http://www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/

An online version of Howard Rheingold's 1985 book.

https://socialmediaissues.net/

Website for Social Media Issues, A resource for Comm 182/282. A course offered by Howard Rheingold at Stanford, Autumn, 2013

https://www.listennotes.com/search/?q=%E2%80%9CHoward%20Rheingold%E2%80%9D&sort_by_date=0&scope=episode&offset=0&language=Any%20language&len_min=0

https://betaworkss-fabulous-project.webflow.io/event/render-tools-for-thinking

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/books/review/tool-for-thought.html

Note the title "Tool for Thought" here. It does come five years after Howard Rheingold's book of a similar name.

https://hypothes.is/users/hrheingold

übersteigt völlig mein Forschungsprojekt - aber ein ANT Bericht über ein Beispiel - sagen wir Heather Lawver - wäre sicher interessant, weil die tatsächliche Verbindung so aufgezeigt werden könnte

Daher ist Rheingolds infotention so wichtig

Beispiel für eine Gewohnheit und für konkrete Fragen, die man sich während seiner online/onlife Zeit stellen kann

Inwiefern ist das schon automatisiert? Hier wäre auch empirische Evidenz interessant. Is there any research considering automatisms in searchterms nowadays (10 years after Rheingold wrote this book?) Abseits meiner Forschung: Hat die Nutzung von Suchmaschinen den Bezug zu Formulierungen von Wissensinhalten bereits transformiert? Also wirken Suchmaschinen mit ihren Übersetzungsprogrammen und Präskriptionen an die Nutzer*innen als Akteure, die einen Prozess von Wissenserwerb transformieren, indem sie jede Frage in eine halbe Antwort umformulieren?

1. Stalder: Algorithmizität - eine Eigenschaft der Kultur der Digitalität - Wir brauchen Algorithmen (z.B. Suchmaschinen), die die schieren Datenmengen vorsortieren.
2. Latour/Callon: Handlungsprogramme. Algorithmen sind recht eindeutig Handlungsprogramme technischer Natur. Aber eben nur auf den ersten Blick sind sie ausschließlich das. Sie lassen sich genauer und für den hier interessanten Fokus als techno-soziale Handlungsprogramme beschreiben, die wenn sie auf einen wie Rheingold sagt uninformed way der Suchmaschinennutzung treffen eben dominante Handlungsprogramme werden. Hier trifft also Carrs Furcht teilweise zu. In terms of ANT kann und muss man jedoch sagen und fragen: Welche konkurrierenden Handlungsprogramme brauchen, wollen und können wir erdenken (wie die Rhetorik der Antike den Bürger lehrte, Argumente zu konstruieren und abzuwägen), die die techno-sozialen Handlungsprogramme der Algorithmen nicht die alleinigen oder die für Nutzer:innen der letzten blinden Programme sein lassen. Und jetzt der ANT hint für die Lösung dieses Problems auf erstmal abstrakt-theoretischer Ebene: Wir müssen uns auf die Übersetzungsprozesse konzentrieren, in denen eben jene oben genannten Handlungsprogramme unterschiedlicher Provenienz mal so mal so dominant sind. Wollen wir also lernen, wie ein achtsamer Umgang mit digitalen Medien gelingen kann, so sind unsere Augen, unsere Tastaturen, unsere Aufmerksamkeit auf die Expert:innen zu richten. Auf jene, die unterschiedliche Formen von gelingender Praxis in einer Kultur der Digitalität ständig wieder erschaffen.

Bspw für eine Einleitung, in dem oben geschriebenen zeigt sich nämlich ein crucial point der Wahl von ANT, Stalder, Rheingold: Die ANT hilft mit ihrem offen gehaltenen Vokabular die von Rheingold im Kontext von Stalders Theorie beschriebenen (er selbst macht das nicht, ich lese das so) tatsächlichen Phänomene aus der Welt herauszugreifen und dem gezielten und breiten Reflexionsprozess zugänglich zu machen. Weitergehend kann in Anknüpfung daran qualitativ oder auch quantitativ geforscht werden. Die Stränge akademischer Diskussion, die sich an diesen Zugriff reihen stehen außerdem nicht im Widerstreit o.ä. zu jenen denkbaren Strängen des nicht- bzw. post-akademischen Diskurses, der (auch) ein Kennzeichen digitaler Kultur, nämlich von many-to-many Kommunikation ist.

operationstheoretisch - was geschieht - Der Begriff Operation hat mir auch ungemein geholfen, Latours handelnde Akteure besser zu greifen, weil er im Gegensatz zum Handlungsbegriff frei von (menschlicher) Intention ist. Und Intention wird für mich noch ein crucial point, weil Intention fuels Attention und Attention = basale digital literacy nach Rheingold

Rheingolds Internetseite checken - vllt finde ich hier etwas, das ich im krit. Denken Seminar und/oder für die Workshops/den Arbeitskreis nutzen kann

