This assignment started out by filling out the unit 6 review sheet. Following this, we had to continue to work on our term project, and had to make a document describing which project we’ve chosen, which presentation media we’ve chosen, and the work we did on our Term Project during the current unit. After this, we concluded by uploading the review sheet and the document to the assignment link.

As always, the review sheet is cumulative. So, before filling out the unit 6 page, I had to fill out the information for units 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. When I got to the unit 6 page, it asked me to explain what interpersonal attraction is and how similarity attraction might underlie the success of online dating sites. It also asked to explain what interpersonal aggression is and how interpersonal aggression might underlie the phenomenon of online bullying and trolling.

For interpersonal attraction, I explained that it is the attraction between people which leads to a platonic or romantic relationships.It is related to how much someone likes, dislikes, or hates someone. It can draw people together. It is different than physical attractiveness.

A big part of interpersonal attraction is similarity attraction, or being attracted to those who are physically and socially similar to oneself. More specifically, people are attracted to people similar to themselves in demographics, physical
appearance, attitudes, interpersonal style, social and cultural background, personality, preferred interests and activities, and communication and social skills.

Similarity attraction may underlie the success of online dating sites because many of these sites are niche online sites, intended for a certain group of people, such as farmers or gamers. So, a farmer may find another farmer more attractive than an actuary, because they are more similar. People tend to look for a partner that is similar in the features mentioned previously, so using a niche dating site will allow them to see what they are looking for. This is a reason why these sites are so popular.

For interpersonal aggression, I explained that it is aggression aimed towards another person, that takes place in either the form of instrumental aggression or hostile aggression. Instrumental aggression involves systematic thinking, whereas hostile aggression involves immediate emotional reactions. Both can potentially be destructive, each in their own ways.

Interpersonal aggression may underlie bullying and trolling because people get frustrated or mad at others, and want to prove a point. For example, if someone is feeling low self-esteem, they may want to bring someone else down, which in turn may make themselves feel better. Commenting mean comments on posts or pictures is fueled by interpersonal aggression, and are examples of trolling too. Interpersonal aggression certainly fuels trolling, because if people were not frustrated and mad, there would be no reason to lash out at others.

In my term project document, I once again explained that the project I have chosen is the daily journal, in which I itemize the course content along with my detailed reflections. The presentation media I chose was a blog, through a website called Word Press. I explained that this unit, I made roughly 2 blog posts per day, and that I am working hard to try to catch up to the current unit. I also explained that I have been spending roughly double the recommended time on my term project each week.

Reflecting on this assignment, it was once again a very standard way to end the unit. The review sheet was helpful as always to go over information from previous units. It also was helpful to explain both interpersonal attraction and interpersonal aggression, because they are both important and prevalent in daily life.

It was also nice to describe the work I had gotten done in the term project throughout this unit. To date, this unit was the one where I had devoted the most time to the term project, and had made the most posts. So, it was nice to describe my progress, and it motivated me to keep working in order to try to catch up to the current unit.

There is not much else to reflect on, since it was a pretty simple assignment, and resembles the last assignment of all the previous units. However, as I always say, it is still very valuable, and sets me up to succeed in the next unit each time!

This assignment started off by reading 6 different articles surrounding the topic of cyberbullying. After this, we had to chat with our chat group, discussing 6 different things. These six things were the methods we learned about in the Bazelon, Munger, and Kal Penn articles, that have been tried to stop cyberbullying, the suggestion made in Reynolds’ article to stop cyberbullying, the suggestions made in the Pew Research Center’s survey, the methods we learned in Cunningham’s abstract that other university students believe will be effective in stopping cyberbullying, which of these methods my Chat Group thinks would be most and least effective in stopping cyberbullying, and design an effective system to deter, if not eliminate, cyberbullying.

The first article discussed how experts are trying to find a solution to stop cyberbullying, and talked about some of the difficulties involved with this. The second article talked about utilizing online bots to reduce racial harassment. The 3rd article describes how a man raised 5oo,000 dollars for Syrian refugees in response to a troll.

The fourth article conveyed that cyberbullying is actually very uncommon, and mostly experienced by those who also experience other forms of bullying. The fifth described 4 possible themes that could describe the future of the online social climate, including positive and negative ideas. The 6th article was an abstract that described the anti-cyberbullying preferences of University students.

