Understanding TECHnology

Human values are closely linked with the internet. From the things you make public, to the videos you share, the blogs you post and the websites you visit. The way certain sites are organized make them more user friendly to those with a higher understanding of technology. Different sites attract different people with different values. With social media you create a persona for yourself and how you want others to see you. Some people use a nickname for their facebook so that only a select group of people can find them and especially so that employers cannot see how hard they party every weekend. Other people have their settings set so that everything is public, have every detail of their life posted on either their information page or through their status updates or wall posts. Privacy is another issue all on its own, after the passing of the Patriot Act and with the internet are we truly entitled to a certain amount of privacy? Anything posted on the web, no matter what you privacy settings are, is fair game. Just because you have your pictures blocked on your page doesn't mean people won't see the pictures if all your friends have the same ones...

I thought it was really interesting how people use Amazon not only to buy things, but also just to check up on the reliability of certain items. These days people rely heavily on citizen journalism. Rather than reading published reviews, many would rather read reviews written by others just like them. It makes sense that the reviews by any citizen would be more honest than the reviews by the company, but what about the news people are getting from citizens who are not trained in journalism? Reading a hardcopy of a newspaper every day is almost unheard of, and rather than checking news sites, many people get their news from social media sites, twitter, blogs, and facebook. The main thing you must be careful of is fact checking your source before reiterating what they said. Otherwise its natural for people to have their own opinions and listening to that could open your eyes to a view of an issue you might not have previously thought about. 

Hunter S. Thompson saw the beauty in honest reporting, and (in my opinion) was one of the best journalists there was. He reported on what he saw and clearly stated his own opinions for you to take from as you will. His style of journalism was unique and will probably never be imitated in quite the same way.