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Artificial Intelligence

Once a figment of Hollywood’s wildest imagination, the world moves closer and closer everyday to developing the types of artificial intelligence (commonly referred to as AI) you see in movies. You know, those hyper-intelligent  supercomputers that want to wipe out humanity, the robot running around holding a sawed off shotgun with half of his plastic “skin” coming off his face (oddly looking way too much like Arnold Schwarzenegger), or the humanoid sex robot that who treats “wishes” as if they were “commands”. Though these examples are clearly over dramatized, there are plenty very real and functioning AI’s that exist today. Humanity has only just discovered the tip of the iceberg in terms of our knowledge of AI, and we are learning and developing new and better AI systems every day. This article is meant to not only educate you on how we have arrived at where we are today, but discuss both the positives and negative externalities of where we may take AI in the future.

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Before jumping head first into the deep end, it is necessary to establish a running definition of what artificial intelligence actually is. AI refers to “any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of successfully achieving its goals”(Clocksin). More specifically,  artificial intelligence is an umbrella term that encapsulates four distinct groups: reactive machines, limited memory, theory of mind, and self-awareness.

1. 1. Reactive Machines: This classification refers to AI in its most basic form. These systems are purely reactionary, the have neither the ability to form memories nor to use past experiences to inform current decisions. For the best example of a reactive machine, look no further than IBM’s Deep Blue (a program designed to solely to play chess) which defeated the reigning world chess champion in 1997. Deep Blue identifies the pieces on a chess board and is aware how each moves. It can make accurate predictions about what its opponents move might be next. It can choose the most optimal moves from among the possibilities. But, once the game is over it is like it never happened. Deep Blue has no concept of the past, nor any memory of what has happened before, thus the system exists only in the present.
   2. Limited Memory: This is the second classification of AI, which extends the systems’ abilities a bit farther than relative machines. These systems are able to look into the past. A handful of the self-driving cars the exist today have this ability. They are able observe and record the movement of the cars’ around them. Rather than just taking a snapshot of their environment at one period of time, the car must identifying specific objects and monitoring them over time. This entails that the cars have the ability to retain information from the past (relative to the condition of the environment they are in). The cars then take this information and combine it to a data bank of preprogrammed models of the world. These models include lane markings, traffic lights and other important elements, like curves in the road. But, theses cars are unable to store this data and learn from it like human drivers can.
   3. Theory of Mind: This is the line that the AI systems of today have yet to cross. This stage is derived from a theory in phycology- “The Theory of the Mind” – which states that the understanding that people, creatures, and objects in the world can have thoughts and emotions that affect their own behavior. Essentially, AI systems that would be included in this category would be able to perceive that the entities around them have thoughts, feelings, and expectations for how they want to be treated. And, the system would be able to adjust its behavior accordingly.
   4. Self-Awareness: This is the final step of AI development: building systems that can form representations about themselves. Ultimately,  the most significant challenge humanity will face in pursuing self-aware AI is that we have to not only understand consciousness, but build machines that have it (or can at least simulate it). The distinction between the theory of the mind and self-awareness is that the self-aware AI system not only will be able to perceive and react to the emotions of the environment around it, but it would be aware of itself. I would understand its internal states and emotions, and be able to predict the emotions of others based on what it “feels.” A good example of this phenomenon in humans is when you are at the airport and you hear someone exhale loudly, you are able to tell that that person is angry or frustrated, because that is how you would respond if you were frustrated or angry.

A Quick History Lesson

Now you have a deeper understanding of what AI means, lets explore how humanity happened upon the idea of artificial intelligence. Like most ideas, the origins of AI can be traced back to the ancient greeks. Below is a detailed timeline of the history of AI:

Assuming you took the time to took the time to go through the entire timeline, you will notice that AI, though the term itself is quite young, is extremely old in concept. Personally, I find it quite amazing that in the 1500’s, philosophers and writers were able to imagine something that is becoming a reality today. It makes me wonder, how many of the things we deem impossible today, will become a reality in the future? Unfortunately, the things that we have imaged for the the future of AI haven’t always looked great for the future of humanity.

Examining AI Through American’s Favorite Pastime: Movies

The vast imaginations of movie screen play writers never ceases to amaze me, especially when it comes to science fiction. Not only do the films they create offer insight into what the future potentially will look like, but they are a good reference for how the public perceives the introduction of a new technology. Historically, movies can be both trend setters and trend followers: if a movie shows new technology before the public has already developed an idea about the deemed in as dangerous or beneficial, then it is up to that movie’s depiction of the technology on how the masses will view it; likewise, if the general public has already deemed a new technology as positive or negative, then the movie will depict that technology in a way that sides with the public. This “ebb and flow” of movies being both trend setters and trend followers is a great lens in which to view the growth of AI in the eyes of the public since its debut on the big screen in 1927. Below is a relatively short and detailed presentation on the effect movies have had on the perception of AI:

What Roll Does AI Play in Our Daily Lives?

Believe it or not, you most likely intact with some form of AI every day. Artificial Intelligence is constantly working to make your life easier; wether you are checking emails, getting driving directions, browsing music, or searching for a good movie to watch, AI systems are running to make the process more convenient.

Social media has become an increasingly integral part of our daily lives. Most all the common forms of social media employ AI in one way or another. Here are a few ways popular forms of social media use AI:

Instagram: Instagram uses a combination of big data (literally just a large volume of data available to the company) and artificial intelligence to offer the user targeted advertising, combat cyberbullying, and remove offensive comments. As the amount of content on the platform grows, the development of faster and more accurate systems of artificial intelligence is critical to be able give users the information they will likely enjoy, fight spam, and enhance the their experiences.

Twitter: From personalized tweet recommendations (ie both profiles and individual tweets), to fighting inappropriate or racist content, Twitter has begun to use artificial intelligence behind the scenes to enhance their product. They process lots of data through deep neural networks (a form of AI) to learn over time what users preferences are and match them to the content that best suits their online profile.

Facebook: The grandfather of social media, will it ever die off? Well, with its institution of new AI systems, it probably won’t be soon. The AI program deep learning aids Facebook in drawing value from a larger portion of its unstructured datasets (almost 2 billion people updating their statuses 293,000 times per minute) to personalize its users facebook status.

I’m sure the perceptive readers out there already picked up on this, but ease of access and personalized interfaces do not come with out a price. In providing the most interactive and personalized experiences for users, the AI programs must have a base data set of each users personalized preferences. Platforms store data on what you have liked, people you have searched, time spent on posts, as well as many more indicators of preference. The AI then uses this data and builds a profile for you, the user, and then filters your feed ensuring that the majority of see what you see caters to what you have previously liked or retweeted.

There are also many places were AI is used subliminally, it is so minute that you might not even notice, but if it wasn’t there I’m sure you would. When you begin to type in Google’s search bar, and if begins to predict the rest of what you are typing, thats AI; When you casually ask Siri (or Cortana, or another virtual assistant) what the time is, that is AI; when you misspell a word while texting, and the phone auto corrects it, thats AI; when you take a flight across the country, the pilots of the plane, on average, spend roughly seven minutes actually flying the plane, the rest is done by AI; when your email automatically moves the ad for the new “Toothbrush that doubles as a buttplug” from your inbox to spam, (I’m sure you guessed it) it’s AI.

My point is that AI exists everywhere, and it is very important to acknowledge its presence. The first step in preventing a issue from arising, is knowing where it may come from. It is foolish to assume that AI won’t become an even larger part of our lives in the future, because it will. We must have a collective understanding as a species that AI has the potential to either be the best or worst thing to ever happen to humanity.

Potential Futures With Artificial Intelligence (Short-Run)

It is unlikely (but not impossible) that any of the generations that are alive today will live to see an AI system that passes into “The Mind Theory Stage,” let alone become “self-aware.” That is not to say that those of us alive today won’t see drastic improvements in our quality of life from AI. In the short-run (roughly 100 years into the future), there will likely be artificial intelligence programs that will be able to diagnose diseases much faster and more accurately, self-driving cars that limit the number of vehicle related deaths, AI piloted spacecraft that vastly expand out knowledge of the universe, and/or AI systems that counter humanity’s detrimental impact on society. All the AI technology I have previously mentioned is being developed at this very moment. More likely than not, many great things will come from AI relatively soon.

