Category: Media Shares

After reading The Evolution of Internet Addiction, Addicted to Addiction, and The Viral Virus, the summation of what I learned is that despite the internet’s significant benefits (i.e: helping humans connect to others all over the world [most especially during the pandemic], allowing a quicker and more convenient access to resources like news and general information, allowing society to establish a common ground through social media and the like, and making life easier in general), too much of it can be a bad thing. People can develop addictions, dependencies and other negative behavior from unregulated internet usage. Yes, the internet makes life so much easier, especially with it evolving to something that has become a basic necessity for modern society, but when people see how easy it makes life, they can either get too comfortable with it, or they forget that a life outside screens exist. This becomes dangerous, because when every man, woman and child on this planet becomes a slave to their screens, we might become living corpses who forget how to truly live life and be healthy. (This paragraph ending is a bit bland, and for that I do apologize. But then again I’m making this at 6 AM with no sleep from the day before. Whatever happens, happens, right?)

I made this meme to kind of point out the good and the bad about internet usage. The stonks meme is such a funny medium to address stuff that isn’t as easily addressed or stuff that is hilarious once it is pointed out. And you can kind of say that memes are really a good way to express thoughts and ideas aside from being posts on shitty Instagram meme pages and subreddits. After all, almost everything is a tool whose purposes and effects are subjective to the user, right?

This picture represents the three texts we read because it shows how people are addicted to their phones (internet) these days. Everything is based on technology and the internet now that people forgot they actually have a life outside of the internet. For example gaming, Netflix, texts, video calls erased the reality we live in today. This topic is so serious to the point gaming has actually taken innocent gamers’ life. Sad to say that I am actually the girl in the picture because I am always on my phone, it’s either the phone or TV. Even when I go outside, instead of enjoying the moment I go on snap chat and start snapping everything. It’s almost like instead of viewing the world from my own eyes I view it through the camera. “What started out as web surfing for one teen descended into online obsession and isolation.”

 

One social issue I would like to talk about in my essay 2 is racism. It’s 2020 and people still face racism to this day. A song that is connected to this issue is “Everybody” by Logic. The song is about Logic facing racism because he is black but his skin color is while. In the song, he talks about how black people hate on him because of his skin color.

I choose this image (the image is below the MS) that relates to the ideas of an internet addiction in the texts “the Viral Virus” by Lauren Duca, “Addicted to Addiction” by Christopher lane, “Issues for DSM-5: Internet Addiction” by jerald G. Block and “The evolution of internet addiction” by Griffiths et al. These texts show how internet has negative impact on people. As we can see a person in the photo who is addictive to internet and  has no interest in his work. He is just thinking of the games and social apps rather than paying attention to his work. People like him don’t understand the negative effects of the internet that could have on them. I believe it’s always better to learn new things rather than just wasting time on technology.
While reading these texts I had an idea about a song that relates to this topic . It is about the addiction-  drug addiction. The song is “Save Me” by Shinedown which express the pain of being consumed by addiction. In this song, The person describes his loneliness of losing everything to drugs, specifically pills.

Reading from the text “The Evolution of Internet Addiction”, the text really reminds me when I heard the song “Instagram” by Dean. On how most people are always trying to make their lives as great as it can be in a fairy tale, or like a show where it shows a perspective term where a happy couple can having such a happy life together. But being too addictive on the media can be a curse at the same time due constantly worrying about how others would react and constantly trying to impress people that you would know.

1. I chose this picture because it relates to the ideas of internet addiction in the texts “The Viral Virus” by Lauren Duca, “Addicted to Addiction” by Christopher Lane, “Issues for DSM-5: Internet Addiction” by Jerald G. Block and “The Evolution of Internet Addiction” by Griffiths et al. These texts discuss how the internet can have a negative impact on a person if they spend an excessive amount of time on it. This picture illustrates a child so addicted to the internet that he starts crying when his parent tries to take away his Ipad. Early age addiction to technology can lead to social issues while growing up because kids invest so much time into electronics so they wouldn’t know how to socialize and make conversation. For this reason (when I have my own kids in the future), I refuse to give them technology until they are older and I feel they are responsible enough and ready for it. I am also guilty of spending too much time on my phone sometimes but I taught myself how to take breaks by realizing life is too short to spend hours on my phone and I rather invest time into my family and friends. People need to understand the negative effects that the internet could have on a person.
2. Even though these texts are related to being addicted to the internet, a song about drug addiction came to my mind. “Lemonade” by Internet Money, Gunna and Don Toliver resonate with the ideas with these texts being that both have to do with addiction. In the song it says “off the juice, codeine got me trippin” and “Adderall, fentanyl, xanax bars, aye, I was fifteen, I sip codeine with my dawg, yeah”. Both of these addictions are social issues that I could possibly write about for Essay 2.