In our chat, for the Bazelon, Munger, and Kal Penn articles, we determined the methods they applied to reduce cyberbullying. Kal Penn raised money through a fundraising page, trying to help the victims rather than necessarily going after the bullies. Bazelon tried to visit Silicon Valley headquarters of Facebook, then to a lab at MIT, and finally to the hacker group Anonymous. Specifically, a tool that Facebook use is called “social reporting”, which aims to improve the process of users reporting content they don’t like. Henry Lieberman also developed an algorithm in MIT that can catch troublesome material before it gets posted. Another example from the Bazelon article is sending evidence of the abuse to principals and superintendents.

For Reynolds’ article, an important finding is that “Cyberbullying is comparatively rare and most young people who report cyberbullying are also bullied in other ways”, which suggests that we should first try to prevent regular bullying. We thought this suggestion was very practical and we shouldn’t specifically target cyberbullying.

The Pew survey shows four major themes about future online climate, and some people believe technology will improve the online climate, such AI while some people disagree, thinking to troll is to be human.

Cunningham et al. suggest that ads with famous people talking about the effects of cyberbullying could be impactful and they also talked about teaching kids students to prevent cyberbullying like encouraging them to report incidents and terminating the internet privileges of students involved as perpetrators. And we thought the questionnaire method they used is also interesting – “Adaptive Choice-Based Conjoint Analysis”.

Then, we discussed which method is the most and the least effective. We both agreed that the most effective one is the algorithm developed by Lieberman because it can track bad posts before they are actually posted and is able to successfully flag 4 of 5 trolls. For the least effective one, we thought it could be Kal Penn’s method that raising money for Syrian refugees. It was awesome for sure but it was more like a campaign rather than a method to reduce cyberbullying.

For the system we designed, we try to combine most of the methods we read in the articles – we would like to apply the Lieberman algorithm first and Facebook and other sites can continue to review flagged and reported posts. And then we can use some of the students’ suggestions, like showcasing advertisements with famous people talking about cyberbullying. Additionally, social media can also put some tips or suggestions in their ads position, as another way to educate people that trolls hurt.

Reflecting on the assignment, it was good to read more about cyberbullying, because this connected to the most recent previous assignment. The last assignment focused more on what it is and why people did it, but this assignment focused more on ways to stop it, as well as how prominent of a problem it is. Learning about different aspects of the same topic was valuable so I could gain a greater and fuller understanding of cyberbullying as a whole.

It was very cool to learn about some of the potential ideas to counteract cyberbullying. For example, one that stuck out to me was the algorithm that can catch troublesome posts before they’re sent out. I thought that was fascinating, because I did not know that was possible!

It was also surprising for me to learn that cyberbullying is such an uncommon activity. Since I have seen so many campaigns and commercials against it, I assumed that it was a very prevalent issue. If I wasn’t in this course, I probably wouldn’t have learned about this, and would have kept believing that it affects so many people. However, even though it is not common, it still exists, and is very horrible, so I definitely support all attempts to stop it!

Also, once again, it was nice to chat with Weiyan. Discussing with another person can be valuable when you are required to read so many articles. We talked about many of the ideas and concepts together, which allowed us to better understand the topics we read about!

This assignment started our by reading 6 articles surrounding the topics of interpersonal aggression, trolling, and cyberbullying. Following this, we got to choose between listening to an NPR episode of someone confronting their cyberbully, or reading an article about a woman who confronted her cyberbully. After this, we had to create a discussion board post, describing what social psychological principles underlie the cyberbully’s aggression, what personality traits might underlie the cyberbully’s aggression, was the aggression hostile or instrumental, and is the type of bullying and trolling we see on the Internet a new phenomenon.

The first article is a social psychology chapter describing interpersonal aggression, including the types of aggression, what triggers it, norms about it, and what it means. The second article talks about how internet trolls are more likely to show signs of sadism, psychopathy and machiavellianism. The third was just a tweet in response to the second article.

The fourth article was a research abstract that explained that trolling was associated with psychopathy, and viewing oneself as superior to others was associated with narcissism. The fifth article described how even Albert Einstein had to deal with trolls. The sixth article is how Kierkegaard described the psychology behind cyberbullying and trolling.

