By Kani McNeil
Hello there! As you are growing up I understand that you are not going to be using the internet for subway surfers and YouTube videos anymore. And that’s O.K, you’re growing up, welcome to your first steps to adulthood. As you may know, this world is scary and dark, and the internet is no exception. There are several ways that the internet can bring you down and keep you there, causing you to do things that are out of your personality. Did you know that while you are consuming social media platforms, you yourself are being consumed? Your attention is the object of so many different companies. This is why there are things like advertisements and “the algorithm.” In order for you to spend more of your time scrolling through apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter, the creators of these apps have created systems. The most prevalent of these systems is the algorithm. This system takes all the things you’ve ever liked, reposted, or saved and then creates a feed of that information continuously, it can even tell when you have been away from your phone for too long and will send you notifications based on your screen time. While this may seem like a good thing because it feeds you the things you like, I’d like to ask, what happens when you take interest in something that is destructive or problematic? The algorithm will continuously provide you with information based on this destructive fondness and will cause your mind to slowly but surely become affected to the point of no return. In order to avoid this, please stay mindful of how long and when you engage in social media antics. Also, like in real life, there exists bias on social media. People who are opinionated on the internet tend to make their preferences evident to the whole world, even when the cost spreads false information that can cost people their lives or their social status. While there are several types of biases online the ones that are most dangerous in my opinion are bias by omission and bias by spin. Bias by omission is where one leaves one side out of an article, or a series of articles over a period of time, while bias by spin is when a reporter makes one side’s ideological perspective look better than another. Bias by omission is dangerous because the information that is left out has the potential to change the entire perspective of the reader; the “victim” can turn out to be not innocent or, even worse, the innocent can be made out to be terrible. This happens a lot more than you think because honestly, we’re a really biased group of people, so I need you to also remember if you think something is up, don’t wait to look for a full story, unless you don’t really care about it that is. Finally, please be mindful of where you obtain information and when you do decide that the topic is worth researching. Unfortunately, due to the fact that money is involved, people even try to impede your pursuit of knowledge. So, I’ll give you some tips when it comes to “internet credibility.” When looking at information on a website the most telltale sign that the website is legitimate is if it ends with ".org," ".gov," or ".edu." These sites tend to carry a little more credibility. Secondly, the date should be, and other organizations are reporting on the same story. If you see an article that has typos and bad grammar, that is a sign that you should be a little skeptical about it. Even worse, if you see that the headlines are using words such as "epic," "amazing," "unbelievable," or "incredible." This is worth some hesitation because a headline shouldn’t have to work that hard in order to grab your attention. In conclusion, the internet is not a place where everyone wants to help you so please take your time and make sure you know how true the information is that you’re getting.
1 Comment
Lynn Girven
2/28/2023 04:05:46 pm
Indeed! Consume and not be consumed! Excellent advice!
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