#week07

Being a Prick Just Because You Can

Trolling is a huge part of modern digital citizenship. It’s a deliberate behaviour that attempts to torment digital citizens in a provocative and insulting manner (Nicol 2012). According to Coles and West (2016), trolling could manifest as a subtle or unsubtle offensive message directed to offend, start an argument or lure people to pointless debates. Its core purpose is to garner strong and emotional reactions. Emotionally trigger those who are unable to resist this provocative behaviour.

Have you ever wondered why do people troll? The answer: anonymity. Anonymity facilitates the condition for trolling. When people hide behind their computers, they assume that they are invisible and they are under minimal authority. Therefore, it motivates them to do things that they wouldn’t dare do in daily life (Nicol 2012). Essentially, they are ‘keyboard warriors’, through the power of the internet, they do unthinkable things under their virtual disguise.

Just a Prank?

It’s just a prank! Or is it? Trolling can have serious consequences online and in daily life. It results in harsher opinions or judgements being formed, acting as a mechanism for prejudice behaviour (Coles and West 2016). If an individual troll decided to spread false news, he might just receive verbal backlash. However, when a collective group of trolls decided to spread false news, the impact of their behaviour might be dire than you think. People who are unaware of the legitimacy of the news might assume it to be true as it is constantly spread. Besides, trolling has other severe consequences such as the increase of suicidal thoughts and self-harm (Coles and West 2016). Hence, we could conclude that trolling is more than unpleasant; it is, in fact, unethical in some cases.

Trolling ≠ Bad

There is another concept of trolling called ‘kudos trolling’, where users will post irrelevant information in good faith (Coles and West 2016). Hence, the disruption caused by the interactions here is considered as an unfortunate or unintended consequence.

Some brands use trolling as a strategy for marketing. It gives the brand a chance to go viral without spending a lot of cash (Vox 2019). Besides, it humanizes the brand, proving to customers they can be funny (Vox 2019). Spotify celebrated the end of 2017 by sharing reflection videos and statistics to their users. They took the information they had and turned it into an ad campaign, poking fun of their user’s habits (Adweek 2017). The campaign was very successful, garnering huge attention from consumers.

Grey Area

Now that we’ve covered both sides of trolling, is there a way to limit negative trolling? When it comes to online content, digital media companies are the governing authority. They have the power to control who they want on their platform. Recently, Facebook and Instagram banned controversial right-wing figures that include Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos due to their policies on hate speech and promoting violence (Bloomberg 2019). While some applaud Facebook’s decision, critics might say that Facebook is suppressing conservative voices and violating freedom of speech. In my opinion, trolls can never die off, it’s a part of internet culture. Therefore, banning trolls from digital platforms might not be the best solution. However, I do agree that trolls have to be liable to their online behaviours. They have to be identified and face legal consequences if they broke the law.

 References

Adweek. (2017). Spotify Unearths More Hilarious User Habits in Global Outdoor Ads for the Holidays. [online] Adweek.com. Available at: https://www.adweek.com/creativity/spotify-unearths-more-hilarious-user-habits-in-global-outdoor-ads-for-the-holidays/ [Accessed 6 May 2019].

Bloomberg.com. (2019). Facebook Bans Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, Other Far-Right Figures. [online] Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-02/facebook-bans-alex-jones-yiannopoulos-other-far-right-figures [Accessed 6 May 2019].

Coles, B.A. & West, M. 2016, "Trolling the trolls: Online forum users constructions of the nature and properties of trolling", Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 60, pp. 233-244.

Nicol, S. 2012, "Cyber-bullying and trolling", Youth Studies Australia, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 3-4.

Week 07 - Seventh Update of 20-Time!

NOTE: Apologies for being absent for a week or so, there was no time in class that week to work on it, but time will later be “doubled” up. 

Actual Status Updates:

Since it’s the halfway point towards the end goal of this entire project, I’d like to spend this update explaining my successes, failures, and how close I am to the end goal I presented myself. Throughout the entire process I placed for myself, I made multiple changes to adjust to the amount of time provided as well as my free time. I successfully went according to my plans and what I expected from me, being able to make 3 pieces in 6 weeks and making the other 3 pieces within another 6 weeks, along with using the other 2 weeks for planning so that everything runs smoothly. Multiple failures and obstacles showed up, one major failure was the fact that I was unable to completely color the big full piece, meaning it adds on more work onto each week than expected. Along with that, planning out how I’m going to equally divide the large piece along with the other pieces was quite difficult, but I made it work for now. So far, I’d say I’m making significant progress during class, especially since I was able to do the sketch and line-art of the 3rd piece during class, meaning all is left is to actually color it. Overall, I hope the next 6 weeks will continue to be successful and allow me to make progress on this, similarly to how well the first 6 weeks went. 

Thank you so much for following the development of my masterpiece and I hope you’ll continue to view my updates :)

[Week 07 - Techthoughts]

Week 7 - Effective Communication and Storytelling and Lesson Learned Pitching Template

Communication plays a critical role in a startup company. Still, more than that, it plays a vital part in effectively conveying our purpose and the message that we want to reach our target market through our navigation application, NavigaTour. 

As a startup company working to put our name out in the market for our audience to recognize, we place significance in communication well not just on the external faces of our product but as well as on the internal - meetings, discussions, deliberations - all of which help us hone our skills, understanding, and perspective as distinct individuals working as a team for this project.

For this week’s activity, we interviewed three individuals to gain insights into their viewpoints as users of a navigation application. We presented them with our MVP and asked what their opinions and feedback were about it. We also had the chance to ask about the following:

Frustrations when going to malls

The time it takes for them to find their desired store/facility in the mall

Their thoughts on having a portable navigation application

Their desired features on a navigation app

Their views on using the application in the future

Week 7: Summary 

We got back into the swing of things this week, after taking our week off last week. Both of the kids were excited to “do school” again, and honestly, so was I. I think there’s a certain rhythm with our days that we both seem to enjoy when we’re doing school. 

We’re fast approaching our first set of tests, so this week was spent preparing for them. Eli is reading WAY better than he was when we started, and I’m amazed at the difference 20-something lessons has made. Maybe it’s the one-on-one approach, or the new curriculum, but it’s made a world of difference. His confidence in reading has improved so much. 

We also learned about rain forests and the animals that live there this week as we read Afternoon on the Amazon. The kids were most excited about this!

A FEW OF THIS WEEK’S HIGHLIGHTS:

We watched Wild Kratts: Under the Canopy

We had Poetry Teatime on Wednesday. We had cupcakes and tea while we read the Flower Fairies: Autumn poems. 

Brilynn participated in the library’s preshcool program where she learned about germs. 

Eli participated in the library’s STEAM program where we did a few experiments, including watching sugar dissolve in water (using Skittles), and performing a chemical reaction with baking soda and vinegar to fill a balloon. 

Week 07: Introduction

Getting read to to kick off Week 07 of our 2020-2021 homeschool year! This week we’ll be focusing on “Time to the Hour” & "Adding to 5" in Math, preparing for our first test in Language Arts, working on the letter G (for Briley), and learning all about the Amazon Rain Forest. Eli is especially excited to learn about anacondas.