What We Want to See vs. What We Need to See

The first video talks about the internet and how it shows us "what we want to see", rather than "what we need to see". Pariser discussed how on the internet, the filter bubbles edit things out and we do not notice them. They may add things to our search engines that are totally different from what we were searching for. He mentioned how a balanced flow of information would be more convenient rather than whats occurring presently. Overall, this video was sending a message of how the internet is enforcing filter bubbles and they are producing outcomes that were not asked for. In contrast, the article on High Bandwidth Buddies claims that if people always talked to people who are similar to them, then they would not hear anything surprising or interesting. Instead, it would be the same old ordinary things especially because the people you associate are usually similar to you, meaning you might think more in common. Thompson says that a little diversification would do everyone good because it will bring something new and unseen to everyone. That is an interesting perspective because do we really want to be surrounded by common ground all the time? Or would it be more interesting to learn new things, meet new people who think differently from the way we do.

The Methods and Implication of the Obama Campign Use of Scial Networking Tools

     In an era of online social networking, politics today has seen significant use of sites such as Facebook and Twitter to gather individuals wishing to get involved with government. Defined as the practice and theory of influencing other people on a civic or individual level, politics has historically seen various different ways of getting people involved, ways such as handing out flyers, holding fundraisers, and hosting town meetings. In recent times however, these efforts have paled in comparison to what is possible through the use of online networking, as evidenced with Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, which not only allowed him to defeat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primaries but also was vital to his taking of the presidency.

     A clear example of the Obama's campaign diverse use of social-networking can been seen in the 2008 primaries. During the presidential primaries, Clinton's campaign established a presence on baby-boomer social-networking website Eons.com as well as urging supporters to visit www.hilaryclinton.com, while Obama's campaign focused efforts on using MyObama.com as a base of operations. From MyObama.com, the Obama campaign thoroughly covered the web communication sphere with a deluge of targeted campaign ads and information on sites such as MySpace, FaceBook, and Twitter. Not only was the Obama campaign able to use these sites to advertise, but it was also able to establish MyBO as a center of campaign activities with features such as posting campaign links, comparing donation money targets, as well as discussing campaign events attended. With this level of interactivity, supporters were at close hand in the Obama campaign, their donations bolstered by the easy donation system set up to collect money for the campaign. Compared to the Clinton campaign's relatively narrowed focus, the Obama campaign made sure to thoroughly cover the social networking aspect of their efforts, documenting every detail as well as calling for an enormous amount of voter interactivity. 

     As technology advances, new ways to implement such technology is inevitable. May it be from drone technologies used to deliver Amazon packages or plastic printers used to construct artificial organs, the future holds many advances, may they be good or bad. As shown with the Obama campaign, the possibilities are endless and far reaching.

The issue raise in the PBS presentation

PBS talks about how the internet has taken over the lives of children and teens. This is not common to the elder generations because they were used to other sources as well such as "books and newspapers". Various people in the article explain the different situations in which children can be negatively effected by the internet. For instance, children are being cyber bullied constantly and the parents have no way of finding out until its too late. A boy named Ryan was cyber bullied and it cost him his life. The things being discussed are serious especially because some people believe you can lose your children to the internet. They become too obsessed and disregard their surroundings, or come across information that may be harmful to them (eating disorders, and other things children should not be involving themselves in). Its a whole other world out there on the internet.