Likewise, with every good thing AI does in the short-run, there is a bad. Automation of the shipping industry will cause significant job loss across the country, radiologists will eventually become obsolete (AI will be able to perform radiographs faster and more accurately), any many more unforeseen issues will arise with the continued growth of AI.

Potential Futures With Artificial Intelligence (Long-Run)

Unfortunately, in the long-run, the stakes become even more dire. This idea is a bit hard to understand, but if you loose those pesky constraints caused by the way you would typically view time, then this will begin to make a lot more sense. Essentially, the idea is that artificial intelligence will be last invention man will ever have to make. In order to understand this you must only make two assumptions: 1. that humans will survive long enough to create an all-knowing self-aware AI and 2. we have the capability of creating an ultra-intelligent AI. Whether or not you can accept these two assumptions is significantly tied to the way you view time, in particular assumption 1.

To the best of our knowledge, the universe to be roughly 14 billion years old. Based of fossil records, the modern human (Homosapien) has only existed on Earth for about 200,000 years. In those 200,000 years, lacking the vastly improved technology we have today, the human race survived. If you can accept that the human race will at least make it another 200,000 more years, then it likely that we will have the an ample amount of time to create this ultra-intelligent AI (assumption 1). The second assumption is a bit trickier; it is almost purely a personal judgement call on whether you choose to accept the idea that humans are capable of developing a ultra-intelligent artificial system. If you look at the strides we have made in AI research in the last 50 years, it is not out of the question, but it could just be one of the few true impossibilities that humans face. Luckily, humanity has a loop-hole: if we can just create a machine that is both capable of learning and building other, better, machines. Today, this process is know as recursive self-improvement, and remains theoretical idea. But, we are seeing potential traces of this ability in the neural nets we have already developed. A machine that has the ability recursive self-improvement, along with the programmed knowledge of how to build other machines, would be able to start a chain reaction: Machine 1 would build a better version of itself (more intelligent and capable), then machine 2 (which was build by machine 1) would then repeat the process, this would continue until this ultra-intelligent AI with machine building capabilities would arrive. Now knowing this, then assumption 2 is a bit less far fetched.

So, why would humanity want this “this ultra-intelligent AI” anyways? Well the theory is that if this AI existed, humanity would never need to build anything again. Whatever humans could possibly create would pale in comparison to what the AI is capable of; if any problems that might arise, the AI could fix them; and questions that humanity would have, the AI would have and answer. Humanity would be in a dystopia; the AI would solve world hunger and repair the environment, the problems of today would be a thing of the past.

Unfortunately, there are a few BIG risks along the way. The first is that on our path to creating machine 1 (the machine that would start the chain reaction leading to the ultra-intelligent AI), we would create an AI program that causes the end of humanity. This is best explained through the idea of the “Paperclip Maximizer” AI. This idea was first presented by Nick Bostrom in 2003; essentially, the idea that even an AI that was built without the intention of malice, could spell disaster for humanity. The example he uses goes as follows: We create an AI with recursive self-improvement capabilities with the sole purpose of collecting paper clips. The AI would continually improve itself over and over, just to become better at collecting paperclips. The smarter and more efficient the AI become, the more paperclips it can collect. Eventually, it will run out of paperclips to collect; when that happens, the AI will develop a way to produce more paperclips in order to collect them. Then, the AI either realizes that it is competing with humanity for resources that it needs to make paperclips to collect and decides its in its best interest to eliminate humanity; or, the AI develops a way to convert matter into resources to make more paperclips to collect and just starts turning humans into paperclips. Either way, it doesn’t end well for humanity. The second big risk is that we do develop this recursive self-improving and ultra-intelligent AI, and are unable to make it have any compassion towards humanity. From there, the AI either views humanity as a threat, and eliminates us; or, the AI would decide to leave earth, in which case humanity is back to square 1.