In all the text the main issue is addiction. The text that stood out to me the most is “issues for DSM-V”, the text is mainly about internet addiction. The text states that many people have a disorder called compulsive-impulsive, this disorder involves excessive usage, withdrawal, tolerance, negative repercussions. I believe the most common is excessive usage, many individuals have trouble staying of their phone, or the internet including myself. I feel because of the generation we live in today everything is surrounded by the internet and technology, which causes many to have this disorder.

 

1. This picture relates to the topic of internet addictions that were discussed in Christopher Lane “Addicted to Addiction”, Jerald G. Block “Issues for DSM-5: Internet Addiction” and Griffiths et al.“The Evolution of Internet Addiction.” These texts all talk about the negative effect of internet addictions and how the majority of us are addicted to our phones. I chose this picture because it truly shows how being addicted to your phone can affect your social life. In the picture you can see that they’re on a date and instead of him paying attention to the girl, he’s on his phone. The girl is seen being upset or bored because he’s not chatting with her and is just obsessed with his phone. This can affect him negatively because she won’t want to go on a date with him anymore and he’s not going to have a social life if he continues doing this. Internet addiction is a huge problem nowadays because we use our phones everyday. Learning how to take time off and be social with the people around you, can benefit you way more than being on your phone all the time.
2. While reading these texts I had an idea about writing about social media and the negative influence it has on us, especially young people who believe everything they see on the internet. A song that relates to this topic is Damon Albarn “Everyday Robots.” This song also fits in with what the texts are talking about which is internet addiction. In the song, it says that we’re basically like robots because we’re constantly on the internet and not doing anything else with our life’s. The internet has taken control of our lives.

This picture connects to “Triptych: Texas Pool Party” because the characters in the text faced racism. In the first part of the text, the white ladies were being racist and hating on the people at the pool party because of their color since they were black. The second and third part of the story is based on police brutality which also connects to racism. The cop was being violent towards the black girl and her friends even though they did nothing wrong.  Cops think they have power, so they get to do whatever they want. What they don’t realize is people’s lives are in their hands. Because of one mistake, an innocent person’s life could be gone. At the end of the day, we are all humans and all equal. It’s 2020, racism shouldn’t even exist.

 

For this media share, I choose this photo that relates to serpell’s text.  This photo is similar to text  because they  both  shows racism and police brutality.  As we can see the police officers kneeled on  black person’s neck. Who gave permission to cops to do this? It is against the law. If someone committed crime or did something wrong then they can arrest him or put him in jail instead of beating or kneeled on his neck. This is why people protest against police brutality and racial injustices.In the text, the cop did same with the black  girl. He kneeled on her neck without any reason. She even didn’t do anything wrong but still she suffered from that situation. Why she suffered just because she was black? This shows how police being racist.

For this week’s media share, I decided to create a meme that reflected what I felt was a point being reiterated throughout both of the texts about the internet and addiction; which was that people who are “addicted” to the internet in one way or another usually start out as people just looking to stem the flow of boredom into their lives. Everyone’s just looking for a distraction and an outlet of experiencing life in a manner that doesn’t specifically require their input, rather all they need are hits, clicks, and shares. That’s reflected in what I made because we can conclude that there’s a definite domino effect when people see something interesting and engaging, they crave more content like that, and this attitude slowly snowballs into dependence on the technology and media of today’s world.

The ideas of reversing such addictions are all well and good, but from a practical standpoint, with the ongoing pandemic in mind, the norm is undeniably technologic. Almost nothing happens in recent years, and especially in today’s world where nothing happens without digital or electronic records existing. Due to the limited capacities of the outside world, we have found solace in the arms of the cold digital world. And although there is the idea of normalcy coming back when the pandemic is over with, you kind of get to thinking about the ramifications of such a long period of time spent on the screens. Will we ever find a way to combat addiction and bring more humanity into our lives again, or are we doomed to constantly be eluded and tantalized by the embrace of the Internet?