Fishing and Clicking

Revenue through clicks, and klicks of revenue. 

I will be the first to own up to being a bit more naive than I had wished I was when I was younger. I was the type of person to scroll through Facebook wondering if scientists had really been hiding a cure-all for aids, rediscovered through the testing conducted on Africanized honey bees. 

I know, it's bad, but bear with me here. 

When I was thinking on the writings of David Auerbach, and what he spoke of in his essay, You Are What You Click, I began to think about click revenue. Back in the day, when I was a young middle schooler, full of hope and convinced that all people were formed with an extra set of breasts that receded in the womb (thanks, click bait), websites capitalized on simply putting the catchiest thing they possibly could in the title, load the pages up with ads and other click bait-y articles to attempt to lure you in further, and then post it to Facebook in the hopes of getting the attention of lots of poor curious saps. 

And it works! It works because deep down, the little kid in us delights at the possibility of knowing something ridiculous. The innate nature of humanity is one of curiosity and exploration. Why would we explore space otherwise? This continues on today, in the forms of 'slideshows'. Each slide puts a tiny amount of information that is stretched across ten slides so that it forces you to visit the page 10 times. It is a clever way to really work that angle for revenue. 

So, if I had to give an advice to my younger self about how she should have operated on the internet, I probably would have told her to turn off cookies, as those are just plain annoying, and I would have told her to visit youtube and watch some SciShow videos, because she would have loved those to death. But most of all, I would tell her to not let the click bait kill her curiosity. I would have told her to keep on exploring, except maybe to do it somewhere other than Facebook.  

(img_src: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHNbitDDW3A) 

The Judgement of Everything

What isn't part of the big gray area of life?

Everything has a cost, as it has a benefit. This is a common rule of life. With good, there must be evil; with yin, there must be yang, and some of each within the other. However, Neil Postman takes this notion a step further with his analysis of an old tale involving the great king Thamus of upper Egypt, and his take on writing, in his essay The Judgement of Thamus. 

If we are to take a moment to reflect on the objects and changes around us, we are sure to find similarities to postman's analysis of the computer, and how this change in technology has shaped our current experiences and ideologies. 

If we are to judge something up and coming, not even fully formed and functional, but sure to be on the rise in the future, let's say, self-driving cars, then there are certainly many benefits and detriments that can be wrought from the concepts and test-drives that have already occurred. On one hand, we would be able to nearly abolish normalized parking space. We may be able to create a better system of public transportation. We may be able to share costs on the purchasing of vehicles. On the detriments side, as always, there is the fear of becoming too complacent. The fear that if something were to happen, would the people inside be able to take control? One of the biggest problems with self-driving cars is the moral dilemma. If a person is in the way, does a car's AI prioritize the person in front of them, or the person in the car? Can a car prioritize a child's life over that of an adult? 

As with each step in technology we take, we are forced to make new decisions and think about the world in ways that it had never been thought of before. We can neither predict the way that any new technology will shape our future completely nor ensure that any new technology will the used to harm others.

(img_src: http://www.kiveand.com/car/car-power-diagram)

Maybe I'm Just Nostalgic, but ...

Is the television experience really that much better? 

It really is hard to decide what I enjoy better when it comes to movies and television. Whilst on one hand, movies can be unique, concise experiences that have great graphics and great sound quality, when experienced in the theater, television series have the advantage of being more in depth, and having more time to develop characters, and show everybody’s side, not just the main character.

All these ideas are discussed in the essay, Story or Spectacle? Why Television is Better than the Movies by David Charpentier. He does make a good claim when he brings up the importance of character development, and how a story is that much more effective if we can sympathize with the characters in the film or show. (313) Of course, a longer running time also allows producers to create a character that is more complex, giving us a bigger scope the universe the writers created.

However, for me, watching T.V. shows or movies isn’t something I do by myself. It’s a big inconvenience for me when something is more than a few hours long, as I don’t have the time to afford to watch them. Generally, when it comes to T.V. shows, I get bored with trying to watch it religiously and am unable to continue if I’m watching by myself. That’s where I enjoy movies more. There’s something so engaging about going to see a movie with my friends, where we can all buy popcorn, and laugh about jokes or things that happened together. I also enjoy the large format of the movie and the great surround sound. There is something so intimate about enjoying it together. I appreciate it because it is so much easier for me to enjoy a movie with other people. The problem these days is to find something really worth watching, as movies have become quite predictable. But finding a movie that I really enjoyed thoroughly is one of my favorite things. It is incomparable.

(img_src: https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/04/the-future-is-transcendent-a-review-of-her/)

Anarchy and the Appeal of a Post-Apocalyptic World

The American dream reimagined is not as we had imagined. 

Of course, it'd be nearly impossible to disprove the popularity of Zombies. As mentioned in one of my previous posts, zombies are quite popular for a number of reasons, in that we can relate to the struggles of the characters to stave off the workload of the everyday person. But, is there another reason we romanticize being hunted down and killed by the billions by a hoard of the undead? Rob Cantor in his essay The Apocalyptic Strain in Popular Culture: The American Nightmare Becomes the American Dream believes there is another reason for our obsession with these kinds of situations.

In his comparison of the zombie apocalypse to the re-establishment of traditional American values, we can see a direct connection. With the fall of a central government allowing for reconnection of a tight-knit family, and the ideology of fighting for yourself and those you love, it’s easy to see why humanity can be so enamored with the fall of humanity. This love is easily seen in The Walking Dead, a T.V. Series that even goes so far as to create a situation where an organized government was the enemy.