I chose to read the article about a woman, Francie, confronting her cyberbully. The cyberbully hacked her email and would leave reminders for Francie to kill herself. Rather than getting a new email and letting the cyberbully know she won, Francie endured this for a long time. 10 years later, through Facebook messenger, Francie confronted her cyberbully, who apologized, but did not remember the severity of the bullying.

I started my discussion board post by explaining some social psychological principles underlie Francie Diep’s cyberbully’s aggression. It could start with the role of negative feelings. For example, maybe the cyberbully maybe was irritated that Francie was doing fine without her, or that Francie maybe made her look less cool while they were friends. So, these negative feelings could be a reason for the bullying.

Additionally, group norms also promote aggressive behavior, rather than restraining it. This could have been at play, as the cyberbully maybe saw these norms and determined that aggression was not such a bad thing.

Maybe she also had emotional arousal based on previous threats or trauma in her life, which led her to lash out and bully Francie. Any of these social psychology principles could have been in play in underlying cyberbullying aggression.

I went on to describe personality traits that could underly the cyberbullying aggression, starting with sadism. This means to take pleasure in other people’s pain and was explained in the Gross article. If the cyberbully took pleasure in the pain of Francie, this could be a trait that contributed to the bullying. Similarly, the tweet brings up the trait of liking to annoy others. The cyberbully certainly could have possessed this trait.

She could express a certain level of psychopathy, which is positively associated with trolling behaviors, or narcissism, which is associated with seeing oneself as better than others. Either of these could lead her to want to mess with Francie, and were discussed in the Lopes and Yiu abstract. 

According to the social psychology textbook, the cyberbully’s aggression was instrumental or weighing the costs versus the rewards. For example, her cyberbully decided she would be rewarded in the sense that her cyberbullying would make Francie, her ex-friend, sad, stressed, or anxious. She probably saw no costs, because Francie’s email account was easy to hack, and she never thought that the suicide notes would actually lead Francie to kill herself. 

It was not hostile aggression, because it was not in response to something that Francie did. Hostile aggression revolves around striking back at someone who provoked you. 

This type of bullying is not a new phenomenon. Einstein’s letter to Curie in 1911 basically talks about the hate associated with her, and how she should avoid listening to it. Kierkegaard also discussed how people’s envy led them to treat him poorly, which resembles bullying. These examples showcase that this type of bullying has been around for hundreds of years, much before the creation of the internet. 

Reflecting on this assignment, it was very interesting to learn about cyberbullying. I have heard a lot about campaigns to combat cyberbullying, and how it is such a bad thing to go through. However, before this, I did not really understand what traits could lead someone to take part in it, or what type of aggression that it is. So, this was informative for me in that sense, so I know what type of person could be likely to engage in these behaviors.

Additionally, it was nice to have a choice between listening to an episode or reading an article. Some people learn in certain ways better than others, and for me, I like reading it rather than listening to it. The material is right in front of my eyes, so I can go back and forth very easily.

Also, it was very cool to hear from a victim of cyberbullying, rather than just a researcher or author. Francie’s story was impactful because it gave a lens of what she went through, rather than just giving an outside story. It provided more of an emotional connection, so I could empathize with her more.

Finally, it was super interesting to hear about Einstein and Kierkegaard’s examples of how trolling existed much before the internet. Generally, when I think of trolling, I associate it with online behavior, but it was interesting to hear how it was prevalent so much earlier in history!

This assignment was also connected to assignment 1, because it required me to make a response to the posts in that assignment from my all of my chat group members. In the responses, we had to discuss whether we found similar findings to be the most or the least surprising.

I only have one other person in my chat group, a girl named Weiyan. So, for this assignment, I just had to reply to her post. The two findings she found surprising were that “19% of Brides Said They Met Their Spouses Online”, and  “41% of Americans know someone who uses online dating; 29% know someone who has met a spouse or long-term partner via online dating”. The two findings she was least surprised about were “Online dating has jumped among adults under age 25 as well as those in their late 50s and early 60s” and  “53% of people lie on their online dating profile”.

