assigned when writing and reading in my college courses. It helps knowing ahead of time what approach you are going to take when it comes to your assignments at and what kind of techniques that you will be using.

Summary- The reading ” by island i mean paragraphs” is really about all these islands that you can scroll too and click on and they talk about the descriptions of the island. The author was also trying to provide an image of the island for the readers. If you scroll to different islands it has paragraphs that talks about people’s travels there and the difficulties they had. Other islands would describe why they were named and what they could have been named after. As you scroll to different islands and even the same ones you notice that the paragraphs change and new paragraphs show up with different information. Another island just keeps changing and describing what kind of wild life is there. And what the enviroment would look like. Naming off different types of animals, like birds and also trees and so on.

Choosing a copy write license for my blog wasn’t that hard. I knew right away when we were assigned to choose one that I knew which one I was gonna pick. I chose creative commons because if someone where to cross my blog and find something useful maybe for themselves or even a friend or family member I would want them to use it. I also chose this license because I want people to share my work. If they are sharing my work I must be doing something right. Further more I  just want everyone out there to be able to find what they are looking for and use it or share it!