I hope that you were able to broaden your knowledge of the vast field of artificial intelligence through this project. Please keep in mind that nothing in the future is certain, but it is important to stay aware and vigilant, because anything is possible.

 

Works Cited:

“Artificial Intelligence News: Latest Advancements in AI Technology.” Business Insider,

Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/artificial-intelligence.

 

Bolter, J. David. “Artificial Intelligence.” Daedalus, vol. 113, no. 3, 1984, pp. 1–18. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/20024925.

 

Clark, Josh. “Radiolab.” Radiolab, Radiolab, 16 Nov. 2018.

 

Clocksin, William F. “Artificial Intelligence and the Future.” Philosophical Transactions:

Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, vol. 361, no. 1809, 2003, pp. 1721–1748. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3559219.

 

Mihajlovic, Ilija. “How Artificial Intelligence Is Impacting Our Everyday Lives.” Medium,

Towards Data Science, 17 Nov. 2019, https://towardsdatascience.com/how-artificial-intelligence-is-impacting-our-everyday-lives-eae3b63379e1.

 

“Paperclip Maximizer.” Paperclip Maximizer – Lesswrongwiki,

https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer.

 

Rohde, Klaus, et al. “Benefits & Risks of Artificial Intelligence.” Future of Life Institute,

https://futureoflife.org/background/benefits-risks-of-artificial-intelligence/?cn-reloaded=1

 

Sara. “90 Years of AI in the Movies: What’s Changed (and What Hasn’t).” Enlightened Digital, 9

Aug. 2018,

https://enlightened-digital.com/90-years-of-ai-in-the-movies-whats-changed-and-what-hasnt/.

 

“Understanding the Four Types of Artificial Intelligence.” Government Technology State &

Local Articles – E.Republic, https://www.govtech.com/computing/Understanding-the-Four-Types-of-Artificial-Intelligence.html.

 

Throughout this semester, my DCI 180: Black Mirror and Digital culture class has encouraged students to broaden their knowledge of the internet through various mediums: TV episodes, scholarly articles, public blogs, news articles, and more, but there was one popular online informational medium that was overlooked, podcasts. In this class, the semester has been broken down into three distinct themes that all the episodes and readings relate to: digital self, digital consumer, and digital creator. A particular podcast that I believe would bring in a whole new insight into the dangers and opportunities of humans, under the theme of digital creator, is episode five of Josh Clarke’s The End of the World.
Episode Five: Artificial Intelligence, focuses on the existential threat caused by artificial intelligence, as well as its history. It is about an hour long, and is chalked full of pertinent information that strongly relates to how humans role as digital creators, in that we build these AI models for the benefit of the human race, but they may eventually lead to our demise.

In the class itself, we talked about the role of artificial intelligence quite a bit, but never dedicated any readings to it outside of class. Since an important piece of the course is the TV show Black Mirror, as stated in the title of the class, I think this podcast would tie in well with the episode of black mirror: Be Right Back, which we did not specifically watch in class, but also relates well to the theme of digital creator. In this episode of black mirror, a women loses her boyfriend in a car crash, but is still able to communicate to him through an artificial intelligence recording of him on her phone. These two pieces of informational media would fit hand in hand, and would broaden the future students in the class’s knowledge on a topic we nearly glossed over this year.

In terms of an assignment or activity that could be tied to this podcast, I think that the students could write a blog post that describes the most destructed future they could conceive that could be brought about by Artificial Intelligence. This would be a very insightful and fun activity, as it would force the students to really think critically and outside of the box in their responses. Not only do I believe it would be enjoyable to the students, but I think it would be very interesting for the professors to grade, as each situation would be different and equally insane.

Unfortunately, this will be my last blog for the foreseeable future. Dear patrons who tune into my blog, I may be posting again, but that seems unlikely. I hope you have enjoyed my content, and if you are lucky, I may do a surprise post.