In response to her post, I discussed how we seem to have similar beliefs on online dating. She mentioned how one of the findings that most surprised you was that “19% of Brides Said They Met Their Spouses Online”. I also found this finding to be one of the most surprising for me, and talked about it in my post! I agree with that being surprising because I expect that more people will meet during college or through friends than online.

I liked that she was not surprised by the finding that “Online dating has jumped among adults under age 25 as well as those in their late 50s and early 60s”, because I also felt this way. In the modern day, essentially all age groups are using the internet, more than ever before, so I would expect online dating to become more popular.

She found the finding “41% of Americans know someone who uses online dating; 29% know someone who has met a spouse or long-term partner via online dating” to be surprising. I disagreed with her, because the internet is becoming so widely used, and people have increasingly large social networks. So, I feel that it is easy to know someone who uses or met a spouse through online dating, even if it is just knowing one person who has done it.

She was not surprised that “53% of people lie on their online dating profile”. Although I didn’t list this in my post, I was not surprised by it either, since I have also heard that many people choose to do it. I

So, we shared 2 of our 4 answers, and I agree with a third, even though I didn’t list it. We had pretty similar thoughts overall on the subject.

Reflecting on this assignment, I always enjoy reading Weiyan’s responses. From my experiences with her, she seems like a very intellectual person, and always seems to have strong insights and interesting ideas. It also allows me to get to know her a little better, seeing what she thinks and what she believes in. In this case, I found out that we think along similar lines for the topic of online dating!

Additionally, since the responses were to posts made in a different assignment a couple of days prior, it allowed me to review what we had learned. Reading through some of the findings again allowed them to stick in my head, and I will likely remember them longer due to repeated exposure.

Although this was a fairly quick assignment, it is still useful because it allows us to interact with others. Assignments in most classes are individual, and we submit our thoughts and answers only to the teachers. However, in this course, we interact with our classmates and respond positively to one another. This makes the time spent working on the course more meaningful, so I am thankful for assignments like this!

This assignment focused on similar topics as assignment 1, of online dating. More specifically, it started out by reading an article on interpersonal attraction, then reading definitions of the term “niche”, then reading an article about niche online dating sites. Following this, we had to find out about a niche dating site that was not mentioned in the articles, and make a discussion board post about it, describing what it is and why daters may enjoy it.

The article on interpersonal attraction defined it as “The attraction between people which leads to a platonic or romantic relationships”. It went on to describe how this is measured, what causes it, and explained some social psychology principles related to the term. A couple of the big terms that were discussed were the propinquity effect, the mere exposure effect, and the similarity attraction effect.

The article on niche dating websites described how they are used because people have trouble meeting people they connect with and people have very different lifestyles. Providing a cite for people who are similar in some way can make it easier connect, and find someone that fits better with you. A few of the sites referenced were “Farmers Only”, “VeggieDate”, “GlutenFreeSingles”, and “Trek Passions”.

The niche dating site that I found is called Gamer Dating. This site is intended for and created by gamers, or people who love videogames. You can search, browse, and find matches, or if you do not want to date, you can just participate in the gamer-themed forums. Also, when you register, you receive a free game you can play. 

I wrote about how there are many social psychology principles of interpersonal attraction, why daters might enjoy this site. One reason is the similarity-attraction effect, as people are attracted to others that are similar to them. In this case, gamers may be attracted to others on the site because they are also gamers! This relates to their attitudes and interests.

The mere exposure effect or propinquity effect could play a role as well. For example, the more time they spend on the site and use the features, they will likely come to like it more. Additionally, when interacting with other users online, the more they do it, the more they will like those users, according to these principles. These are also reasons why daters may enjoy the site. 

Additionally, it is possible that complementarity can also play a role. Even though people are attracted to those who are similar, it can still be attractive if people are different in some ways. The site allows users to explain a little about themselves on their profile, so some users may look for certain features that differ from them and like the differences. This can lead users to enjoy this site too!

Reflecting on this assignment, it was first very cool to read about the principles underlying interpersonal attraction. I had actually learned about many of these principles in previous psychology classes, but they were nice to review, and apply them directly to the topic of attraction. This is always fun, because it allows me to think about how these principles effect my own feelings of why I am attracted to other people.