Pictured: A man in control of zombies, through the integrity of a fence.

I am reminded of a problem I was posed in my American Government class that stated the students would have to live in either one of two countries. There was Anarchy-land, which, as stated had no laws whatsoever, and thrived completely on the collaboration of the people inhabiting it, which definitely resembles a wild west type scenario, and then Order-land, where citizens were safe and were taken cared of financially and nutritionally, but they had no choice in any matter of their lives, right down to their clothing and job choices, which is more reminiscent of an extreme communism country. I am neither surprised nor disappointed that many people chose to be free and fend for themselves. If we are that obsessed with a zombie apocalypse taking down the government, I’m sure the idea of just being out there without the zombies seems like a dream.

(img_src: http://io9.gizmodo.com/5148637/10-tips-for-surviving-the-zombie-apocalypse)

Click Flix

Will our children even get to watch Television?

Of course, this seems like a silly question, but with the increasing success of Netflix, it is certainly something that is considerable. Certainly, people will still watch their entertainment on screens? Hard to say as well, with the rapid progression of technology, and the ever expanding horizon of what is possible. For now, let's go back to today, and back to Netflix.

Pictured: The company who is innovating streaming.

The way that we watch T.V. and movies have been influenced by the rise of Netflix, which is outlined in Ken Auletta's essay, "Netflix & the Future of Television". The instant availability and larger selection certainly beat the archaic act of waiting for a T.V. show to start at a certain.

However, this can come at a cost. Whilst Netflix does give you more power than before, with its successful triumph as one of the top streaming services worldwide, with great power comes great responsibility. Now, while the audience may be able to watch what they want when they want it, the audience now has to regulate themselves further. They must decide how long they’re going to watch a show. This can lead to extra-long binges of a T.V. series.

At least, the audience does get to choose. Another advantage, if you’re patient enough, is that watching movies at home, on Netflix, is much cheaper than going to a movie theater. And while you may not get the entire ‘movie experience’, I personally do not believe that seeing it in the movie is much better with a good stereo system and screen.

Perhaps regular old movies will be regarded the same as ‘adult films’ of the past. Where it is ridiculous to think that you actually had to go out to watch it, rather than to have it available readily. I look forward to a future that gives people more accessibility and choice in their media.

(Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Netflix_logo.svg) 

On T.V. and Video Game Addiction

A balanced Media Meal and how it is affecting us:

I'm fairly certain most people born in the 20th century can admit to watching a lot of T.V. as a young kid. My days as a young person included rushing home from elementary school to catch Ed, Edd, and Eddy or Courage the Cowardly Dog. My television consumption got to the point where, despite not seeing them for so long, I can remember specific commercials and individual SpongeBob episodes. Of course, this leads me to believe that's the reason I can't remember anything else, as my head is full of commercial jingles, but that is beside the point. 

The claims that Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi make in their essay, Television Addiction is No Mere Metaphor, caused me to recall my days where I would spend hours in front of the television, rewatching episodes for no good reason.

Pictured: an easily frightened but adorable cartoon dog named Courage.

Of course, Television is addicting, but I don't think it wasn't beneficial in some way or another for me. Whilst I did watch a lot of television, I also enjoyed time outside, going to new parks and making new friends, riding bikes, rollerskating, ice skating and swimming. 

What is most interesting about the Television phenomenon is that it is a shared experience. Tons of people my age also remember these specific commercials and episodes to the extent that we can make a reference offhand and it automatically is understood without context. In this way, television sort of created its own subculture through its addicting qualities. For better or for worse, it has made a lasting impression on the young adults born of the 20th century. 

In this way, I feel that the authors make a point when describing that the same properties also apply to video games, as a lot of the youth that can be expected to have been addicted to T.V. also can be seen to play lots and lots of video games. However, with the rising increase in quality and connectivity with games in general, this can also simply be a correlation of the modern time. Whatever the case, we have to be careful to monitor the time that we spend, lest we allow it to escape from our grip. 

(Image Source: http://courage.wikia.com/wiki/Courage )

Violence ... What is it Good For?

Can we make our negative emotions beneficial?

Of course, we do not want our children to be violent. Teaching boys and girls to solve their problems by throwing a few punches is not something any modern parent wants to do. However, I agree with Jones when he asserts in his essay, Violent Media is Good for Kids that there is a certain amount of exploration of emotion and exposure that must occur in order for children to develop into lucid, realistic adults.

 

Pictured: A game that children should not play, but surprisingly, some do anyway.

There is, however, some rules to this idea. While comical violence as that pictured in children's comic books and manga are alright, we do risk overexposure if the media is overtly violent. For example, a game that includes sex and sexual acts is not appropriate for children, as it can warp their perspective on consent and give them false ideologies on the process of procreation. A little blood is okay for children, as most experience a little blood as they fall and scrape themselves. Overly graphic depictions of death and blood can lead to an unhealthy obsession with violence.

Our nature as human beings causes us to be naturally interested with the macabre, and often thinking about violence or witnessing it often leads to an adrenaline rush. Because our brains naturally mirror the chemical reactions of a being we are witnessing, also known as empathy, this leads to an adrenaline rush being felt. We do not want children to look to this kind of adrenaline rush for stimulation. They may grow to believe that watching and/or enacting killing is the best way to achieve this feeling. 

We must be careful when finding a good compromise between helping children grow and warping them. I do not believe that completely cutting them off is the solution and that there are ways we can find a good in-between.



(Image Source: http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/271590/ )