Sincerely,

Oddthoughts

Link to Podcast:

• https://www.theendwithjosh.com/podcasts/ep05-artificial-intelligence.htm
  

Have you ever wondered what communication would look like in the past if the mediums of communication we have today would have existed? Below I have simulated what the Twitter feed might have looked like during the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945. I want to examine both sides of the situation, including tweets from both Americans and the Japanese.

It is important to remember this is only my take on what Twitter might have looked like if it existed then, and these rein no way historical fact.

 

@realhstruman: America, last night we had the largest break through on the western front to date. Pilots of the Enola Gay, performed a covert operation, dropping the largest bomb in history on the war industries plants in Hiroshima, Japan. @Hidekitojo Please for the sake o both our people, just give up.

@Hidekitojo: Japan, today we have suffered an atrocity, we have lost many of our brothers and sisters to the American scum.  Fight to the last man.

@americaninfantryman: Can’t this war just end #iwannagohome

@americancitizen: Finally got a little payback for Pearl Harbor #deservedit

@memelord69: Lol accurate #quitalready

@japaneseman23: WE NEED SOME AID, where is @hidekitojo when you need him?

@realhstruman: Please, for the last time @hidekitojo, surrender.

@hidekitojo: We defend Japan for honor, never quit.

@Nagasakinews: A second bomb has been dropped. Please find shelter and avoid going outside. The burn clinic is now full. Find safety.

@realhstruman: American warned you @hidekitojo, we have plenty more where that came from. Just surrender.

@hidekitojo: Japan will be discussing our terms of surrender with @realhstruman. Pray for those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

@usnavyseaman: I’m coming home!!!!

@memelord69: Finally. #Tojoisabitch

@USmilitarywife: Finally get to see my husband again!!

@Japanesewife: I will never get to see my kids again. Please say a prayer.

 

Obviously, this whole scenario is over dramatized and has a bit of a satirical feel, but I think this at least would be somewhat what the twitter feeds would look like after the bombings in Japan at the end of World War II. Please understand I do not wish to demean of remove weight from the gravity of the atomic bombings. War is hell, and in times of war, atrocities will be committed. This is not a for or against the use of the atomic bomb post, but rather a social commentary of what humans were, and are like, and how humans of the past would communicate like the humans today.

Over the past few days, I have spent hours combing over the fine print of Instagram’s Privacy Policy (and I very well may be one of only a select few humans on earth to do so). When joining social media, I believe it is fair to say that most people merely glance at the terms of use policies that they must agree to to join the platforms, if even that, but after reading the Instagram’s Platform Policy and Privacy Statement, it might be worth your time to give you social media’s policies a second glance. 

Instagram’s Platform Policy begins by stating that while using the platform there is implied consent that the user agrees to all terms of use of the platform, and when initially joining the platform, the user is required to physically agree to the terms of use through clicking agree on the pop up window with a link to Instagram’s terms of use. Now this is all fine and dandy, but in the very next line of the platform policy, it states that, “We reserve the right to change this policy at any time without notice, so please check it regularly,” this essentially means that if the user is not constantly checking the terms of use instagram can inact whatever they wish in their terms of use without the informed consent of the user. 

In reading the current version of Instagram’s platform policy, most of the requirements and liberties of the company are fairly straightforward, but I wish to focus on a few particular addenda that may put the user at risk. First and foremost, Instagram reserves the right to, “charge fees for future use of or access to the Instagram Platform,”  which means that, essentially, at any point in the future, Instagram can charge the user to remain a member of the app. In conjunction with the implied consent section of the usage policy, this means that the user would have no idea that Instagram now charges for usage of their app unless the user is constantly checking the updated terms of use. As well, Instagram employs a system of automated and manual moderators that are in charge of deciding what content is fit for instagram. This allows for Instagram to moderate their content on what they see fit, which has been called into question as many pages with right leaning political views are having posts deleted and their accounts suspended. This ties well into a recent reading we had in class, “Why the First Amendment Doesn’t Apply to Social Media,” which outlines how these apps, like Instagram, are not bound by the first amendment because they are private entities, and thus can regulate how they see fit. The third concerning detail in Instagram’s platform policy is that they require the user to claim that they have no liability to damages sustained on the app. This means that the user is solely responsible if instagram has a bad firewall and a user’s passwords and emails are hacked through the app, and the hacker then uses those to steal money from the user’s online bank accounts, then Instagram is completely in the clear. 