Hier kommt mir das Gespann von Ich-Selbst, Ich-Welt und Ich-Du Beziehung in Humboldts Bildungsbegriff in den Sinn - ich glaube, dass mindestens ein eingeschränkter Anschluss an dieser Stelle besteht - wiederum nicht, um die Bildung auf digital literacies zu begrenzen oder umgekehrt 'alles, was heute wichtig ist, auf bereits Gedachtes reduktiv zurückzuführen', sondern, um vorhandene, ältere Ressourcen mit neueren transformativ zusammenzudenken - was bleibt, was kommt hinzu? Lässt sich eine inhärente Logik der Bildung skizzieren, die auch in digital literacies zu finden ist? Und kann ggf. der Bildungsbegriff Rheingolds literacy Ansatz (sinnvoll) erweitern helfen? Digitale philosophische Bildung = philosophische Bildung, insofern letztere die erste miteinschließt - weil beide begriffliche Erfassung der Realität darstellen - und da das Internet nicht bloße Simulation ist, ist dies einzuschließen

Spannende Frage - ob ich hier Anschluss an Rheingolds digital literacies finde?

Don't know if I am too superficially thinking here, but this reminds me of thoughts about mindfulness - Gives me the idea, that coping with new media will be more successful if it is done mindfully

Howard Rheingold spricht bei digital literacies in Unterscheidung zu skills von der Abhängigkeit des Individuums von den anderen, von der Gruppe. Im Gegensatz zum Radfahren oder Schwimmen, helfen einem digitale Kompetenzen auf atomisiert individueller Ebene nicht weiter. Während das Radfahren ein Individuum durchaus schneller gemessen an seinem eigenen Zufußgehen fortbewegen lässt, hilft das Verlinken usw. vllt der individuellen Ordnung von Inhalten, jedoch stößt sich allein die Sinnhaftigkeit dieses Ordnens bereits an der Unmöglichkeit des atomisierten Individuums, Bedeutung und Sinn zu erzeugen. (Rheingolds Argument geht anders, ich erinnere es nicht mehr - sicherlich ist in seinen erklärenden Videos (runterscrollen) etwas zu finden)

Überspitzt: Alles, was nicht an diesem Ort X zu dieser Zeit Y sich befindet, kann vermittelst virtueller Realität bzw. in dieser in den präsenten Moment und den präsenten Ort geholt werden. Meine erste Idee dazu: Der gegenwärtige Moment ist dadurch noch sehr viel radikaler geöffnet, als er das ohnehin durch die kognitive Erinnerung und Fiktionalisierung ist (bezügl. künftiger Wünsche und Ängste). Will ein Subjekt Z jetzt mit dieser Situation zurecht kommen - gemäß ihrem eigenen Sinn erfolgreich sein - so muss es sich diesem Stream der Digitalität, in dem es sich befindet, bewusst werden. Nicht aus Zufall sind Praktiken der Achtsamkeit (z.B. Atemmeditation) daher von Interesse. Sie sind nicht bloße Hype Gegenstände, die beliebig austauschbar wären. Sie treffen ein inhaltliches Problem und geben m.E. mit dem Gewahrwerden UND dem verlassen der Idee, das Subjekt hätte gänzlich feste (identitäre) Grenzen auch eine mögliche Richtung für eine Lösung bloß eines Aspekts - jedoch eines elementaren - des Lebens in der Lebenswelt der Digitalität.

Ggf. ist hier ein Anschlusspunkt für einen älteren Gedanken von Howard Rheingold? Ich muss mir Rheingolds Begriff der virtual community erst noch ansehen. Hier findet man das Buch.

Ich hoffe, ich finde noch heraus wie das hier geht. Ein und dieselbe PDF Datei via hypothes.is zu bearbeiten, das wäre großartig.

triangulation is often used to indicate that two (or more) methods are used in a study in order to check the results of one and the same subject. In journalism you owuld do this by checking multiple credible sources to see if the information you found lines up and is relaiable.

This can relate back to the supplementary article i read about fake news on facebook. People usually are more likely to trust news sources posted by their friends or family who may share ismilar political leanings so when coming across fake news on facebook they are less likely to question the source. A perfect example of this would be on my own facebook page where people post nonsense satire stories from fake news sites where often times when you click on the link it says the story is not real but based off the comments on the article you can tell most people are only sharing based off the headline and may skim over the details while sharing the article with friends on their page.

The supplementary article i choose was "Debunking Fake News" by Eugene Kelly . In the article it tlaks about the spread of fake news information on facebook and how factcheck.org has agreed to

Overall, I appreciate this further explanation of Rheingold's online post that I read. Having read the shorter version, I didn't get as much of the reasoning behind the importance of "crap-detection" and here I am further able to see sources that will help me weed out information that I don't need and make smarter choices in filtering out the "crap."

Page 17's discussion of "Publish then Filter" really speaks to the increasing demand for information due to our society's need for instant gratification. Everything has become faster-paced and so we need information almost immediately or it probably won't be read. https://masscommons.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/here-comes-everybody-publish-then-filter/ This post explains the mentality very well, but what I'm glad Rheingold does is he explains the need for us to filter our information and check it first. He offers solutions to getting more accurate information or a solution to the problem.

