Blog 3: Media Diary 2

11am. I’m waking up and the first thing I do is roll over and open my Email.

I just can’t seem to get enough of my email. While thinking about what we’ve been learning this module about security, all I can think about while reading my Emails is how much scammy junk I get.

Who is Rahal Letterman? I don’t even have a Sams Club membership…the only reason I bought Firmoo glasses was because they sent me a free frame code through my Email. My security is a mess. I don’t remember signing up for any of these Emails. This is already off to a splendid start. I don’t even have a secure Email.

I think the next steps really include unsubscribing from a lot of these random Email “subscriptions” I have, this is an Email account I’ve had since I was 14. I’m significantly older than 14.

As I’m scrolling through my Email I notice I have a Credit Score update. I sign into my account to view the update. I sure hope I can trust Credit Karma with my personal, personal information. This all starts to make me skeptical and a little paranoid. Should I even have a Credit Karma account? What if my identity gets stolen? I feel like even mentioning Credit Karma is putting me at risk. What if some hacker puts 2+2 together!?

11:30am. I’ll figure all that out later. Next stop is the YouTube app. I fell asleep watching it, let’s see if there are any drama updates. I’m a sucker for online/celebrity gossip and drama. I know. It’s terrible.

Ask and you shall receive. Youtube’s algorithm makes sure that everything I watch, search, like, comment on stays in my recommendations. As much as I like this feature, I do find myself careful what I search because I don’t want to be recommended something that I don’t have an actual interest in. Paul Covington’s research paper even points out that “YouTube represents one of the largest scale and most sophisticated industrial recommendation systems in existence.” So you really do have to be careful about what you watch or it’ll follow you around the internet.

Now, YouTube. This website has been getting on my nerves as of lately. I keep getting Ads of things I want ABSOLUTELY nothing to do. I have gone into my Ad Preferences and settings through google but I keep getting the same Ads. YouTube/Google has an Ad Center so you can customize ads and either have them “personalized” or not. I opted for not. But when I do have them “personalized” I get the randomest most offensive (to me) ads. Let’s not even get into it.

It’s, like, 12:30 by this time. Today I’m off so I’ve got time to scroll through my phone, roll around in bed, take a nap, ‘cause y’know waking up is so much work.

I make my way over to Apple News

From a little googling I learned that Apple News also works via Algorithms. But why wouldn’t it. Apple News’ Algorithm takes into consideration anything that may have been searched through Siri or any related news stories that I may have clicked on previously. Flat Plan goes in depth about how this particular App works.

As I wander my 3rd app of the day I realized…all of these applications only really work if I engage with them. If I give them my information, if I am active with them they learn more about me…but if I’m not…

This is much of what we’ve been learning about in class. We give a lot of bite sized information to our apps and devices but once it’s all put together it paints an almost complete picture of who we are. It’s terrifying.

I can’t just not use my phone or laptop. How will I do school work? How will I apply for a better job? How will I know what Miley Cyrus is doing right now!?

1PM I mobile order Dunkin’. Come to think of it the app has my address, card info, name…even this simple food ordering app knows a lot about me.

2PM Check Canvas to see what assignments I have to start working on, modules to read through…

5PM Melt into the Amazon Video world for hours, feeding another algorithm on what my interests are and are not…

There is so much information we are feeding to these apps, websites, services that we don’t even second guess about. Really thinking about what information we just willingly give away makes me a little uneasy. Until this exercise I didn’t realize how open I was to giving information about myself away. Simply, I don’t want my identity stolen. I don’t want big corporations to know all these little details about me that maybe my friends don’t know (they definitely don’t know my Dunkin’ order). Something I will do differently is try to disengage more from Media. I always feel proud when I say I don’t have Social Media but the amount of Media I still use and consume is enormous. I need to unsubscribe, disconnect, and just be.