Additionally, it was really cool to read up about niche dating websites. I had always seen commercials for sites such as “Farmers Only” or “Black People Meet” on TV, but I never thought much of them. I never really imagined why people would not just use traditional dating apps. However, reading the article allowed me to see the benefits of niche websites, and how it can be advantageous in order to find a partner similar to yourself.

It was also very interesting to search online for other niche dating sites, because I ended up finding so many that I had never even heard of, or never thought that they could exist. For example, the first one I ran into was for bikers, which I never expected! It allowed me to learn about what types of things some people look for in a partner, and broaden my horizons a bit.

The combination of reading about a topic and searching for information myself allowed me to maximize my learning on the topic. This assignment was set up very well, because I gained a lot of information, and I also enjoyed parts of it, which many assignments don’t usually lead me to experience.

This article started out by reading a definition of online dating. Next, we read 4 articles that provided stats and facts about online dating. Following this, we made a discussion board post, explaining two findings that surprised us most, two findings that surprised us least, and explain why.

In the articles, 21 different findings were discussed, but I think it makes sense to just focus on the findings that I found most and least surprising, since that is what the assignment was centered around.

The first finding that surprised me was that “19% of brides said they met their spouses online”. In my post I explained that I know that online dating has been getting more popular, but that I haven’t seen many of those relationships last very long. Even more surprising to me was that in the same finding, it explained that meeting online was more common for marriages than meeting through a friend, or in college. This surprised me because I usually imagine meeting significant others in person.

The second finding that surprised me was that “more men use online dating than women”. I explained that I think there is a stigma that women always are looking for a relationship, and shows and movies tend to show women utilizing it more than men.

One finding that did not surprise me was that “One-in-five online daters have asked someone else to help them with their profile”. I explained that when making an account, you want to showcase the best version of yourself for others to see. So, I feel like it is only natural for people to have their friends help decide what makes them look appealing. It is always good to have another person verify your choices.

Another finding that did not surprise me was that “Online dating has jumped among adults under age 25 as well as those in their late 50s and early 60s”. First of all, technology has become so much more popular with each succeeding year, so it makes sense that more technology would lead to more online dating. I think that for under age 25, there is pressure to either be in a relationship or participate in hookups, which leads to the frequent use of it. For those in their 50’s and 60’s, with time passing, they have likely gotten more used to technology and have started to use it a bit themselves, so I’d expect more online dating from them too, which the finding confirms.

Reflecting on this assignment, I enjoyed reading about the different findings. Since we were presented with so many, there was a wide range of topics about the subject, so it was interesting to learn more about each topic. Even though I definitely was familiar with some of the statistics, there were definitely some that I had never heard of, or that caught me off guard.

Choosing 2 findings that we were least surprised about and 2 we were most surprised about was valuable because it required me to go back through the articles to find the ones that stuck out to me. This led me to read through them again, thus leading me to get a better understanding of the findings. It also led me to think critically, because there were more than two I was surprised and least surprised about, so I had to weigh them in my head, and make an informed decision.

Additionally, I just think the topic in general is interesting and relevant. First of all, technology is becoming more and more important in today’s society, so online dating is becoming more common, and it is good to learn more about it. Second of all, with me being a college student, dating is something that is frequently thought about and talked about. So, learning more about this style of dating is not only informative, but fits into the general things that we think about on a daily basis.

This assignment began by filling out the unit 5 review sheet. After this, I had to continue working on my term project, by continuing journaling on previous units. Next, I had to write 200 words describing which project I chose, which presentation media I chose, and what work I’ve done on my term project during this unit. Finally, I had to upload the completed review sheet and my term project update through an assignment link.

As a reminder, the review sheets are cumulative, so I had to answer the questions from units 1, 2, 3, and 4 before answering the questions from unit 5. In previous blog posts, I have typed out what every unit asks and every answer I put, but I have decided that it is not very helpful to post all those answers on the blog post, because it clutters it up. On the contrary, I will just discuss what this unit’s questions were, along with my answers.

The unit 5 portion of the review sheet asked to list four instances when mass communication campaigns were intended (and hoped) to go viral. It then asked to list four instances when interpersonal communication was not intended to go viral, but did go viral because of the Internet.

For the intended viral instances, I listed United Breaks Guitars, ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Reading Rainbow, and Teach Me How To Bucky.