I had no idea about the integration of search and RSS. I think this is so useful and eye-opening as I am someone who really gets their information from online sources. I was able to finds sites such as ctrlq.org/rss/ which is an RSS search engine. This keeps information up-to-date and relatively accurate which could be very helpful to me as I know I tend to be closed-minded and only read things that lean towards liberal perspectives.

I absolutely love the image on page 15 because I really think it really speaks to he amount of information we get in a day and the process we can go through in order to manage what we take in and what we retain. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjXubiymMLaAhVB6lMKHcusDcAQFggpMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pbs.org%2Fwgbh%2Fnova%2Fnext%2Ftech%2Ffake-news-is-spreading-thanks-to-information-overload%2F&usg=AOvVaw0lCmMgQPuehVN5SbZFAqDN

This is a site I found that briefly discusses the negative impacts that comes from Fake News being promoted by information overload. I find this topic very interesting considering that we are becoming increasingly dependent on technology for information and news.

The principles I find interesting as they are described are the "stay skeptical" and "Keep asking questions" principles. I like these because they don't urge the readers to deny anything and everything that they see, but to have a healthy amount of skepticism and curiosity when looking at information. The idea of "fake news" is one that is extremely common today. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj0gpmLlcLaAhWHylMKHZe7AbIQtwIIMjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cc.com%2Fvideo-clips%2Fmn1zfl%2Fthe-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-project-veritas-creates-fake-news-to-expose--fake-news-&usg=AOvVaw3MNVXPHa6IVmo-oL4Cz9aG

This video, while taking a humorous take on what "fake news" is, discusses the impact of this by. The video is titled "Project Veritas creates fake news to expose fake news." This section on page 13 reminded me of this video both because of Rheingold's more light-hearted tone in his writing and for the expression of the dangers of misinformation.

In Rheingold's "Crap Detection" brief online article, it discusses how in our society more and more people get their news from the internet and take it as fact and can spread misinformation. I think he does a much better job describing in full the need for people to really make sure the information they're getting is factual. It once again mentions websites like FactCheckED.org and focuses on the legitimacy of medical information which isn't really done in the quick blog-style version of this chapter.

Discussing the importance of being specific when typing questions into a search engine reminds me of http://www.bristol.ac.uk/library/support/findinginfo/search-engines/ which goes into detail about how to make the best out of a search engine. https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=AwrC5pk5VtZaEHoABTg0nIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByZWc0dGJtBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMQ--?p=how+to+use+a+search+engine+effectively&vid=9bf0d5d37d4dc51cd871e871b3a39b28&turl=https%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOVP.61buA0jkcYnUo5UPzPB40wEsDS%26pid%3D15.1%26h%3D210%26w%3D300%26c%3D7%26rs%3D1&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DL6mvnMW_nnY&tit=How+to+use+the+Google+Search+Engine+more+Effectively.&c=0&h=210&w=300&l=434&sigr=11bdiha8i&sigt=11lisflue&sigi=12r61em25&age=1260459057&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av&fr=yhs-arh-001&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=arh&type=zxy_5e685049fc1e67cf88&tt=b

This YouTube video also, specifically using Google search, gives similar tips to this article on how to search effectively and get the answers you're looking for.

The idea that there are people who regard search-engines as authoritative is one that I really haven't considered. Being that we are a very internet-based society, most students do all of their research online. This guide gives some pros to using online sources for research but warns not to use only online sources as well as offering the pros to using more traditional sources such as libraries to conduct research. This reminds me of the times in class we've discussed using librarians and library databases in order to get sources.

When Rheingold talks about the design of a website being a clue to the legitimacy of a source, it reminds me of a lesson I had in a computer class called "Presentation Etiquette." In this lesson we discussed the importance of keeping presentations and websites organized and easy to read. I've always found this to be helpful in determining whether a website is written by a company, a professional writer, or a novice. It also helps tell if the source is for entertainment or for education.

The use of different sources in order to check a source's author and their credibility is something discussed in This seems to be specified in multiple places and teaches the importance of finding the legitimacy of the author.

This paragraph really drives home Rheingold's main message of the whole text. I think it serves as an excellent summary for the passage because he briefly but effectively tells us what crap detection is and why he thinks it's important without going so into detail that it becomes too much information. It educates the reader on exactly what the chapter will be about but most importantly why it matters.

"Clearly, the raw volume and velocity of information as well as opportunity for distraction now is unprecedented. But I find the info-overload fears of the past to be instructive in the way they eerily reflect today's moral panics about the putative stupefying effects of the Web, and in the hopeful clue that history conveys-people responded to overload in the past by developing mind tools to elevate the information-handling capacities of literate people."

Very similar to Chris's words in his blog, Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy This is something can be truly related in the response due to effects that surfing the web can have on you, your ideologies and the topics that you may want to research upon using the internet.

"Some people are exploring the use of social media for crap detection about journalism. FairSpin.org's community votes on stories in order for its aggregate judgments to identify opinion disguised as fact, and reflect the degree of political bias detected in stories from both the Left and Right."

In a political sense, many of the sources from organizational websites can result in bias writing towards a certain ideology. This isn't terrible but it can also leave specific facts from one side due to a organization using favoritism in an argument. Which can also be checked for crap detection just because someone is trying to make their group look better than another.

"If you are going to grant credibility to people whose expertise is based on being a professor of something, make sure that assertion is accurate. Don't stop at simply verifying that the claim to be a professor is valid if you are looking for scientific credibility."

Credibility is something that everyone needs to be checked for even if you are a professor. Rheingold slides in that just because someone is a teacher, doctor, professor or something doesn't mean that they're valid 100% of the time about everything.

"Search engines are such powerful magic that we've forgotten how magical they really are. While people stand in line for hours to pay for the privilege of walking around a fake village full of actors posing as magicians in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park, millions of people use computer and telephone keyboards to utter magical spells-with various degrees of proficiency and success-every day.

The way gathering information back then was reliable mainly because of the fact that you had to read to gather information. Also this was better mainly because of the fact that you had to realize that many books were read over before they were published.

"I'll soon drill down on that "collective intelligence" aspect of credibility testing. The social aspects of critical evaluation can be powerfully useful, but they also can be misleading. Skill at evaluating the quality of collective intelligence is essential to knowing how to take advan- tage of it."

This results in being able to work with peers and other scholars in order to put heads together to find and gather valuable information on a topic. However Rheingold proves this route to be inclusive as to still being able to crap detect by realizing that these sources from your peers may be misleading

"Most people ask themselves whether a detective-like inquiry to verify the answer to a Web search is worth the time. According to researchers Soo Young Rieh and Brian Hilligoss, interviews with twenty-four college stu- dents revealed that they would be willing to compromise certainty about credibility for speed and convenience."

While rheingold provides numbers to his argument of determining how many students ever wonder what sources they are using, there are many students who actually take the route of using sites like google scholar to find their sources which is most cases is better than using a normal cite.

"A study in 2010 by Eszter Hargittai, Lindsay Fullerton, Ericka Menchen-Tre- vino, and Kristin Yates Thomas, found that students use search engines as a parameter of trustworthiness. As long as a site is toward the top of a search engine's listings, many of this study's subjects considered it credible."

Rheingold is backing up his argument with supporting sources from studies in the past. This is very believable even today as students just believe that since a source is at the top of the page when they use the search engine, they deem credible because they believe if it wasn't there would be someone to take it down.

"Treat a site's design not as validation of credibility but instead as one possible clue (along with grammatical errors, suspicious sources or lack thereof, and other people's negative opinions of the site) that could convince you to lower your evaluation of the site's credibility."

The ability to Crap detect and being able to read between the lines is something should be able to do. Rheingold argues that you should not just use website aesthetics as way to find credibility. nevertheless he says it can help as way to see if the article has grammatical errors, suspicious or lack of sources to help you determine where the site stands.

"To show her what I meant, I typed in the name of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. I knew that near the top of the first page of results from most search engines is a link to a site titled "Martin Luther King Jr.: A True Historical Examination."1 It doesn't take long to see that this "true historical examination" presents King as a disreputable character."

More strong evidence as to support Rheingold's argument. If you were to look this up, it is in face very true that you will find a website that actually talks down on Martin Luther King. This is what Rheingold supports as a crap source to prove that the internet can be a mysterious place.

"The first time I saw my daughter use a search engine to research home-work, I explained that in the olden days, you gathered information by going to the library for a book or magazine article. You might disagree with a library book, but you could be somewhat confident that someone checked the author's claims about facts before the book was published."

This is the main argument that Rheingold is trying to make. He explains that reading a book to gather information is more fruitful than gathering it from the internet (also relate-able to Chris's writing due to digital redlining). This is true because of the simple fact that if you click and link and use that information from said website, there is a possibility that you are using a "crap" source. This source is something that can be downplayed as something that may seem true but to find credibility within you must at least look at the author, the one whole typed it.

Its within these situations, where multi-tasking would be moreover accepted. If you are following one task, whether it be checking your phone, and walking then you would not be able to scan your surroundings. If you were able to split your attention in between both, however, you would not be blind to your surroundings. Your senses would be more alert than to they would have been if you only focused on your phone. That being said, its not safe to be distracted on non-important tasks. When you're outside being a pedestrian, the only task you should have is being aware of your surroundings. Crossing busy streets or walking out onto the rode with no awareness of your surroundings can be fatal, especially if you were distracted by something else.

According to Aristotle, "humans by nature are very social animals." So by that alone, humans would need to have high interactions with other humans in order to thrive. Which is why it is important to be able to understand the actions of other humans. If we don't have this sort of behavior, it leads us to being anti-social, and eventually segregating yourself from the public. Being alone with no social interaction can have many health problems, both physically and mentally. That is why most prisoners who are put into solitary confinement most of the time come out with psychological problems, which can lead up to being a danger to the rest of society, because they forget how to interact with one another.

Stone brings up some interesting points about the deeper, scientific implications of the habits she's formed when reading emails. She says that she has a habit of holding her breath for long periods of time when reading emails. I find it interesting that she mentions that she is conscious about her breathing, as she mentions that she does morning meditations, but immediately fall into her habit of holding her breath as soon as she checks her email. This shows that our familiarity with constantly being connected and immersed in our technology can form subconscious habits. These habits are not necessarily bad, but they do raise questions about their lasting effects.

It's assumed that people who are outsiders to the realm of technology are the biggest proponents, but I have seen many people in the field who are just as adamant. Rheingold agrees, and he cites Linda Stone, who has worked in online media for a long time.

I agree with Rheingold here. Rheingold acknowledges the benefits of disconnecting every once in a while and interacting with the outside world. While I admit, most times that I disconnect, it's because I have already exhausted all the social media I partake in. However, I think it's always good to let one's mind wander free every so often. This reminds me of the habit of reading shampoo bottles while in the bathroom, before cellphones. It was still absorbing information, but it was physical and of the outside world, so that counts, right?

I'm glad we were assigned this reading, because I have been searching for the Pomodoro Technique for months. I remember reading about it on a late night, and I forgot to save the article, so it's awesome that it happens to be in assigned reading for class. Some people are more attuned to jumping into assignments or tasks for the day at leisure, and can manage that way with ease. On the other hand, there are others, like myself, who have a hard time with managing time and keeping deadlines. This technique seems good for me because it has strict deadlines that are manageable. I have noticed that I am most productive at work in the last few hours, and I think it's because I subconsciously know I can leave the task to go home and do things that I enjoy, like homework. I think this technique could be a good way to train my mind to always think like it's the last hour before works end, and make my work streamline more efficient.

Meditation is a practice that appears more and more challenging as the allure of your smartphone is just a few feet away. Artist Father John Misty has a lyric that relates to this on a song called, "The Memo."

"And as the world is getting smaller, small things take up all your time Narcissus would have had a field day if he could have got online"

While I have not tried yoga explicitly, I have noticed that reading books is kind of a mental break in the same way that yoga is to some. Sometimes, I can pick up a book and read for a few hours with ease. However, most of the time, it's hard to concentrate on the words on the page and often times I will reach for my phone for no inherent reason. The instant gratification of social media is tempting, but it is always important to take some time away and focus on yourself.

Modern society's use of technology seems to get nothing but criticism. A few years ago, there seemed to be a final frontier on how technological advancements could improve our lives more and more.

However, technology doesn't necessarily have to be something with a circuit board and a touch screen. Any big advancement, like building a fire or the first polio vaccine, can be considered technology. With every major advancement, society has always adapted, and that will likely hold true as we move deeper into the smartphone age.

The term "addiction" is not one that should be thrown around lightly. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) claim that 21.5 million American adults (aged 12 and older) battled a substance abuse disorder in 2014. As prevalent as texting while driving is, many opinions I have heard think this practice is one of those unavoidable things or a dirty little secret. In my opinion, I think this is a tell-tale sign that someone is addicted to their phone. I don't think any message is worth a life lost, especially if you are driving with other people in the car.

My first job ever was a neighborhood lifeguard. One of the most important abilities our company wanted us to work at was cognitive awareness. The instructor teaching the certification class showed us this same video and nearly the entire group missed out on the dancing panda.

https://youtu.be/9Il_D3Xt9W0

In this video, the same Daniel Simons cited in the text shows the audience different examples of street art that blend the external and internal information that makes these images appear multi-dimensional and life-like.

This piece of anecdotal evidence that ends being up being relevant reminds me of the supplementary reading article, "Mystery of Russian Fake on Facebook Solved, by a Brazilian". Rheingold discusses reading a blog by his friend, professor Cathy Davidson. She details a day where several incidents happened in a short span of time. She consciously told herself to be more mindful, instead of letting her mind drift. A few minutes later, she narrowly avoided hitting two dogs that ran in front of her car. In regards to "Mystery of Russian Fake on Facebook Solved, by a Brazilian", there was a tweet that faced scrutiny, claiming that one of the Parkland shooting survivors was actually a trauma actor. It seems that the person who tweeted this comment and image is in Moscow, Russia. Even then, who knows if this image was doctored or altered in any way?

While Rheingold intended to use Davidson's conscious mental notes as a narrative for this chapter of his book, it reminded me of all the media bias in politics. There has been political bias since the house party system first became commonplace, but technology has blurred the lines between fact and fiction and that has impacted how people analyze media. One should always make an effort to do their own research on topics that they consider important, rather than just take their Facebook feed at face-value.

"How to Thrive Online" is a text written by Howard Rheingold about technology in modern society and its tremendous impact. Rheingold talks about topics such as focus, attention span, and learning in a classroom setting among many others. While Rheingold inherently believes technology has a positive impact on knowledge in our society, he argues that the overload of information can have negative effects.

An interesting subject that Rheingold brings up is the core, scientific reasons why staying connected all the time is addictive. Rheingold uses the term "dopamine squirt" to refer to the hormonal stimulation the brain receives when engaging in frequent social media. Social media, at it's core, is about connecting people. Social media websites are meticulously crafted and engineered to remove the awkward long pauses and small talk normal conversation might have, and makes engaging with other people more fun. Streamlining this engagement makes the brain pump out frequent bursts of dopamine, enough to the point that not being on social media and not making those engagements feels boring.

Rheingold presents a broad range of information about how the mind is altered when we become too comfortable with the easily-accessible technology that surrounds us. He cites the research of many noted psychoanalysts and researcher and this shows the reader that extensive research went into the development of this text.

Source Rheingold, Howard. Net Smart: How to Thrive Online. MIT Press, 2012.

With the new trends of social media in our society, there poses a lot of threats to our well-beings or physical safety. A mass majority of our society, you can say, is addicted to social media. The dangers in that is the distractions that are caused by it. Nowadays, you see a majority of young people in our society using social media whenever they can. The dangers in the is that they would be blind to everything around them. For example, if you are driving while browsing twitter or instagram you cause a risk to you and everyone in your environment, because you are blind to the important tasks due to multi-tasking. When they say the web is making us, as a society, stupid, they aren't wrong. Primarily in today's society, we rely on social media for our news. So when we see some viral post about something, we just assume its true. In Reality, most of the content on social media are false and biased. We as a society will just accept it instead of knowing the truth. So instead of researching the truth, we just follow along with everyone like sheep in a herd.

This statement alone is very similar to the supplemental reading, How Terrorists recruit online. Within the Article, it talks about how ISIS would reach out to potential candidates for their cause through the internet. The same goes both ways as well, the candidates can reach out to ISIS too through out the web. On both sides they're can be intense research on each other. What happens next is that ISIS would flock their subject with heavy amounts of social inputs. If they subject stays they would have to cut off all ties to mainstream media, family, friends, etc. ISIS would encourage for their candidate to fly out to them or stay at their homeland and carry out attacks from there. All of these wouldn't even be a process if it hadn't gone back to the beginning, where one person on either side had some sort of liking to the other side.

Understanding attention is similar to those of having focused attention. For example, it is like pointing a flashlight in a certain direction. You're paying attention to the most important details while still looking out for distractions. It's almost like multi-tasking, because while you're still focusing on the main important details, you are still being aware of everything around you, which can sometimes make you miss the important details. Controlling your attention would almost be like sustained attention, where you focus on a single-thought for a long period of time and how well you can hold this thought. Most teens and adults can hold their thoughts on a single thing for more than 20 minutes, it would be their choice afterwards whether or not they want to keep focusing on it again. This kind of scenario happens when you're watching a film or lecture.

Link to Article: https://www.edubloxtutor.com/understanding-attention-concentration/

This statement I feel is very true, because when you are online, whether for entertainment or research, you are in full control of what your goals are. You can decide whether any form of information is relevant to you or not. Because you are able to determine what stimuli is important, it is also very easy for you to multitask. By multi-tasking, however, the information seeker is more prone to getting distracted by the various information that is being present for him or her. Once the information seeker gets distracted, the outcome is that there is little to no work being done. The only way to get past this is to focusing on one goal at a time, in an order of importance. Rheingold makes a good point of this throughout the reading about multi-tasking can be the downfall of productivity.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4) This was a video made to raise awareness for drivers to watch out for cyclists. In the video you are to keep track of how many passes the players in the white shirts make. While you are so focused on counting the passes, you don't notice someone in a bear suit walk into frame and dance out of it. This awareness test shows that we, as a society, will easily miss something we are not looking for. The reason why we might not see the bear is because we are blind to the bear because of the task that was given to us in the beginning of the video, that's why we would ignore it or miss it completely. This kind of scenario is very similar to how people, teens more specifically, are blind to their surroundings. For example, with social media being a big thing in today's society, teens are more focused on their phone than they are with their surroundings. Because of this, they are not considering what's going on around them which creates a higher risk for everyone around them.

Common belief among many individuals in the age of information, including many millennials, show the belief in the power of multitasking in daily life. As stated by Rhiengold, this is common practice for many young individuals. But contrary to popular belief, mental health takes a great toll as multitasking is utilized more. A study by Time Magazine recently describes how neuroscientist, Dr. Kubu, took time to research the mental activity required in multitasking. His results showed that when trying to utilize it to complete tasks, many were not only unable to complete either task, but are having a false sense of doing two things at once, but doing singular tasks in rapid succession. This does not help in trying to complete work or in becoming efficient.

http://time.com/4737286/multitasking-mental-health-stress-texting-depression/

As Rheingold goes on to explain, beginning to understand the importance of attention and beginning to utilize it in a efficient manner is the beginning to be successful, especially in our growing age of technology. One of the main ways to utilize our attention is from utilizing it from "distractions". Though some information seems to be beneficial, it might not be the primary information you are looking to analyze, study, or utilize. One of the points that he makes is "focusing attention on relevant portions in a tsunami of information". This allows us to take it piece by piece, fully understanding each piece of text and putting it together.