Finally, I conducted an interview with a fellow classmate to get his perspective on Privacy and usage Policies in general. My first question was whether or not he had ever read a usage policy for any app or website he had visits or uses, to which his answer was a resounding no. He stated that this was because, “I just don’t want to rea all those small words, and I am still going to use the app/website either way.” Then I mentioned to him what I described above from Instagram’s platform policy. He was a bit shocked, especially with the moderation section, stating that he had, “no idea that instagram could take down posts that violated their guidelines,”

in terms of whatever they want those guidelines to be. 

When delving into the internet, it is important to remember to always be safe, and if time permits, read the user agreement.

 

For further Reading:

• Instagram’s Platform Policy: https://www.instagram.com/about/legal/terms/api/  
• Why the First Amendment Doesn’t Apply to Social Media, https://www.teenvogue.com/story/first-amendment-social-media 

 

 

With just a few clicks, not much information isn’t readily available through the internet. Over the past few days I have spent my time gathering a wealth of information on two of my professors: Mary Abdoney and Elizabeth Teaff. It was quite enlightening exactly how much information about each of them I was able to find, and only in a few short days, I was able to compile a life story and identity for both.

First, lets begin with Professor Abdoney. Aside from knowing that she and her husband both live in Lexington, Virginia, and both work at Washington and Lee University (alluded to in class), I had no other prior knowledge of her life. After my research, if you want to make stalking seem scholarly, I am now able to give a fairly accurate timeline of the life of Mary Abdoney: a girl born on June 16, 1976, in Tampa, Florida. Though I was unable to find any education previous to high school, Mary Abdoney attended H.B. Plant High School in Tampa, Florida, graduating in 1993. She then began he secondary learning at the University of Florida (1993) where she went on the graduate in 1999. Again, in continuing her education in Florida, Mary Abdoney attended the University of Southern Florida where she graduated in 2001. After bumping around a few places Mary made her way to a small town in central Virginia, where she began working as a librarian before being named an associate professor at Washington and Lee University (where she now teaches my DCI Class!). Throughout her time at Washington and Lee, Mary Abdoney made the acquaintance of a man who resided in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Over the next four years, Mary, and her love interest Ned Norland, would alternate driving back and forth between Lexington and Chapel Hill (how romantic… and expensive). This fling eventually culminated in the marriage of Ned Norland and Mary Abdoney on September 29, 2012, where they married in Lexington, Virginia. When researching their marriage, I happened upon a particularly intriguing website: maryandned.com, which I am assuming was their wedding website. This was chalked full of some particularly interesting “fun facts.” Here a few of my favorite: Mary was a very talented ballet dancer, she was a member of the Alpha Xi Delta sorority, and in particular, she knows every clean bathroom along route 220. Through just glossing over Mary Abdoney’s social media I was able to get a fairly solid read on her political stance as well. Mary is a devout feminist, refusing to even take her husbands last name following their marriage, as well, she is a supported of the LGBTQ+. She loves gardening, as reference through her instagram, and her twitter is quite hilarious if I do say so myself. Assuming Mary has her google alerts set up, as referenced in “Your Digital Footprint Matters” by Eric Sheninger, then she probably got a few alerts that she was being searched (at least I didn’t go as far as to pay for her arrest records), but it was very enlightening to see just how much you can find on one person with just a minimal bit of searching. 