The story of United Breaks Guitars was that a musical duo’s $3500 guitar was broken on a United airlines flight, they would not reimburse the duo. The duo created a song on YouTube called “United Breaks Guitars”, it went viral, and eventually United airlines reimbursed them.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge involved recording yourself pouring a bucket of ice water on your head, and challenge 3 other people to do the same thing within the next 24 hours. If they don’t do it, they are supposed to make a donation to the ALS association. Eventually it spreads and everyone sees the videos, raising awareness and amount of donations.

Reading Rainbow was a kids TV show, wanted to make an app for it and stream the show into classrooms.It is an example of crowd funding, ended up raising over 5 million dollars from over 100,000 contributors.

Teach Me How to Bucky happened when UW Madison students wanted to bring glory to their school. They created a music video based on the song “Teach Me How to Dougie”, talking about the university. It has over 2 million views.

For the unintended viral instances, I listed Charlie Bit My Finger, Cool Wand, Texts From My Ex, and Fair Trade Organic Bananas.

Charlie Bit My Finger happened when a British mom wanted to upload video of her kids for other family who didn’t live in the area to see. But it was very cute and currently is the most frequently viewed non-commercial YouTube video of all time.

Cool Wand was when a college student asked his boss for a couple days off because something came up at home. He ended up going to a Halloween party wearing a tinkerbell costume, and a picture of him in the costume spread around Facebook. His boss ended up seeing it and acknowledged it in an email.

Texts From My Ex is where texts from ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends can be sent to an Instagram account and posted. Ellen DeGeneres read aloud some of these on her show, leading tons of people to hear these texts.

Fair Trade Organic Bananas was when Scottish Labour Party Candidate tweeted “God this fair trade, organic banana is expletive. Can I have a slave-grown, chemically enhanced, genetically modified one?”.The tweet spread and he was removed from political office.

For my term project, I wrote about how I decided that I am set on the whole course option, completing a daily journal in which I itemize content along with detailed reflections, and I am creating these journal entries through the medium of an online blog, on the Word Press website. I wrote about how in the past week, I had made blog posts for every assignment of units 1 and 2, and started unit 3. I closed by talking about how I had spent much more than the recommended 2 hours per week on this project.

Reflecting on this assignment, it was a typical assignment 6, but this brought some advantages, as always. For example, since the review sheet is cumulative, it requires me to fill out the pages for all of the previous units. This allows me to continue to master the material, so that by the end of the course, I will know everything very well.

Additionally, it was helpful to write about my progress on the term project. This was a week in which I worked a ton on it, so it was great to look back and reflect upon how far I had come. Writing about it also made me passionate about continuing to work hard on the project. Since I do the daily blogs, but we started many units in, it has taken a ton of work to try to catch up, and I am not quite caught up yet.

I look forward to future review sheets and reflections on the term project, because they represent progress. Time has been flying this semester, and it is crazy to see how far I have come in this course. I have learned so much so far, and yet I still have so much ahead of me, which is exciting!

This assignment started off by reading roughly 10 articles about news articles, including talk about how to distinguish between fake and real news. Following this, we had to chat with our chat group, first discussing our term projects, then three reasons why college students need to be more digitally literate, then creating a list of 20 steps college students can take to improve their digital literacy.

The first article talked about how most people so see a fake news story believe it, including a finding that 75% of American adults who were familiar with a fake news headline saw the story as accurate. The second article showed survey results describing what students do and do not know about checking the news. The third article overviewed the Stanford digital literacy study. The fourth article provided some example items from the study to test myself on.

The next five articles were very similar and discussed how to distinguish between fake news and real news. They provided tips on how to be more digitally literate, and how to avoid falling for articles with inaccurate content

Moving on to our group chat, Weiyan and I began our discussion by talking about our term projects. She is doing the whole course option, and the media she is using is Tumblr. She is making infographics of the course and posting them on the Tumblr account. So far she has created an account and has started posting graphs for unit 1.

We discussed how I am also doing the whole course option, but that I am doing the daily journal project option, through the media of a blog. So far, I have made at least one blog post per day. I plan on catching up to our current unit as soon as possible. 

