Summary: After Finishing The Influencing Machine

Decent Essays
After finishing The Influencing Machine, Gladstone which is the author of this book leave me a few worries, particularly about the “photoshopification” of society. She said “The big threat of photoshopification is not that we will believe documents and photos that are fake, it’s that we'll find it easier to disbelieve documents and photos that are real. When it's convenient.” Social media connected everyone in the world who uses internet, thanks for that, news are traveling faster on social media than those mainstream publishers. When someone uses Photoshop to fake celebrities’ affairs, and then titled “A” is in relationship with “B”. The photo will spread widely through the internet in the matter of time. After people finding out those

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Will our rejection of other ideals lead to self destruction? The main focus of Influencing Machines by Brook Gladstone and Josh Neufeld is informing the reader on how the internet cultivates homophily: the instinct by which humans tend to group themselves with likeminded individuals. Because of this, people narrow their worldview and their ideals grow more and more extreme. Some would disagree with this notion because the internet presents a vast amount of information in a wide variety of fields, and no matter where you search on the internet there is enough permeation from other bases of information and ways of life that it could not cultivate extremist ideals. I disagree for the following reasons and real life events: the vast majority of…

    • 1037 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Commentators like Lam and to a lesser extent Turkle fail to see past the surface of new media usage. To them an individual who is engaged in social media is nothing more than a person captivated by a computer monitor, when in reality the individual is using the computer monitor to interact, communicate, and express themselves in ways that would have been impossible only a brief decade ago (Gopnik,2011). A quote from Alison Gopnik best summarizes the views held by Lam and others like him, “the year before you were born looks like Eden, the year after your children were born looks like Mad Max” (Gopnik,2011). The digital word is an amazing place, and the fact that it is distinct from the actual reality around us does not devalue its usefulness in making our…

    • 1017 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Do you think that the way we grow up has a lasting effect on us? The things we go through and are surrounded by as children will shape our personality and how we deal with things? The underlying theme of these poems is a very deep and difficult subject to talk about, the breakage of a person and of a friendship. The way we deal with our past make us who we are, but how much can a person handle before they break? Stuart broke, Jackson was broken by Stuarts suicide attempt because he didn't know how to react to it, and these poems purpose an idea that we should handle suicide differently because, a suicide effects not only the person but the people around them, it breaks them.…

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Society is consumed by what is placed on on social media and the internet. Societies use of social media and the internet has endangered free thought, free speech, and human dignity. Social media includes Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube and many other websites or apps. The social media ability for posts to be re-shared or reposted, will be the downfall of the American society and as a result endanger society into becoming a Fahrenheit 451 society. Society resistance of conservative values has altered society perhaps for the worst.…

    • 170 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Catfish Social Media

    • 1317 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The popularity of the internet in recent years has led to the rise of a vast amount of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. These sites give their users the ability to present and record their lives online and make it available to others to inspect. This usage is generally harmless, however a small percent of people use social media dishonestly by creating fake accounts in the effort to deceive others and boost their own egos in the process. This is shown in the direct cinema documentary Catfish, directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, the story follows Nev Schulman who develops a relationship with a family and in particular, a young woman around his own age; however, this online family has been a lie and was all a creation…

    • 1317 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    By only focusing on what is happening in one’s immediate world and falling back onto focusing on those who reaffirm one’s beliefs, a confirmation bias is created making it simple to fall into a social media niche. Via social media, there are two ways to reach many people, write something incendiary and receive an influx of hate/support, or keep to non-political issues and focus on noncontroversial items. Social media are an overall distraction from important problems. The manipulation of the media can be entertaining, such as satirical sites like the Onion. But when other websites are less well-known, it can cause confusion and spread ignorance.…

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Technology is rapidly changing, and with it is the way we engage and communicate with each other. The media which was once primary link between the political realm and the everyday citizen has changed with it. Neither the nightly news, nor the morning paper are the only sources of gaining information about the world around us. While they remain an important part in the pursuit of democracy in Canada, it is no longer the only method for politicians or leaders to reach the masses. Through this evolution of technology has emerged a new form of communication.…

    • 571 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.” In the privacy of our minds, we “hear” the truth about ourselves, but this truth becomes more and more inaudible as the voices of society grow to a roar. Social media sets a standard for everyone involved or uninvolved with it. This much control to one standard, cripples people and takes away the true definition of a true…

    • 1037 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Imagine this; a world with no televisions, no radios, and no social media accounts. Some may say it would be great, but some may hate it. Media -social or not- has taken over everyday life for many Americans. This leads to the idea that people believe what they hear or see on media. Thus, bringing up the point that the media played a huge role in the depiction of the 2016 presidential candidates.…

    • 1762 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Through the use of radio, the internet, and social media, numerous amounts of people are able to be connected immediately. With this, comes the notion that users must be careful of what they say and hear because of the immediate impact it has. In “The Fake News Fallacy”, Chen raises awareness to the fake news that is put out onto social media and the websites of unreliable sources. He creates a parallel with this to radio, by using the social hysteria created in the 1930s and how it has foreshadowed what will become of the news in the future. Through the similarities and problems that both encompass, it is easy to see how social media has become what the radio once was.…

    • 1152 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Social media has become a part of us. It is with us whenever and wherever we go. However, social media may not always be beneficial for us. In Zadie Smith’s Essay “Generation Why,” she provides a commentary on a movie called “The Social Network.” Throughout the commentary, she would mock the Zuckerberg character in the movie, and I think the scorn she directed at the character might have been used to express her disapproval of the real Mark Zuckerberg.…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The three different kinds of approaches are skeptical, empirical, and normative. The author also talks about how speed can create rumors among people due to trying to quickly spread news to the readers. Lastly, Ward talks about the manipulation of photos and if it is ethical to alter photos to make them seem real and…

    • 1410 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Reddit Research Paper

    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages

    All of this is an example of how social media has been able to significantly change the way humans and operate and live their lives. The Internet can be both as a veil to hide behind and as an easy way to keep casual contact with a large amount of…

    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Misinformation Through Facebook Social media has been an interesting topic in our society. Many people are using social media for multiple purposes, but what they don’t know is that it is not a reliable source. Facebook for example places misinformation with false statistics, providing many others with inaccurate information. Other people along with organization are leading the general public with false information, which could lead to bias decisions made by the publisher.…

    • 1031 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Social Media How hard is to tell who murdered privacy and common sense when you can see social media’s has machete on its hand? Internet is one of the most powerful technologies we have in this generation, and we are using it in our daily activities as part of our life. Social media such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram are some of the popular social media sites where people interact.…

    • 1117 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays