Final Blog Post

 There are a lot of ways that social media has changed the way that we get our news and information. For example, the mainstream media no longer has a monopoly on information; anyone at any time can now provide their input or opinion on something, even if they are not qualified at all to give it.

Before social the mainstream media was not fact-checked; they were able to say whatever they wanted, and no one batted an eye. Which caused Americans to be more likely to trust what the news was saying, either because no one knew it was false or they were telling us the truth. 

There is no way to be one hundred percent sure either way. If it were that they were telling a reason large news companies may have switched from telling us the truth to spreading misinformation would be that social media companies are taking the advertising revenue that news stations used to get. Around 2 billion annually, these news stations could be attempting to make up for this lost revenue by presenting news stories that generate more clicks. 

Axios has done a survey every year since 1974 with 1000 people. In the past decade, the trust in the mainstream media has gone down significantly, and we hit an all-time low in 2024 only 31 percent saying that they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. According to Pew Research, people under 30 are almost just as likely to trust news from mainstream media as they are from social media, 56 percent and 52 percent, respectively.

Today, less and people trust the mainstream media to the point that we have started trusting sources that I would consider seriously flawed, and with large corporations in social media and in the news only caring about generating clicks and making a profit I am not sure how we can go back to a time where we had faith in the news were receive.

Blog Post 11

 An echo chamber is when someone only encounters ideas or beliefs that are the same as the ones that they already hold and believe to be true. Today, many people find themselves stuck in these echo chambers due to social media and the division in the country.

Often, people who scroll through social media only follow accounts that they agree with and only see content from those accounts. Which prop up their ideals and beliefs while demonizing the other side. For example, many news anchors and celebrities have compared President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. Someone who sees this comparison over and over in their little

echo chamber is going to have their beliefs that Trump is an evil fascist reinforced, which will continue to radicalize their views, until the point that they look down on or even hate people on the other side of the aisle.

Members of both political parties do this. When you are inside an echo chamber, you cannot think critically for yourself, and you rely upon and allow others to think and make up your beliefs for you. Only watching one news station or only following the same few account, or only talking and debating with people who already have the same beliefs as you will create this echo chamber, and allowing yourself to stay in the echo chamber and not branching out and hearing other points of view makes you a very shallow person with limited intelligence.

Through my social media I notice that I do only follow political commentators from the groups and party that I support so I have now gone through and made sure its not just one group i am hearing from it is multiple with diffent view points even if I disagree, when before this with major events or facts about people I would check with differnt news groups or sources from both sides of the asisle so at minimum I heard and understood the agrumument of the other side.

As Americans, we cannot allow the fear-mongering and dehumanization of people in the other political party in these echo chambers to divide us.

Age of AI

  As AI has become a bigger and bigger part of our everyday life, we run a lot of risks the more we advance it. For example, in China, they have used a social credit system where cameras have been installed throughout the country and use artificial intelligence to track their citizens, who they are, what they do, and who they hang out with. Every part of their day to day life is monitored by the Communist Party.

This causes major privacy problems for their citizens and the minority groups like the Uyghurs, who are under constant surveillance with all of their movements tracked as if they are all assumed to be criminals. Government surveillance like this is a real threat to the privacy of citizens around the world. As other countries see what China is doing, they themselves may decide to do something like it, even if it is not on that scale. It seems like whenever the government gets a new way to get control and invade our privacy, they do it. 

There are some positives to the advancement of AI. While the government may be able to use it to keep surveillance on us, it could help people like the police solve crimes or ID criminals that we may not have been able to identify before. AI has also helped companies increase their ability to manufacture their products at a higher and cheaper rate, but that also comes with many Americans losing their jobs.

Some experts had said that the job loss in some fields will be made up by new jobs in other aspects of the company, but I have a hard time believing that is anywhere near true. There is still a lot we do not know about AI. None of us can truly predict where it is going or what will be done with it, we just have to hope that the government and large corporations do right by us and do not abuse it. That seems unlikely, though.

EOTO 2

The Illusory truth effect is a psychological effect where the more we hear or see something, the more we believe, trust, and remember it. As humans, we find comfort in familiarity. Today, we can see the illusory truth effect in the news advertisements, political propaganda, and conspiracy theories. There are both pros and cons to the illusory truth effect; some cons are the spreading of misinformation, bad decision-making based on inaccurate information, and political candidates using it against us during election seasons. All these cons can sway public opinion about people or major events. There are some, but only a few, pros to the illusory truth effect, because we are programmed to remember information the more we are exposed to it. We can use it to our advantage when studying or just trying to remember information. For example, when studying for a test, many people use flash cards; this repeated flashing of information to our brains forces us to retain the information. Every day,

We are affected by the illusory truth effect and do not realize it; one of the biggest examples for our generation is on social media. Every day, we spend hours of our time scrolling through information, and often the same information is repeated to us on the app. Many times, it is the same information being shown to us within hours, by people who are not verified sources or qualified in any way to give us this information.

 While some times the information may be true, often it is inaccurate or blown way out of proportion, and none of us ever really bother to fact-check the information with a trusted source, we just see the information and assume all these people cannot just be wrong, so it must be true. Today, the news is very politicized, and they use the illusory truth effect to sway our opinions on just about every event or candidate that they can.

 So example, if you go on Fox News and watch their programming, they press the narrative over and over that China is the enemy and a threat to our country. If you were to tune into CNN or MSNBC, you would see that they relate every topic to Russia being the enemy and a threat to the nation. 

These large media companies know that most Americans turn on and watch the same news station whenever they turn on the news, so they can use that to their advantage by selling the same narrative night after night, attempting to create fears and division throughout our country and is one of the main reasons our country is so divided.

Many companies are well aware of the Illusory truth effect and take advantage of it through their advertising and marketing. How many times have you seen the same commercials on television over and over?

 They know that even if there is a company with a better product than theirs, if they can get their product in front of you, there is a much better chance you are going to trust them and buy their product. This also allows these companies to cut corners in the quality of their product because they know you will trust them and probably will not try a competitor's brands if they cannot market it in front of you.

 The Illusory truth effect is something that we encounter every day and need to be on the lookout for because if you do not notice what is going on around you, can may fall for these psychological tricks.