Next, we discussed three reasons why college students need to be more digitally literate, based on the articles we read. Our first reason was that there are too many people believe fake news, about 75% of adults. Second, we said it is important so they can utilize online information correctly in essays, research, and assignments. Third, many fake articles contain political biases, so if people believe the information, it may impact voting in a negative way.

Finally, we created our a list of 20 steps college students can take to improve their digital literacy, based on the next few articles we had to read. Our list is included below. 

1)Look closely at the URL, 2) Watch out for misspellings or awkward formatting, 3)be skeptical of the headlines, 4) Check the author’s sources to confirm that they are accurate, 5) search for the article photo or image to verify where it came from, 6)check the “about” section and google it, 7) Inspect the dates to make sure they make sense, 8) add the word “fake” when googling the “about” section, 9)Check if any other news sources have the same story, 10) Search the author to see if they are credible, 11) If there are links in the article, check the links and see whether it makes sense, 12) Utilize fact-checking websites, 13) Check the article comments to see what people are saying about it, 14) Be careful if the headline is all caps or obviously photoshopped pictures, 15)Look at the quotes in a story, 16) Don’t share the news if not sure it’s true, 17) If there are a lot of banners and pop up ads it probably isn’t a good article, 18) If the story is set in the future, it is less trustworthy, 19)If the news source doesn’t seem to employ editors, it is not a strong source, 20) If the story attacks a generic enemy, it is not good reporting. 

Reflecting on this assignment, it was very relevant, because we are in the era of “fake news”. Now, more than ever, inaccurate news is being spread, catching people with interesting headlines, and things can spread quicker and quicker with the internet becoming so popular.

It was very helpful that this assignment did not just focus on how people fall for fake news so often, but focused on teaching us how to be more digitally literate. Providing us with so many examples was great, because now when I read a news article, I can think of all of the methods we learned to distinguish between fake and real news. If I ever start reading an article and can tell it is fake, I can disregard it, and try to find an article on the topic that is more trustworthy.

Additionally, it was nice to talk in our chat groups about our term projects. Up until now, these term projects have been a fairly private experience. Unlike other assignments, term project updates do not get posted to a discussion board, but to an assignment dropbox. Talking about projects with members of our chat groups was cool because it gave me a window to look into my group members’ skillset, and see how they wanted to present the course material.

Additionally, creating the lists about digital literacy was valuable, because it made me go back and reread suggestions from the different articles. When I did this, I began to see how much overlap there was in the suggestions. In this way, I became very confident in those suggestions that were referenced multiple times, and I am likely to utilize them in the future.

This is another example of an assignment that is not only interesting but is practical and can be applied right away in my daily life. This is awesome, because, in most of my classes, the stuff I learn is not really immediately useful. This class continues to be a good use of my time!

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This assignment began by reading 5 articles about the different factors that affect how people get their news. Next, I had to complete my 5-day news diary. Following this, I had to make a discussion board post, summarizing where I got my news for my diary, how this compared to the research summaries, and whether I fit the profiles for my age, education level, and gender.

From the articles, I learned a bunch of things factors that influence how people get news. The first article describes how older people are more likely to get news in newspapers. Print-only readers are also less likely to have gone to college and have lower incomes. The second article touches on how millennials are much more likely to get their news on Facebook instead of TV, whereas baby boomers are the opposite.

The third article talks about ways to retrieve online news, such as how the most common method is through a news organization website, followed by social media. Women who get news online are more likely to get it from social media than males are. The fourth article discusses social media news increases in US adults, especially in older, nonwhite and less educated Americans, and discusses the breakdown of who gets information from each site. The last article discusses how American use of online news is closing in on use of TV news.

In my own news diary, the majority of my news was found online. More specifically, 9 out of my 10 pieces of news, or 90%, were found online. My only piece of news I learned offline was through a phone call from a friend. 

For age, education level, and gender, I generally fit my profile. For age, nearly every article summary detailed how younger people reported higher levels of finding their news online, which is directly the case for me. For education level, one article says that people who find their news online are more likely to have been to college. I am in college, and almost all of my news was found online. For gender, one article talks about how women are more likely to find online news from social media and men from a news organization website. I fit with this because most of my news was found through news organization websites.

Reflecting on this assignment, it allowed me to reflect on my own news experiences. I know that I get a lot of information online, but it was the overwhelming majority of news on my news diary, and more than I expected. It made me realize how often I am on the internet, including news websites, social media, and more, and how they all showcase so much different information. Maybe I will try to get more news in other formats in the future, such as through other people, to expand my horizons.

Not only did it allow me to reflect on my own news experiences, but it also allowed me to receive a lot of information about the news experiences of others. Reading all of those reports allowed me to compare my own experiences to other people, to see if I fit the typical person of my gender, education level, age, and more. This was interesting because I honestly did not know what to expect from others. Seeing that I generally fit my prototype was somewhat reassuring.

The combination of learning about myself and the general public was interesting and valuable. Usually, in an assignment, it would be focused on one or the other, but it was cool to combine them. It allowed me to compare and contrast different categories, which gave me some critical thinking practice.

Even though some of the statistics were predictable, some I really did not know about, so it was still a learning experience for me. If these statistics were calculated again in a few years, I would be interested to see the results. I would guess that the percentage of all people who get their news on the internet would continue to increase, and start to dominate other forms of news!

This assignment began by reading 5 articles about digital literacy and being smart on social media. Next, I had the choice to complete a set of activities related to cleaning up my social media feed or creating a LinkedIn profile. I chose the cleaning social media option. This involved reading 5 more articles, actually going and making changes on my social media, and making a discussion board post about what I did and why.

The first article that everyone had to read discussed how Harvard kids had their offers rescinded based on inappropriate memes, and how anything posted online is permanent. The second article discusses a course to manage online reputation, and that many young people aren’t actually that tech smart. The third article talked about the importance of digital branding, and how universities should dedicate time to talk about this. The fourth article is an infographic on what you should post on social media and reinforces that your online choices have future ramifications. The fifth article is an infographic on privacy and how you should protect your personal information.

Within the social media feed set of items, the first article was about how to avoid being fired by Facebook, including tips such as not posting while at work, and not discussing confidential things online. The second article showcased how a Penn State OL coach dropped a recruit based on his social media choices. The third article was a study on the social media accounts of surgeons and found that around three-fourths of them had no unprofessional content. The fourth article discussed how 10% of young Facebookers in a study have lost a job based on something they posted. The fifth article described how to navigate through Facebook privacy settings.

After reading all of these articles, I had to make some actual changes to my social media profiles, and I chose to do this with Facebook. I took my email and birth year off of my public profile, removed 3 pictures of my dad and me from my profile in which beer was in the picture, and changed a good number of settings, including who can see my posts, who can see my friends list, who can see posts I am tagged in, and who can post on my timeline. I made these changes to protect my privacy, and ensure that my digital image is good so I can set myself up for success in the future.

I discussed all of this information, as well as the changes I made, in my discussion board post.

Reflecting on this assignment, I thought it was very interesting, very relevant, and very important. First of all, it was interesting to read all of the articles, because I learned a lot of things I did not know. There were settings I did not know about, courses I hadn’t heard of, and stats I was astounded by.

Second, it is very relevant. In this day and age, social media is so prevalent, and all college students I know are at least somewhat involved in it. Personally, I have an Instagram, a Facebook, a Snapchat, and a LinkedIn. So, since I am involved in many sites, information about social media profiles is very relevant to my life! Even though I personally do not make a lot of posts, it is valuable to have all of the information from these articles, because it can help me rearrange my settings, and when I do post it will lead me to make good choices.

Thirdly, it is very important. Among other things, I learned that many people lose jobs because of their social media accounts. A job is one of the most important parts of a person’s life, and they should do anything in their power to protect it. So, it is important to know everything I can that will lead me to have the best social media profiles for employers and others to see. If I follow everything that has been talked about in the articles, then I can maximize my chances to secure a job, or keep a job that I already had.

Once again, it is important to note that I appreciated having a choice in which major set of activities we would take part in. For example, I did not want to do the LinkedIn option, because I already have a LinkedIn, and I do not think it would have led me to learn a ton. On the contrary, the social media cleanup taught me many small things I did not know about previously, so it was more valuable for me to take part in.

Learning about social media is great for so many reasons, and I hope that we continue to learn more and more about it throughout the duration of the course. Each year it is more and more relevant in society, so we should maximize our knowledge of it to set ourselves up for success going forward!