This text perfectly describes why multitasking does not succeed. As one embarks on a task, it is meant to take the full attention of your brain. As attention switches to other tasks and events, it shifts your perception on current tasks and the brain must re-align itself back to the task at hand. The deficit of attention is what deters from task completion and slows down the process. Many people in this technological do this and do not realize how detrimental it is to their health and well-being, as well as how it is not helping them to succeed.

The Supplemental Reading I chose was "Debunking Fake News" by Eugene Kiely. The article discussed the epidemic of Fake News, a moniker for mass overloads of false information, in the digital realm of Facebook. They advocate fighting articles that contain Fake News, upvoting content that debunks it, and using their factcheck site in order to see if the news is fake. This problem arises with the masses believing the grand amount of information overload on the internet and creates disruption in society out of false information and false facts. https://www.factcheck.org/2017/07/debunking-fake-news/

Conscious Distractions are important to discuss, especially with the problem of fake news. As fake news is normally created with a purpose, it serves as a form of propaganda for the party or organization it benefits, and hurts the organization that it slanders. Often in politics, fake news has gone to slander many members, with no basis in factual evidence and truth. This causes many who don't understand the importance of identifying distractions actively to fall for these schemes and information that is false is spread to them in order to further a false agenda.

https://www.factcheck.org/2017/07/debunking-fake-news/

Rheingold bluntly states the importance in withdrawing attention as a key to success. Along with identifying distractions, it is important to withdraw yourself from unrelated information. Many modes of unrelated information often try to hide as useful information, but go on tangents in order to drag the reader and move them from the task at hand. It is important to drain this information out as it is not part of the goal of the moment and creates rifts in being successful.

These three points encompass the effects of fake news. Fake News, first and foremost, is curated out of "thin air". It is based in fiction and falsehood and is not beneficial for anyone to indulge in and read. As many begin to read it and spread it to their circles, it becomes fatal. False information is spread to a mass number of individuals and is thought to be true information and becomes truth to many, as individuals put little effort into seeing if it is a distraction. Finally, it is addictive. Interests groups and societies have been created based off the theories and beliefs of many fake news sources, and have stirred up hatred for individuals that do not even deserve it. It also poisons the political community in America and tarnishes it with false data and information. https://www.factcheck.org/2017/07/debunking-fake-news/

Technology has allowed us the ability to search for different forms of media at any given time. We can get any form media at any time now because of technology and it is shaping the way we think and act. We know that we can find the funniest video on youtube of a dog flipping in circles just by doing a youtube search. It is making us more distracted and is causing our brain to reshape the way we think. We know that we no longer have to go to a comedy show to see a comedian, we can just watch his/her show on youtube. Media practices is changing us more into a stay at home and use the internet society rather than an actual go out and experience society.

The technology that we have today has a wide array of uses. We can use technology for many things, and in many ways it has made the world we live in today a much better place. We can discover information from all around the world and use it to better our lives. We can find people from all over the world or fall in love with someone that lives 1,000 miles away. Technology has allowed us easy access to many things, and has cut the burden on us having to travel long distances to get things done. Like in the article redlining article by Gilliard, technology has allowed colleges and university to collectively stop bad internet usage by students. One college found a solution to the problem, and was able to give the solution to other colleges that were many miles away through technology. We are now able to share solutions to problems and information easily with one another, and to make easy fixes accessible to anyone via technology.

In today's society, not just children use the internet and social media to gain information. Adults also use social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It has now become socially acceptable for adults to have social media pages and use them constantly. Because parents are now using social media like children, they can become distracted and not pay attention to their own children. Adults can be so caught up looking at adult things on social media that they don't notice that their kids are watching them. If the adults are constantly using social media, then it gives children the thought that it's ok to always use social media and that it's ok to be distracted by it. Parents using social media all the time can also make children addicted to social media and internet usage. Children follow what their parents do most of the time, and them watching their parents always on their phone, tablet, or computer makes them want to do it too.

When you are searching the internet, only you know your primary focus and what information you are aiming to take in. Only you know what information is useless to your goal of attaining information, and only you can filter out the useless information that you may access. You have to work on your focus on the primary task and complete it before moving on to another piece of information. Multitasking and searching for multiple modes of information only leads to the information seeker becoming more distracted or not getting anything done. In order to completely capture the information you are seeking you must pay attention and focus. You have to control your focus and not be distracted by random searches or second party information.

It is almost impossible for people to not be distracted at all when accessing the internet or using technology. There is too much information that can be accessed, and too many things for the brain to take in for us to not be distracted at all. What we can do though, is focus more on how we pay attention and how often do we get distracted while accessing the internet and using technology. We can work on how we focus and use executive control over ourselves to make ourselves focus more. Once we are able to control our focus and not get distracted, we will be able to complete more tasks in a timely matter and get more things accomplished.

