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Unit 3 Introduction

Our topic for the unit 3 website is online safety and security for freshmen at UW. the main focuses will be on maintaining a “good” social media presence and keeping personal information safe online. What we mean by a “good social media presence” is avoiding the use of social media in ways that would potentially come back to hurt you in the future. This may seem obvious, however many individuals seem to forget that posting controversial things and using vulgar language can have negative long term effects. Some of these things can lead to being a being eliminated as a potential employee at a certain job or getting denied from specific graduate schools.

In contrast, this is relevant to freshmen at UW because for most students, this is the first time that they are away from home and have total online freedom. This may be their first time having their own credit card, ordering their own things online, and feeling free to post different things on social media that they may not have before. Because of all this online freedom freshmen are now being exposed to, they have the responsibility to protect their personal information.

Our toolkit will consist of different tips on how to stay safe online, and different statistics and common mistakes that are made by young adults. This will inform our audience about things that they are doing well, and probably things that they can be doing better in terms of online safety which will give them the knowledge to protect themselves online. It will also provide them with a quiz that will test their online safety and image, so they know what areas they can improve on. After reading through our website with the described tools, college freshmen should be able to protect their online identities and maintain a “good social media presence.”

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Big Data

Big data is an important concept in the business world, scientific world, government, really everywhere in the world. Big data exists and is described by the three “V’s” which are as follows; volume, velocity, and variety. Whenever one of these three areas has a huge count then that data is considered big data. This could be Google analyzing billions of users online presence like online shopping, email, social media, etc. An example could be Facebook collecting data on what their users like, share, and post, so they can use algorithms to present users with suggested pages they may like. Big data has so much volume, velocity, and variety that there is an immense amount to analyze. 

In another class I had to read an article about big data:

https://www.ft.com/content/21a6e7d8-b479-11e3-a09a-00144feabdc0

In this article, the author, Tim Harford, talks about big data and some worries we should have. Although there is a lot of potential for big data, customers should still be wary of it. He cited the examples of the Google Flu trends where Google overestimated the number of flu victims for that season by over 100%. Google used big data and algorithms to analyze users searches to estimate the number of flu victims. Another example was the Target pregnancy incident where a pregnant woman received coupons for prenatal pills because Target had figured out she was pregnant. This eventually led to her parents finding out before she was ready to tell them. These are pretty extreme examples, but it shows the possible downsides of big data. 

Big data has a lot of potential, but companies first have to learn how to analyze it. We now live in a world where data is being produced and collected all the time in huge volumes. According to Northeastern University, every day we produce over 2.5 exabytes of data that companies can collect. (That is one billion gigabytes). The first step is learning how to adequately analyze all this data and compress it into figures that are actually usable and can help both companies and customers. 

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CHRIS PRATT!!!

Who doesn’t love Chris Pratt?!? Whether you know him from Jurrasic World, Guardians of the Galaxy, or Parks and Recreation, everyone loves Chris Pratt! He has risen to become one of the most popular actors in Hollywood and has a net worth of over 40 million dollars. He got his start on the television series, Everwood, at the age of 19 and since then he starred in many famous movies and television shows. P.S. He was born in Virginia, Minnesota and I am also from Minnesota, so I already feel like we have a connection.

Why am I sharing all these facts about the amazing Chris Pratt? For my research paper, I am analyzing an online Reddit community dedicated to the show Parks and Recreation. As I mentioned above, Chris Pratt starred in the show all seven seasons as the character, Andy Dwyer. He was one of the main characters and one of my personal favorites. The subreddit I am analyzing is called, “Tommy’s Place,” and within that page they link sites to other subreddit pages similar to Parks and Rec, so I found a subreddit page all about Chris Pratt. Here’s the link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChrisPrattFans/

The page has posts about everything from his divorce with Anna Ferris to a video of him gutting a fish. It is not very popular, it only has 691 “Guardians” and 6 “Mouserats” for subscribers. I wanted to investigate other Reddit pages similar to “Tommy’s Place” to find similarities and point out differences. There were also links to other subreddit pages, for example; Aubrey Plaza and Rashida Jones each had her own subreddit pages. I think the biggest difference between the two sites is size. Both have similar posting styles, but “Tommy’s Place” just has a higher number of subscribers and users compared to Chris Pratt’s page. 

