Are You Safe With What You Do Online?

The results to our survey! We discussed the topic "Are You Safe With What You Do Online?"

Cyberbullying

Cyberbulling actually happens a lot more frequently and to people that you would probably never assume would have it happen to. I myself have been targeted in past years and it is not pleasant, I can tell you that. I could relate to some of the things that my partner and I discussed and questions asked.

There are many roles that are played when this happens, and they aren't fun ones like in drama class. There is the obvious Offender(s), the Target(s), the Bystanders, but there are only Upstanders on a few occasions. When I witness cyberbullying happening, I have only seen it happen a few times. The Target usually tries to fight retaliate, but other than that I find Upstanders to be a rare thing.

When there is retaliation though, that can cause the bullying situation to escalate or intensify. Parents and adults always say to either say something back or do nothing, but sometimes one can't just do nothing, and saying something back can make it worst. One time, I had a person commenting things on my profile page and on things that I had posted, and I would usually say something back because that is just something typical for my stubborn, pride filled self to do. The Offender eventually started personal messaging me, and it just got worst from there. Sometimes retaliating can lead to bigger problems. My friends had stepped in and started saying things too at this point, so the Offender eventually got the message and left me alone.

That's why it's important to be an Upstander instead of a Bystander. Sometimes it just takes that one other person saying that what they are doing is wrong, and the Offender will get the message and go away, and if not, than at least the Target will feel like someone is on their side.

I know it can sometimes be a hard thing to do, but my best advice is to do nothing. The Offender will get bored with no one to talk to, and they'll realize that you don't care, and if you do, you're not showing it. You should still tell someone about it, but unless you feel like you really should, I wouldn't interact with them, but if you see something happening, be the that rare Upstander in the situation. It will help a lot more than you might think.

Are We Digital Dummies?-Journal Entry #7

On April 7th, we watched a CBC Doc Zone documentary titled "Are We Digital Dummies?", and we find out that yes, yes we are.

Smart phones are in fact making us a dumb and distracted nation. They are smart for us, so really, why do we have to be? We can just Google an answer to our problem and hold conversations via text where auto correct does most of the work for us. People desensitize, and forget when it's rude to be on their phones. People listening to music are more aware of their surroundings than those using their cellphones, and the people using their cellphones believe that they are aware, and that illusion is dangerous. How do you think some car accidents happen? We perceive the need that we must always be online, and that are brains are perfectly capable of multitasking, but the reality is, they're not.

15 year old Alexa was texting and walking, and although it sounds quite cartoon like, she fell into an open man hole. She blamed the city for leaving it open, but it was her! If she had of been aware of her surroundings instead of texting her friend about something not important, she would have seen the gaping hole in the side walk and walked around it like a normal person who would like to remain clean and dry.

We are not capable of multitasking, what we really are doing is switch tasking at a fast pace. "Multitasking" can cause errors and stress, and it's destroying our ability to focus. The internet can be as dangerous and as addicting as some of the worst drugs out there, and nobody takes you seriously when you approach them with this problem. It's rewiring our brains, and we are becoming less interesting as individuals. Less creative, not skilled at reading or being comfortable holding a conversation. We are not able to look at the end of the day at we have done, because have we done anything productive in the first place? The use of digital technology is an amazing thing that we have easy and excessive access to, but it's tampering with the way we think, and maybe not for the better.

"A hammer is good when you build a house with it, but bad if you hit someone over the head. (It's the) Same with technology. We have to unplug sometimes, and we realize that our lives get better when we let our minds unwind and make time for play."

Inside The Dark Web-Jounal Entry #6

"Inside The Dark Web" was by far the most interesting and worrisome documentary I have ever watched. Sure, I don't watch a lot of documentaries, but still! This was honestly a bit nerve racking. The documentary talked a lot about how we are all constantly on 24-hour surveillance, and the invention of Tor, which is a browser that can let anonymous users stay anonymous.