As technology grows rapidly, there will always be people who are stuck in the past and don't want to grow with technology. If we didn't have the technology we have today, we wouldn't be able to do half of the things we do, or wouldn't have the ease of access that we have. Doctor's communicate with each other across the world via internet, businesses make long distance transactions via internet, and family members communicate with each other over long distances through technology. These are a few examples of how technology has changed the way we do things and communicate with each other. In the Digital Readings article, it is shown how technology has changed since the 90's. In the 90's if a student in the library searched "inappropriate" material, a buzzer would ring loudly alerting the teacher. Now, the website is blocked through the computer server, and no buzzer is needed. Some people would've been opposed to the changing of this technology because it made a change in the classroom and how the student and teacher interacted. The ability for the teacher to not get distracted by a student searching something inappropriate but to just redline the sites in general is so much better for both the teacher and the student. The student doesn't have to be shamed by the buzzer, and the teacher doesn't have to stop what he/she is doing to check the student's content.

Because students have easy access to multiple modes of information online, they think that when they multitask and access all these forms of information at once it is better for them. This is actually the opposite of the truth. When students multitask their coursework with other information modes such as Facebook or random google searches, they are distracting themselves from the primary task at hand. It is nearly impossible for anyone to multitask with secondary and third information without being distracted from the primary information they were searching. When someone multitasks, when they do end up going back to their primary information source they are too distracted to learn or have already missed most of the information. A recent study by linkedin, a website that hosts as a medium between employees and employers, showed that 98% of people can multitask effectively, multitasking lowers productivity by up to 40%, and multitasking lowers IQ by 10 points. Link to Article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/five-things-know-brain-akash-bagrecha

By using this exercise, Rheingold showed how easy it is for students to get distracted in the classroom because of the easy access to information. In class, the students with the laptop open are able to search on any site or social media app and not fully pay attention in class. This gives them the ability to pay attention while not actively paying attention which means they are actually distracted. Even the students who didn't have their laptop open were distracted by the ease of information access by other students. Students had to wait to use their laptop which makes them distracted while trying to pay attention to the professor. The use of technology in the classroom allows students the ability to not actively pay attention to the lecture but to also search for other things. This is bad for the students attention to the class and is a good example of distracted technology usage.

In this section, Rheingold focuses on the distracted tendencies of children and adults when they have the multiple modes of information tracking. How people use digital media to gain information also determines how distracted they are when trying to focus on one source of information. Since technology has allowed us the ability to have "always on" information, the more likely we are to not use that information correctly. Because we know that we will always have access to that information, the more likely we are to use that ability incorrectly for things like Facebook, Twitter, or random youtube searches. In the Digital Redlining article by Gilliard, he talks about how schools had to Redline certain websites and information because students would search inappropriate topics or websites. This is an example of how the easy access to information can lead to distraction from what we are actually supposed to be doing. Students will often get sidetracked from their coursework because they have access to other sites and they know that the information will always be there. This lead to school administrators having to Redline sites and block students from doing random searches instead of classwork.

In today's society, the use of digital media to gain information is the most prominent way of learning. Children and adults alike no longer have to go to the local library or travel long distances to gain information. Information today is easily accessible, and with just the click of a button an individual can find out almost anything. In today's world, any person with internet connection or a device that can connect to the internet can gain information from all around the world in just a few seconds. With the production of more technology that allows easier information tracking, there is also a decline in physical learning via books and texts. Children and adults alike mainly use digital media to find what they need, and no longer have to rely on texts to learn. The rapid growth of technology will make future generations have to choose between learning via digital media or not learning at all because most forms of information tracking are becoming obsolete. The world we live in today is rapidly growing, as well as information. Even though people need to be able to easily access this information, the easy accessiblity to this information is also distracting us. We can now find hundreds of different information all in a day's time. Even though it is good that we can access information, is it making us too quick to access to information at once?

This statement can also work very well with those of the real world, not necessarily while being online. Even before the internet, there would always be some sort of multi-tasking, except this time with hands on real world scenarios. When you were in school, teachers would often make you do one thing at a time. There was a reason behind doing this, it was so you don't get distracted or spend more time doing something. Switching around tasks is considered "expensive" not through money, but through time. Just like the saying goes, "time is money" we have to be able to do one task at a time and finishing it, before going on to the next.

A new study by researchers at the university of Connecticut shows that multi-tasking can be more harm than students think. In a survey of 350 students, Researchers found that students who multi-tasked while doing homework, such as texting or checking Facebook, would have to study longer than students who don't. They would also have lower grades in class compared to their other peers. The reason they would have low grades is because while they are diverting their attention to send a text or check social media, they could be missing critical information from a lecture. By the time they bring their attention back to the lecture, their opportunity to grasp the information is gone.

Link to the Article: https://clas.uconn.edu/2015/07/23/multitasking-increases-study-time-lowers-grades/

Students being on Facebook at the time was just like any new invention of any generation. When the Newspaper came out, everyone was using it. When cellphones came out, everyone was using it. Everyone wants to be included in a trend, its a part of human nature. Now, we have apps such as: Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, which will always be present in any situation, especially in a classroom. The only difference is that these apps have expanded past laptops, but on to cellphones as well.