From the perspective of the social media companies, I can see why they'd add the infinite scroll to their apps. It keeps the users from leaving the app and allows them to engage with more content- watch more ads, etc. But as a user I find the infinite scroll to be incredibly harmful, especially to children and mentally ill people. When you're stuck in a scolling-trance, it can be hard to stop, and before you know it you've spent the entirety of your day scrolling on TikTok. One can become addicted to their phone, and although the health affects social media has done to people isn't that well studied- it's easy to tell that long-term use of one's phone can negatively impact their health.

As a design major I've encountered so many app interfaces that intentionally guide the user to a place on their app just to influence them to use a new feature or to click on an ad. One of the biggest ones I can think of is Spotify- and how they recently moved the tab for 'My Library' and added a 'Create' tab in its place. Replacing icons that they know users often visit (so much so its like muscle memory) tricks the user into clicking on a feature they didn't mean to. Instagram is also notorious for doing this.

I notice this sort of glitch sometimes when I'm using the app BeReal. When the notification goes off for everyone at the same time (no matter what time zone you are), the way the content is displayed to you is based entirely on what country you're currently in. Example- I have a friend who was visiting South Korea, and when the notification went off for us to take a photo through the app, it indicated that hers was 17 hours late. Interesting how there's a lack of solutions when technology has advanced so fast.

I find it so intriguing that, by simply posting a photo or tweet, a platform can gather immense amounts of data from the user. This type of data (metadata) is typically accessible to those who know their way around a computer, and one can assume how dangerous it can be when given to the wrong people.

I always wondered how programmers would create these sorts of commands, and it's cool to know that it's done with simple commands like these! I was also not previously aware that to display something on a screen, you have to use the command 'display'. I previously thought that 'print' was the main form to do so.

As someone who's majoring in a creative field, I find it both incredibly interesting and concerning just how advanced AI is getting, and where this rapid innovation will take us in just a few years. It's so jarring to be watching a video on Tiktok or Instagram and fully believe it to be completely real, just to feel the need to dissect the video to see if it's really real. I can't begin to imagine how the job industry will change due to AI, but with innovation there (hopefully) comes opportunity.**

As someone who grew up in a religious household, I often asked questions challenging this theory. It's interesting to think about what could be reprimanded or praised by your god(s)/religious circle, as long as it was written into the guidelines in a scripture or reading. Additionally, I do think that this thinking is dangerous, as it opens up the possibility for people within the religion to misinterpret or maliciously translate certain texts to push negative propaganda to a group of people, and the possibility of mistranslation is incredibly high as most of these texts were written hundreds of years ago.

I think this is an interesting concept to think about, as we are usually conditioned to think that the internet "isn't real", that most things online are fabricated, exaggerated, etc. However, I do think that just because this is common online, it's not to say that "real life" is a place where everyone is completely authentic and themselves, as some people may feel that they only want to share the good parts of their lives with their friends or family, while keeping anything that wouldn't be considered "good" to themselves, and vice versa. I do think it's hasty to say that all that we see on social media "is not real", as there are plenty of real people behind each account, but we must consider that because people are able to be behind potentially anonymous accounts, it is much easier to fabricate stories or life experiences, or to center one's entire online presence around a portion of their life they want the internet to see, essentially artificially creating an online persona that is not reflective of who they are in real life.