As long as your phone is on and connected to wifi, you are being watched. This has been seized by government as part of their surveillance and is also very popular with technology companies. We are being monitored in ways that was never before possible and we are voluntarily logging on to it.  Everything you do can and will be sold to the highest bidder, and when this happens, you will immediately be bombarded with advertisements and sales that correspond with your interests. You think that when you are shopping online, you are buying a product? Wrong. You are the product. You become the exact thing that people are wanting to trade and sell, and the market is huge for this stuff, for information. Knowledge is power, and we are so willing to give that all away.

Tor helps to stop the madness though. The invention of this browser has made it possible for anonymous users to remain anonymous. I mentioned in a previous post about Do Not Tracking software and this is kind of like that, except instead of a software that you can download on to your computer, this is a an engine like Chrome or Internet Explorer. You can be anywhere online, and Tor just mixes your data with one of those from another anonymous user and spews it all out at once. That way, computers and analysers can't find out what information came from where. This is the only way Tor can work. You need many users in order to be untraceable. I know it doesn't sound like it should make sense, but it does. You can't be anonymous alone.

Privacy On The Internet

I think the graphic novel, "Social Smarts: Privacy, The Internet, and You", was a very well done representation of the problems that can easily occur when we are careless with how we use the internet and digital media. People never really think about the consequences of simple mistakes that are done regularly. Especially with privacy settings and pictures or posts that people tag their friends in. You should always ask permission before you post something. It may be a joke now, but sometime down the road it can lead to some serious problems.

Passwords are also a big problem. I know that for me, I have one password that I use for everything except for two sites, because it's easy to remember, but if someone I couldn't trust discovered what that password was, I could have a big problem on my hands. I also don't have a password on my phone for some reason, I was probably just too lazy to put one on, but if I lost my phone or if it was taken, the same thing that happened to Amy in the comic would most likely happen to me too. Privacy is important and laziness or not caring is not a good attitude when it comes to it.

Everyday Privacy

This article had a lot of good points and truths about being digital tracked during our daily routines, a lot of which I already knew. I never do check in, but I know that when you do you are voluntarily giving away your location, and giving many sites and people valuable information. Everything that you do that can be related to technology in any which way possible, can and will be tracked down to you. It doesn't matter if it's just a cup of coffee. If you check in, people know where you are and what you are doing, and if the shop is smart, they will have cameras that show you were there, and what you behaviour was while you were sipping your Double Double.

I was surprised though when the author mentioned that thing about ordering books online. I'm more surprised that I had never thought of it before, because it's true and pretty obvious. When I order a novel from Chapters, they are getting my credit card number, my name, my address, my email, and probably other things that I am not even aware of, and that's kind of a terrifying thought. Look at all the information I am willingly giving away, and all I am doing is preordering the latest Harper Lee novel! Imagine how much information can be given when you are cashing a check online, or doing your finances or other important work digitally? Sure, computers and networks and the internet have made things way more efficient, but is privacy something we are willingly to give up for that?

Reflections On My Digital Life

Digital Media

After completing a quiz about digital media and digital life, I was actually surprised to see how many teens say they use privacy settings to protect their information, to be completely honest, it's something that I did not expect. I know many people who don't use their privacy settings or don't even realize that they are there, so to see that four out of five teenagers use these settings was sadly surprising.

I was also slightly surprised to see that one half of kids ages 11-18 say that they feel like a different person when they are online. I can understand what they mean and why they feel that way, but I never realized how big that percentage was.

Some of statistics I learned in the quiz are very different to the way I use digital media in my life. I do not send more than a 100 texts every single day, I have never ever received or sent anything sexual and I don't think all my friends share too much information online, maybe a couple, but not all of them.The rest of these statistics though I can relate to. I keep my phone by my bed, I have made my own creations and put them online for people to see, and I use my privacy settings.

The digital media that I use the most would probably be my Ipod, because I listen to music a lot and that is the only device I have music on, but I also use my cellphone for when I message people on Facebook and just text. What I use the least is probably the family laptop that we have at home. I used to use it more than I probably should have, and I still do when I am typing up a story, but ever since I got my own tablet I stopped using it as much.

The Digital World

There are many up's and down's when you think about this generation and how we have and are growing up in a digital world. One good thing, to me anyway, is that it makes it much easier to display things that I wrote and pictures that I've taken. Things that I am proud of and want people to see just for the fact that it's original and mine, I don't care if they don't like it. If there was no internet, it would be a little harder to get things out there. I would have to leave the house for one thing, and that's something that my antisocial self doesn't like doing sometimes. The internet makes this a much more easier and efficient thing to do! A downside however, though ironically, is that I don't get outside enough. I lose touch in people, not that I stop talking to them, but I forget what it's like to talk to people face to face. You get used to looking at a screen, and that's a bad thing. Digital social skills are only helpful to an extent, and if you get so used to watching a screen and typing on a keyboard instead of hearing the words come out of your mouth, that can have a larger affect on your life than you may first think.

The internet has however improved some of my relationships with people, and have broadened my horizons I guess you could say. I know what I just said was all negative and screaming, "Talking online is bad! You will fall in love with the screen and not the person behind it!", but ignore all that! It's true though, but ignore it for this paragraph only.

With the use of the internet, I have met people oceans away and still talk to them now and then, and I have also gotten to know people a lot better. People who I probably would never approach and start talking to in the halls or on the street. In that way, the internet is a wonderful thing that does connect people, but it's losing that connection that worries me and others. As soon as you stop typing back and forth, you can tend to forget. It's a connection, yes, but it's not the same. It's not as deep and ever lasting as when you talk face to face over a pot of coffee. The internet can connect (I have used that word way too many times) people and introduce people, but if that isn't brought over to the physical world, that connection can be easily lost and not many would even care, and that's part of the problem when it comes to society as a whole.

Our society is (mostly, some people will be offended but no offence intended) growing into a brain-washed group of Google programmed bodies. When we don't know something, we just Google it without even attempting to figure it out. We shorten words because it "takes too long" to type the whole thing out. We put things online without a thought about the consequences. We think that online isn't real, that what we say and what we do will just disappear, and no one will think about it after you shut the phone off or close the tab. Well that's a lie. These are all things that shouldn't even be considered let alone fact, and there are countless more. We are a society that claims to be a strong and connected one, but has anyone ever actually looked outside the window instead of the digital one and looked?

What I do on the internet is most likely very different than what my fellow peers in this class do. I write online. I am part of a website called Wattpad and I have 13 books n there. Most of them are not complete or are so terrible I should really take them down, but still! They are there. They are mine. People read them and that makes it extraordinary. I have one book of poems that has over six thousand reads and numerous votes, and it's definitely a way that has connected me with people. Complete strangers on this site have complimented and asked for help on their stories and they are not strangers any more. The internet is a way to connect and evolve in ways that were once not thought possible, but to disconnect to get a better connection is something that should be taken into consideration.

Mr.Savoys Presentation-Journal Entry #5

On March 24th, Mr.Savoy came to our classroom to show us a presentation that talked a bit about what we had been discussing in class, which was "Facebook Follies" and the dangers of displaying personal data. He also asked the question, "Are you in control?". What he meant by this was that we are losing control of technology and the way we use it. When we send a text to the wrong person, forget a password, or have accounts hacked into, we are losing control of technology.

Mr. Savoy showed us a video by Jack Vale where he was doing a Social Media experiment. He was wondering how easy it would be to get strangers personal information by searching them from the tweets and and times people have "checked in" near his location. When he went up to random people with information he had gathered form Instagram and Facebook, they were freaked out and didn't fully understand how he could possibly know so much about them without ever meeting him before. People don't realize how easy it is to acquire "personal" information about someone. Private data is private for a reason, and more people should have come to the realization that privacy settings are there for a reason, and a small comment or picture by you could have some serious consequences, or cause someone like Jack Vale to learn more about you than maybe you thought possible from a stranger.

After having seen this presentation, I found an article that talked about ad tracking, which was also briefly discussed in Mr. Savoy's presentation. The article was titled "Ad Tracking-Is Anything Being Done?". It talked about computer users privacy and how there have been complaints on both ends. In 2011, DNT technology (Do Not Track) was introduced to protect computer users privacy, and now there is downloadable software to specifically monitor your website activity. Most websites still have cookies that are sent to your computer after you have visited their website, and that's why people are wary. There is another three part article you can read called "The Paranoid's Survival Guide". Where it goes into greater detail of ad tracking and it's invasion of privacy.