 

When it comes to Elizabeth Teaff, I had to put in a little more effort in finding information. Her social media accounts, particularly instagram (she followed me back!) and twitter, were a bit lacking in proper stalk-able content, but her facebook was chalked full of some juicy details. Elizabeth Teaff was born on June 18, 1974 (pretty cool both Mary and Elizabeth have the same birthdays) in Gloversville, New York. Par to course, she then attended Gloversville High School. After high school, Elizabeth bounced around in her collegiate education, beginning at Fulton-Montgomery Community College, moving to the University of New York, then eventually finishing at Virginia Commonwealth University. Elizabeth Teaff first got her foothold in Lexington, Virginia, after taking a job at the Virginia Military Institute. After a short tenure at VMI, Elizabeth made the decision to switch over to the superior college in Lexington, taking a position in the library at Washington and Lee University in 2003. Though it is a bit unclear, I believe she was receiving her graduates degree from the University of South Carolina while working at Washington and Lee, because she obtained her graduates degree in 2006. Since, she has been working in both the library and as a professor at W&L. Again, social media seems to be the best way to get a bearing on someones interests and political standings. Elizabeth seems to cut from the same cloth as Mary Abdoney (thats probably why they co-teach a class together), in that she is also a big proponent of feminism, as well as, a supporter of the LGBTQ+ community. One thing I found quite interesting was Elizabeth’s interest in spiders. Her facebook was chalked full of pictures of spiders, though I’m not quite sure what spurred this admiration. Anothering interesting character trait of Elizabeth Teaff is that, through her social media, it is quite evident she enjoys dying her hair and assortment of radiant colors, which is pretty cool. She also is a big supporter of Project Horizon, Inc. which is a nonprofit thats “mission is dedicated to reducing the number of sexual, dating and domestic violence victims through crisis intervention and prevention programs.” Her stated birthday wish last year was for all her followers to go donate to this cause, which I highly encourage. Taking a page from “Social Media’s Not All Bad – It’s Saving Lives in Disaster Zones,” by Tantanasi, Ioanna, and Paul Reilly, Teaff is doing her part to better the Lexington, Virginia community.

 

In the wake of my stalking escapade, I have decided to start making the conscious decision to watch what I put on social media, because it is not very hard to find out a whole lot of information on someone based on their social media profiles.

September 17th, 2019:

Even before my morning coffee, my day started with the internet: after waking up at 8:45 am, I spent about 5 minutes in bed checking my instagram and snapchat notifications from the night before. Then, I continued by connecting my phone to my bluetooth speaker and streamed music while in the shower. After my shower, I used my computer in my  POV 101 class to research key terms the professor asked us to define and create examples for. Following my 9:45am POV class, I continued my extensive use of the internet with, again, with both streaming music during my weight training class, and through the workout app our coaches asked us to log our lifts on. Following the lift, from roughly 12:45- 2:45, I moved from my handheld device over to my computer, alternating between streaming videos on youtube and completing homework assignments/ reading online. Following my work, I took some time off the computer to hop back on my phone and communicate with some friends through snapchat to determine when we wanted to go as a group to dinner. With only an hour and a half break for a much needed nap, I returned to my phone to follow up with my friends concerning dinner, upon which we decided to go at 6:30. Since the end of the nap at 5pm to dinner at 6:30pm, I returned to my computer to continue with minimal school work and maximum procrastination. During dinner I maybe checked my phone twice, but spent no significant time tapped into the internet. Following dinner, and two or three cups of coffee, I returned to my work on my computer on which I have spend the last 3 hours actively writing a paper, along with many other scholarly endeavors (ie reading, online quiz, etc.). Unfortunately, I foresee myself spending at least two more hours (at least) from this moment on continuing with my use of the internet for academic purposes. After mentally crunching some numbers, with a rough guess on how much longer I will be awake doing work, I calculated that I have spent roughly 12 of my 18 hours that I have been awake today, in some sense, on, or using the internet. What a day. Honestly, without the internet I have no earthly idea how I would stay up to date on both assignments for school and communication with coaches and friends. With the ease of access the internet offers, I can spend less time roaming from dorm to dorm, or to office hours, to have every little question I have answered. In terms of convenience, there is not many other outlets that enable such rapid communication and access to such a vast wealth of knowledge. Particularly in my own personal account, the plethora of information on the internet is both a gift and a curse in itself. One minute I am diligently researching a topic for a paper I have due in 24 hours, and the next I am neck deep in youtube or Netflix (this may be why I am posting so late). All in all though, the internet is honestly the one resource in college that I couldn’t make it without (though I know not so long before me this resource didn’t even exist).