Is there even a life without internet connection?

I depend on the internet so much each and every day and cannot visualise being without it, so to see just how cruel it would be, I decided to take a day off.

Friday, 9th of November: a day without the Internet

I remember waking up shortly after 10AM, reaching for my phone right away before my eyes were even properly open. I had turned my internet off before falling asleep as I knew I would forget, and I really wanted to test it out. So, I put my phone back down, and literally laid in my bed staring at my ceiling remembering how I take the internet for granted.

I got up after roughly half an hour of staring at my ceiling, so around 10:30AM, and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. I tried to kill some time so I made a big breakfast. I ate it so much faster than usual because I didn’t have my phone with the internet to be distracted by.

I badly wanted to watch TV in bed, but I don’t have channels in my room; it’s a smartTV so I just watch Netflix 24/7 which requires the internet. I felt so lost. Now I had to sit in the sitting room and watch normal TV. I was super bored and slightly frustrated.

I constantly kept grabbing my phone to browse on Facebook and watch people’s Snapchat stories.. I started to feel so empty and as if I was losing my mind. My pet bunny was being extra cute and I felt the need to record him and post on Snapchat for everyone to see, yet I couldn’t.

I was getting so fed up that I phoned my workplace and asked if I could come in – thankfully they had some hours for me so I went to work from 3PM – 9PM. This helped me get through the day, but I realised just how long a 30 minute break is when you have no internet… NIGHTMARE.

I usually watch Netflix and browse the internet until around 1AM, yet that night, I was in bed ready to sleep at 10PM with such excitement for the next day when I would reunite with my internet.

 

Are there people out there who don’t rely as strongly on the internet? I haven’t met any… have you? or maybe are you one of those people?

Comments are more than welcome !

 

Image Credit : Tumblr

“The ultimate goal of technology is to find a workaround for cheating death.

But on the tech-focused British anthology series Black Mirror, the idea that we’ll find a way to digitally live forever is the ultimate fear.” – Joe Berkowitz  for Fast Company

BLACK MIRROR 

“Black Mirror is about the way we live now – and the way we might be living in 10 minutes’ time if we’re clumsy.” — Charlie Brooker, creator of Black Mirror

SEASON 2 EPISODE 1

Screenshot from Black Mirror 2×1: Be Right Back

“Be Right Back” 

This episode concerns digital versions of ourselves who live on after we die. It involves a young woman Martha ( Hayley Atwell) , whose boyfriend Ash (Domhnall Gleeson) gets killed in a car accident.

While mourning, she discovers that there is technology which can give her the ability to communicate with an artificial intelligence imitating Ash.

She ended up subscribing to this technology.. and what happened?

It started off with text- messaging which evolved into voicebot after which she upgraded to a premium service where she basically received a robot dopplegänger of her boyfriend.

This ‘version’ of Ash turned out to be a hollow approximation and Martha would consequently reject it , stating :

“You’re not you, you’re just a few ripples of you. You’re just a performance of stuff that he performed without thinking, and it’s not enough.”

This episode is extremely interesting as it gets you to think a little bit more outside the box;

Sure, a Chatbot can be considered a crude digital resurrection, but it also highlights the continuously growing interest in the digital afterlife and how technology such as artificial intelligence and brain-computer interfaces could one day be used to create digital replicas of ourselves or loved ones that could live on after death.

“The human mind is virtually unexplored. We have no idea how consciousness works. But the brain is still a machine so it’s a matter of tinkering with it until we work it out.” – Zoltan Istvan for The Guardian

Personally, I would never even consider doing something like this as a part of my mourning process, to me it’s like living in a fantasy not the real world.

Ask yourself, would you consider such technology if you were in Martha’s position?

Feel free to share your perspectives in the comments !

It is often claimed that online communication, because it offers anonymity, encourages greater openness and honesty

On the other hand, it also encourages less attractive forms of communication, including flaming, trolling, cyber bullying

Personally, I feel like these forms of online communication are an absolute joke and I have seen them lead to so much harm its indescribable.

To elaborate on my view, I am going to discuss one particular social networking site, which I’m sure many of you are familiar with : Ask.fm 

Photo Credit : SpunOut.ie

Ask.fm are considered to be the first incentivized, decentralized Q&A social network. 

Once it gained its popularity, it became a huge deal; everyone was innocently sharing their links bombarding my Facebook with them.

I didn’t think much of it at the start, until I started noticing the inappropriate usage of it. I had a feeling it would happen, I mean everyone gets a little braver once they’re anonymous BUT I was in for a bit of a shock. Many of my friends and I experienced extremely disturbing “Questions”.

Photo Credit : educatolerancia.com

Although my friends and I were able to laugh things off, I noticed how serious some peoples cases were. The level of bullying was so intense, and there was nothing I could do about it; you just end up feeling so useless.

