Blog #2: Why Should You Quit Social Media

        After listening to all the TED Talks I decided to direct my blog on the second video which was called, Why Should You Quit Social Media. The speaker Cal Newport formulates his talk by introducing people's concerns about not using social media. He counter argues the points being addressed and tells the audience his opinion and solution. 
      A lot of the arguments he brings up in his talk are agreeable but some, however, are not. "Cal, social media is one of the fundamental technologies of the 21st century. To reject social media would be an act of extreme of Luddism. It would be like riding to work on a horse or using a rotary phone."
(Why You Should Quit Social Media)
        I agree with Cal on this one when he says to the crowd "this is nonsense" Social media isn't a considered fundamental technology to me, more so a form of entertainment and a way to communicate with friends and family. When I hear the words fundamental technology I think of something such as AI or computer advancements rather than social media. Also, the fact that the person compared not using social media to riding to work on a horse is ridiculous. That's completely a faulty comparison especially because the two have no relation whatsoever.

Image by Vesalainen

        "Cal, I can't quit social media because it is vital to my success in the 21st century. If I do not have a well-cultivated social media brand, people won't know who I am, people won't be able to find me, opportunities won't come my way, and I will effectively disappear from the economy."
(Why You Should Quit Social Media)

        See, this is one of the few guest objections in the TED Talk that I agree with. I believe today in the 21st-century social media plays such an important role in businesses. Social media could help promote a product to the public and many people would be able to see that because of how popular social media truly is. Not only in businesses but I would say social media could help bring individual success. If someone starts a business or service social media would be able to bring exposure and help grow the person's business or service.

   

Image By Narciso

     Many people these days including me haven't considered the harms of social media. "Along with the ubiquitous smartphone use and social media use on the campus, came an explosion of anxiety-related disorders on those campuses." (Why You Should Quit Social Media) This is crazy to think about, how social media was created for entertainment and after all, it harms us by causing anxiety and depression in people. I would have never thought social media would do such a thing to people in society. Not only that but bullying on social media platforms occur frequently which could also be considered another major harm. 

        I personally don't think I would be able to stop using social media entirely because it already plays a role in my life and I've been using it for quite some time now. I've grown up in a generation where social media is a huge part of many people's lives and I don't think many people would be able to make that change away from social media. What about you? Comment below what you think and take the survey I made...

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeOHgbhdmOT1SV7Jh07Z1evTYRA_K3wh4ZG8_frCUKFS76YBQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

Narciso. WordCloud . 19 Mar. 2015. Pixabay Images, 19 Mar. 2015, pixabay.com/
     illustrations/wordcloud-tagcloud-cloud-text-tag-679950/. Accessed 25 Nov.
     2019.

Vesalainen, Tero. "Smartphone Screen-Social Media." 5 Mar. 2017. Pixabay,
     pixabay.com/photos/smartphone-screen-social-media-2123520/. Accessed 24
     Nov. 2019.

Why You Should Quit Social Media. Performance by Cal Newport, TED Talks, 2016.
     TED Talk, www.ted.com/talks/
     cal_newport_why_you_should_quit_social_media. Accessed 24 Nov. 2019.

Blog #1: Top 6 Fears About Future Technology

For my first blog post, I'm going to be reflecting on the article called ¨Top 6 Fears About Future Technology¨ by Kevin Dickinson. 

         Many of the central ideas written about in the article were unreasonable such as killer robots or vicious virtual reality. That's why for this blog, I wanted to go in-depth about one section of the article that I found most reasonable and interesting. 

         The section of the article that I found most reasonable was Runaway automation. To briefly summarize the section, it addressed how soon robots could take many jobs from humans. The ultimate result of this would be that millions of workers would get replaced, leaving people unemployed. 

Image By Taylor 

         Today, technology/robotic machines have taken jobs from humans in many work fields, however, in the near future, this will more of a notable issue. ¨A McKinsey Global Institute study suggests that nearly 70 million people could lose their jobs to automation by 2030.¨ (Kevin Dickinson) To me and my generation, this statistic is very frightening because 2030 will be when we´re all grown up adults looking for employment. However, this is not as much of a fearful statistic for a generation of people like my dad because they´ll be retired. 

         Some work fields in which jobs could be taken by robots are the taxi industry and assembly-line jobs. Self-driving cars such as Tesla ¨could soon displace 5 million workers nationwide.¨ For people working in the taxi or Uber industry, this is a major threat to their job. ¨A Pew Research report found that 72 percent of US adults surveyed expressed worry over automation, compared with 33 percent who were enthusiastic.¨ (Kevin Dickinson) This shows that many people including me are highly concerned about the future of jobs and how robots are slowly taking jobs away from many fields. 

Dickinson, Kevin. "Top 6 fears about future technology." Big Think, 18 Sept.
     2018, bigthink.com/technology-innovation/
     fear-future-technology?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3. Accessed 15 Nov. 2019.

Taylor, Chloe. "Robots Could Take over 20 Million Jobs by 2030, Study Claims."
     CNBC, 26 June 2019, pp. 1-3. CNBC, www.cnbc.com/2019/06/26/
     robots-could-take-over-20-million-jobs-by-2030-study-claims.html. Accessed
     15 Nov. 2019.