I’m sure with his growing popularity the page will get more subscribers in the coming years, because again, who doesn’t love Chris Pratt?!?!?!?

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Cute Dog Video Alert!

I was scrolling through my Facebook page when I came upon this video of a cute bulldog trying to ride a skateboard. I thought this would be perfect to share and I thought the comments would be positive and funny. Here’s the link to the video page:  https://www.facebook.com/uniladmag/videos/3178421875514183/?hc_ref=ARTYQ4_jbx2aS9Pqd4aWWmMJOGh8Vl4v_ZZhZ8WH_wzQj0mSlB-w1BLQcjufggFtr3o&pnref=story

I mean how cute is this little guy and his little green skateboard?!?

The video was posted on September 20, 2017, so it is about a week old. It already has over 4.4 million views, 154,000 likes, and 57,000 comments. I would consider it a viral video with its continuous growth in popularity. I looked at some fairly recent comments that responded to the video and there was a diverse range of reactions from viewers. 

Comment #1

One of the first comments I read was this one by Sara Husak which was a funny exaggeration of the video because the dog obviously just took a tumble and there was no “horrific” accident. I laughed and I am sure many other readers laughed at this comment because it is stretching the truth to make a joke about the video. This commenter was looking to make people laugh who had watched the video.

Comment #2

This person was being a “troll” and trying to annoy people in the comment section. As you can see after reading their comment, their whole ploy was to get readers to waste time reading their comment which had no substantial value. They got me and I am sure many other readers fell into their trap. I saw this comment multiple times, probably just copied and pasted, throughout the comment thread. These people just want to bug readers and hopefully rile them up a little, which they succeeded in doing many times. 

Comment #3

There were quite a few comments with viewers who were upset with the video in some fashion. The first commenter was upset because he has apparently seen too many of these types of videos. My advice to him: JUST STOP WATCHING THE VIDEOS! The second person was upset because the video has a repeat element, so the same clip played over and over a few times within the actual video. I guess that is just the artistic element the poster wanted for their video? 

Comment #4

A large portion of the comments looked similar to this one where a commenter will tag a friend and mention them in their post. In this one, Jani, tags a friend to make a funny comparison to their past history of skateboarding in LA. Most of these types of comments are funny backstories between friends/families or someone sharing the video with a friend. 

Overall most of the comments were positive and funny, nothing serious or dark. Depending on the video you can really get a wide range of comments from viewers. I choose a light-hearted video because I did not want to have to read comments of people yelling at each other or writing offensive material. No matter what video/picture/post you pick to read comments on, there will always be a range of reactions from commenters which helps keep lively conversation. 

If I would have commented on this post, I would have said: “Haha me trying to get through college”

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My technological history

My first memory of using technology was my family’s Dell computer that we got in 2005 when I was 7. My brother and I would play a video game called “Pajama Sam” that we both loved and would play for hours and hours. 

The computer game was about this kid who went on an adventure to find darkness. Here is the link to a YouTube video of someone playing the entire game through. I wasted way too much time watching this when I found it, so I thought I would share it with you guys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vte0EXhK3Y Getting to play on the computer was a privilege we got when we did chores and behaved well. Then in 2009, my family got our first Apple computer for Christmas. I remember spending many hours on Christmas morning messing around with the Photo Booth application on the computer. My family took hundreds of pictures with crazy filters that would deform our faces or insert wacky backgrounds.

 During middle school and grade school, I became fairly familiar with Apple computers because we had our family computer at home which I would use and my school also had a “computers” class we had to take using Apple computers. I learned to type, use different applications like Kid Pix, Word, PowerPoint, and the internet. I was starting to learn a new digital language. 

The next big step in my technological history was getting my first cell phone. I started out with your typical flip phone where you had to press the buttons over and over just to type a simple message. I really only used that phone to make calls, text and play games (there was some simple game like Snake or Solitaire that I would play). I eventually upgraded to a sliding phone that had a full keyboard, which at the time, was really cool. I could text a lot faster and the screen was bigger and had more graphics compared to my flip phone. At the time, I also had an iPod touch which essentially had all the capabilities of an iPhone at the time, except for making calls, data, and texting. I carried around my iPod and sliding phone everywhere I went. I really hit the jackpot in middle school when I got my first iPhone. It was the iPhone 4 which combined the technologies of my iPod with my cell phone. 

It was SUPER cool to have an iPhone in middle school and I was lucky enough to get one. Ever since then I have always had an iPhone-I am currently on the iPhone 6. In high school, every student had their own MacBook Air laptops which we used both inside and outside the classroom. Many schools in the area began to incorporate technology into the classroom. For example, at my brother’s high school, every student had their own iPad to do homework, turn in assignments, and take notes. The transition to using more technology was important because familiarizing students with different technological platforms is important for the future. During high school, I became well versed in using technology because I was using it on a daily basis between my school laptop, iPhone, and home computer. I have used those skills to help prepare me for college. I currently have a MacBook Pro that I use in college to do homework, take notes, complete assignments, take assessments with, and keep up to date with my classes. Even though I have become very proficient in using Apple products over the years, I am still learning new technological skills. Recently I downloaded Microsoft Windows onto my MacBook Pro via Parallels so I can use Windows Excel for my business classes. I had very little experience with Excel in the past so I am teaching myself how to use the program so I can excel in my business classes (no pun intended). It will be a constant race to learn new digital medias and platforms as they are always evolving at an exponential rate. Growing up in the new era of technology, I was very fortunate to be exposed to different kinds and learn the digital language. I was constantly surrounded by technology at school and home so I quickly acquired new skill sets that some of my peers were not as easily able to do. The population assumes that all Generation Z kids are well educated with technology because they grew up in a revolutionary era where the standard expectation is that each child is a “computer wizard.” Generation Z people grow up surrounded by technology and society falsely believes all of these kids will automatically strike an interest for technology and perfectly understand it. Just because children are growing up in a more technological era, does not necessarily mean they will completely adapt. 

Although many people from this cohort may have an extensive knowledge of different technologies, the same is not true for all. This misleading assumption will negatively impact anyone who does not have sufficient technical knowledge and puts them at a disadvantage in schools and job markets. The world of technology is changing every day and society has to keep up with it. I went from using a big and chunky Dell computer simply to play video games when I was 7 to using the latest MacBook Pro laptop with a dual operating system providing me with both Microsoft Windows and Apple just 12 years later. I cannot imagine what technologies we will have in the world in another 12 years. Flying cars? Robots? Hoverboards? Technology is the future and as good citizens, we need to teach young people the digital language.

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An Introduction to Me (Stephanie)

Hey everyone! Thanks for checking out my blog!

My name is Stephanie and I’m a sophomore at UW-Madison this year and I’m looking to major in either finance or marketing...still a little unsure. I’m from Roseville, Minnesota which is a suburb of St. Paul. I came to Madison for the sports, business school, to get away from home, and meet new people. Here are a few things that I’m interested in/enjoy:

1. Animals-specifically my super cute dog, Sawyer! 

2. TV shows-I’m a huge fan of Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO, really anywhere I can watch some shows. A few of my favorites are The Office, Friends, Parks and Rec, Grey’s Anatomy, Cheers, Gilmore Girls, HIMYM, and Cake Boss, just to name a few!

3. Sports-I love watching all Badger sports, Packers games, Minnesota Wild, and tennis tournaments. I also enjoy playing tennis and rock climbing in my free time!

4. Friends/Family-This one’s kind of obvious, but I truly enjoy the time I get to spend with my family while I’m at home and friends I get to see both at home and at school!

5. School-I’m a business student looking to get a job back home in the Twin Cities when I graduate. I haven’t yet determined my major, but I will hopefully figure it out soon!

I wanted to share a video I watched on Facebook a few days ago. The video was posted by UNILAD, a British internet media company, that I follow because they post entertaining articles and videos. This video is a compilation of “errors” made in cartoon movies and television shows that are ironic and very funny. Watching it brought back childhood memories of shows like Arthur and Spongeboob, but also made me laugh because I had never noticed these little mishaps before. It was interesting to read the comments below the video because there was a diverse range of reactions from viewers. Some people defended the cartoons, some came up with other examples, and most people wrote about their favorite “error.” I didn’t read deep into the comments, but I’m sure the same patterns would have followed.

I highly suggest watching it! 

Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/uniladmag/videos/3042304129125959/