Photo Credit : ThirdParent Blog

The above image shows only one example of the inappropriate usage of the site resulting in bullying.

The fact that this site still exists is absolutely outrageous!

To see more reasons as to why you should stay away from this site, visit :

www.makeuseof.com

If you have come across Ask.fm at any point and would like to share any experiences, feel free to leave a comment !

 

Photo Credit : Cathy O’Connor

The Networked Self screams the word INTERACTION to me.

The World Wide Web has created various platforms on which we are able to communicate with others; whether they are near to us or far from us; –  whether they are family or acquaintances.

As Carrie Grosvenor said in her Definition of Online Social Networking , networks are growing and changing constantly and while many of the websites encourage everyone to join, others are geared towards users with particular needs and interests.

There is a variety of networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn which allow users to increase their networks, share notes and different types of media, as well as connect on several levels.

Photo Credit : Marketing Land

Looking closer into Facebook and how diverse it is, this social media platform gives us an opportunity to begin online communication with people from all over the world, with differing backgrounds.

I find that personally, I made a lot of friendships through this platform, be it people I met only through a Facebook request, or becoming closer to those I knew in real life already.

My social media profiles portray the real me, I don’t try to hide any flaws or personal opinions. I allow a certain amount of personal information to be seen by Facebook Users such as my birthday and where I am from.

Photo Credit : Succinct Research

LinkedIn is a great example of how networking works. This platform is a lot more ‘formal’ than Facebook or Instagram would be.

This platform allows you to build a professional profile, where you show your best self and your academic/work background. You are able to connect with people from a huge variety of disciplines whom might present you with life changing opportunities.

As the saying goes :

It’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know

A lot of the time, great opportunities come to people due to their connections, which is why networking is so important.

As Denis Waitley said :

If you’re not networking, you’re not working

 

 

How Do You Move Past Rejection? A Writer Reflects

Credits to Ben Huberman

Scrolling through blogs on WordPress, I came across the blog post mentioned above. This automatically grabbed my attention as rejection is a huge fear of mine. I’m in final year of college and the thoughts of getting a no from any company I will be applying for is haunting me.

In this blog post, the blogger is discussing “Hello Rejection, My Old Friend published by Writer Holland Rae, in which the writer discusses her personal experience with rejection, how she has dealt with it and what it has taught her.

Personally I found that very relatable, especially at the start of the blog post, where the blogger mentions that :

The road to every cheerful “yes!” is paved with multiple moments of “no, thanks.”

This particular sentence made me think into the future, and how perhaps I should attempt to mentally prepare myself for rejection. Throughout our lifetime we all experience rejection in one way or another, we can never fully predict it to be prepared for it, but it does not mean your’e a failure as a human. Rejection is important in life – of course it can in some cases demotivate you, but it also urges you to better yourself.

The highlights of Holland Rae’s experience with rejections in this blog post is quite inspiring to me;

I have gotten a lot of rejections. In fact, I pride myself on being pretty good at divorcing the rejection of my work from the rejection of me as a person.

This particular quote really appealed to me; the starting sentence is short and extremely relatable. The mention of separating the rejection of work from the rejection as a person is such an important message.

I think the most important thing to take from this, is that rejection is just a part of life, it is bound to occur at one point or another; but how we deal with it, is the most important!

  

First of all, what is a selfie? Well, it can be defined as a self-portrait photograph, in most cases taken by a smartphone, sometimes with an aid of a ‘selfie stick’, which has been very popular over the past couple of years.

Paris Hilton claimed to have invented the selfie, when she tweeted a few throwback photos of herself and Britney Spears from 2006, captioning it “11 years ago today, Me & Britney invented the selfie!”. Selfies have been a thing for centuries, they did not become a thing because of Paris.

Alex Williams has written an extremely interesting article for The New York Times in March of 2018, discussing “How The Selfie Conquered The World” in which he had discussed this claim, as well as elaborating on the term itself and its roots.

So, where did the term ‘selfie’ actually originate from?Well, according to Williams, the credit goes to an Australian man who used this word in an ABC Science Online Forum back in 2002, where he used it to describe a snap of his bloody lip after intoxicatingly face-planting; – “Sorry about the focus, it was a selfie”. It was however, quite recently that the term was considered to have “hit the big time”, by Time, when in 2012 it was included in its top 10 buzzwords of the year.

Can we consider the selfie as a new genre of photography? According to photography historians, indeed we can. Given the evident technological shift, it’s not all that surprising that many people started ‘turning their cameras on themselves’.

MySpace- the breeding ground for the selfie? MySpace was considered a sensation, before Facebook went mass. Every MySpace page needed a profile shot, which could have encouraged many people to opt for a selfie rather than a photograph of an object or anything other.

Before we knew it, selfies took over social media.

How the Selfie Conquered the World

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton