This course is designed in a way where you can succeed if you're self motivated and able to keep up with the pace. I think I'll try and work as much ahead as possible before the rest of my courses pick up. I'm excited to start this course! I think it'll be a good exercise on my self-motivation as well as my ability to stay organized.

I learned a lot of information today. Most of it was a refresher, as I’m pretty technically adept. However, there were some specifics on Canvas I wasn’t aware of in this level of detail, such as how to embed videos into a discussion post and other things like that. I also learned how important it is to have a backup plan, specifically for internet access. Professors/Employers won’t always be super accommodating if my internet goes out, so I should always have a second plan in place.

The Internet is just one invention that propelled society. People will always be adverse to change, but eventually I believe that people will grow used to it and it becomes normal. For example, we wouldn’t look twice if we saw someone putting erasers on pencils nowadays (I’d be more surprised if I saw a pencil without it), it’s so ingrained into our society now. I suppose that novelty becomes normal after some time, which can be seen as good or bad. I generally think that if it’s propelling our society forward, it’s good.

It was really cool to see what other students in this course are like! I feel like with online classes, especially in psychology, there’s always a wide variety of people. For example, a lot of people like music and chose to put music videos into their introduction posts, but this music ranged from LoFi, Pop, and even musicals! I’m excited to work with other people on this course, and I think that it’s awesome how an online course can bring so much interaction between students. In the past, I’ve only ever taken self guided online courses that only had you interacting with a lecture and maybe some autograded homework, nothing like this. I’m really excited to do this throughout the semester!

I think that this course will give me good insight into how I operate as a student and as a human being. I’m making goals for myself that I plan on working hard on. I want to invest in myself as much as possible. I hope that I’m able to better understand how I am able to be more productive and to know my own limitations, and work on stretching them until I improve.

AI tools are useful but not always correct. I should be citing my usage of them in my work as well as using them only for assistance, not for completion of entire assignments. I know that this tool is multiple years old, and I know that it has definitely improved since then. I tested this by giving AI generated code from a model today, asking it to write in my style. It actually marked it as more human than AI, which was crazy to see. It just goes to show how much technology has changed over the past 2-3 years even, and how impactful AI will be in our futures. Whether it be technological advancements or widespread hysteria, I’m not super certain. I know for sure that I’m curious to see where our society ends up.

Internet-based education is incredibly relevant in our current society. Our current day and age requires a lot more critical thinking, due to how much information is blasted in our faces and is available for us to consume. Not all of it is truthful, some of it is meant to sway our opinions on things like politicians or the economy. This course helps us in multiple facets, and prepares us to engage in internet-based discussions with a critical mind and experience writing to a multitude of people.

Learning skills on the internet is almost normal now. One of the most common occurrences of this is recipes online. Anyone can upload a recipe to the internet for cookies, pasta, etc. and someone will eventually try it out, and learn how to cook with the internet as their resource. It goes to show that our society has evolved to use the internet as one of their primary resources for learning skills, and it’s great as a tool to refresh/brush up on things like, how to change a tire, how to fix a leaky faucet, etc. I’ve used WikiHow for more things than I’d like to share, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to use the internet as a learning tool throughout my life.

Higher education today is defined by a massive gap between the "elite" 3% of students and the 97% who actually represent the average experience, yet the former is used to justify outdated traditional models. This inefficiency extends to the classroom, where it's increasingly bizarre that we read articles from whatever world renowned professor but settle for whatever lecture a local professor can produce that morning rather than utilizing the world’s best educators via MOOCs. Overall, a degree has shifted from an optional tool for mobility to a "hostage situation", a mandatory, expensive credential required simply to avoid falling out of the middle class or being filtered out by employers.

I remember when I was doing my college applications, I was really shocked to see the difference between the top schools compared to “elite” institutions. The statistic that the top 50 schools only educate 3% of the population is crazy. Why are we even using these students to generalize to the entire student population when 97% of the rest of the student population isn’t even remotely the same? Why do they get ignored? Also, I was really hit by the idea of how schools are almost a “hostage situation”, housing is a mandatory added cost to going to college. I’m grateful I live so close that my parents are willing to drive up (they like Madison so that’s an added bonus) and help me take stuff home for the summer, but a lot of people don’t have that luxury. My roommate for example lives in South Korea, and it’s too expensive to go home for Winter Break. He only goes home for like a month over the Summer, and I can’t imagine that’s super fun. He’s super locked in on his education though, so maybe it works for him? However, I think I do see the benefits of having online education just due to these two things, as it alleviates so much cost as well as allowing top notch professors to teach to a multitude of students worldwide.

I met with my group for the first time, and I think it’s a cool part of this course. It’s cool that we have the chance to discuss with our peers directly in a live conversation rather than just through discussion posts. I feel like it’ll help me actively engage with the information as well as get to hear the thoughts and opinions of others as well. One of the people in my group dropped the course, so it’s just me and another person. I feel like it might be kind of awkward just two people talking for an hour? But I’m sure we’ll make it work and it’ll end up being a good time.

I started going through units 1 and 2 today for journals, and I think that this style of project works for how my brain functions. Usually I’m a very last minute person, procrastinating until the last day. Knowing this, I decided to do the daily approach, as I know I would be scrambling to get the Term project done on the last day it was due. However, with this style of project, I feel like I’m almost obligated to do the summary/journal after I do each assignment, which helps me in a way as I’m unable to procrastinate. That’s something that I’m working on in general, I want to be more proactive and work ahead, work first and play later.

Modern students and traditional university practices don’t mix, universities need to change their practices that were made in an age pre-internet to help students learn and succeed in and out of the classroom. I agree with this sentiment, and am grateful for the opportunity to go to school for essentially free with the MJL scholarship.

Today we learned about meta-analyses, which take data from many studies that ask the same question and combine them increasing effect size and population size, creating a stronger argument. Because of the internet we’re able to do this much more efficiently as a lot of works are published online and it’s much easier to contact people regarding their work compared to before the internet. Meta-analyses help identify patterns that were previously unforeseen, and might help develop new findings in the field. I think that they’re a super useful tool to generate solid conclusions from many different studies.

Having read some other people’s thoughts on the challenges of college, I’m really grateful for my situation. For one, I’m on scholarship, which makes the financial burden on my parents and myself a lot easier. Second, I live nearby (about 2 hours away), which makes it easy to go home if I really wanted to. Third, I’ve been able to get pretty stable jobs throughout college which helps pay for things like rent and groceries (I’m writing this during work basically). Reading this article has made me a bit more cognizant of the struggles college students go through, and made me a lot more grateful for my situation. If my parents ever end up reading this, I’m so incredibly appreciative of everything you have helped me with, and I want to do my best to support you back in the future.

This exercise was great in helping me understand and strengthen my understanding of why online education works. Having to think about how I would explain it to someone else who isn’t super versed in psychology, like my roommate in Computer Science, would understand. I think that it’s probably easier to explain to someone who experienced high school or above during the COVID-19 pandemic, as they have experienced online learning firsthand. I think before the pandemic, it would be quite difficult to get your point across, but with many people in our generation having experienced it and learned online, it’s easier to get them to understand.

We had a great first conversation! Talking one on one for an hour actually isn’t that bad, I almost felt like we didn’t have enough time to complete our discussion. I’m sure that Professor Gernsbacher has thought of people having to do this, and gave us enough material to cover to talk for a whole hour. I’m also grateful that my partner is working ahead a little bit, similar to my pace. This makes it easy as I don’t have to go back and refresh myself on the material as much as I would have if we were doing the discussions last minute.

Today I worked on deciding what exactly I want to do with my Term Project. At first I was like, oh yeah I could totally do a presentation for High Schoolers! I feel like when I was in my AP Psychology course, I would really enjoy knowing all of my options before committing to a school if I could potentially do it online for cheaper. However, I still think that I like the journal six days a week (well, clearly this is what I chose because I am posting this). For one, I already have a website to host it on, I just need to do a subpage for it. Second, I think it’s just the best way to organize my thoughts and my feelings about the course, which I think would be helpful for anyone who views it.

The internet didn’t change how people talk, it’s kind of evolved over time due to other causes. Messages have been shorter and less formal since the 1800s. The synchronous/asynchronous debate is interesting, as a lot of the time I think I prefer synchronous communication, because it’s easier to tell how the other person is feeling and what they’re thinking, compared to analyzing texts. I also was thinking a lot about how our society has shifted to texts as a more popular form of communication over phone calls. Ever since I’ve been aware of technology, I think I’ve used texts over calls. I wonder what it must have been like to go from calls to texts. I hear this from my parents a lot (primarily my mom) how landlines changed to cell phones, and how that technological shift impacted her shift into adulthood.

A lot of things that you take for granted/do subconsciously when emailing professors isn’t always apparent to other people, who might’ve had a different understanding or less of an understanding on how or why people sent emails the way they did. I think this exercise was a great example of how people all have varied levels of experience with tasks, and you can always learn something new from someone else’s perspective.

I think this style of assignment is really cool! I love seeing other students’ perspectives, as it helps me gain a greater understanding of the student population. While only a small percentage of the actual student population, I feel like it helps increase my worldview just a little bit. A lot of students agreed with Eva and my discussion, about how alleviating student costs would be a net positive for schools, as well as having adaptive schedules so students can work on their assignments when and where they want instead of having to go 30 minutes across campus for a 7am class. I also saw some interesting takes from other groups. One of them was how repetitive information in lectures often leads to boredom and disengagement. I’ve found that in Psychology classes especially, they often repeat the same exact things in the first 1-2 weeks of the course about the scientific method, and experiments. I feel like this could be condensed into a notesheet for students, since, if this isn’t your first psychology course, you’ve probably already seen these things. They should teach it in the introductory course, and leave it as reference for the rest of the courses.

Today we focused on the asynchrony and transient nature of the internet, and how it makes humans more truthful. Straightlining, satisficing, and socially desirable responding (all key features of human nature during surveying) are less present online, due to the nature of the internet and how surveys are less pressuring than in person interviews. The lack of social pressure makes people way more comfortable revealing private information that could out them as undesirable when it’s online. People are also way more comfortable being mean/rude online as they aren’t talking to someone face to face, which is a topic for another day.

The articles we read for this discussion were really interesting. I think that it’s interesting to see studies try to draw connections between texting and literacy. It’s cool to think about how, as language evolves, it affects the younger generations in ways that we don’t really think about. I’m an only child, so I wasn’t really affected by older siblings and how they act, talk, and what they find funny. However, as an older sibling now (to 7 younger step/half siblings), I am definitely more conscious about what I say and talk about to my younger siblings. Even my 6 year old half-sister knows about “six-seven” which is absurd to me. It goes to show how trends and social media affect younger generations, almost through a downward trickle/network of information. Going back to the subject of texting, I think that being able to interpret lingo and new slang does definitely correlate with literacy and cognitive thinking in language.

It’s really interesting to think about how a lot of people have no idea how to write formal emails to professors. I think I gained a lot of strength in this muscle by having to write a lot of emails to my parents specifically. I think they did this so that I would gain some ability to send formal emails before they actually mattered, as they taught me to write with respect. However, this article did give me some insight into some things I could be doing differently. I want to start implementing paragraphs to break up different topics when writing to professors, as that’s something I haven’t really been doing. That’s definitely something I’ll be working on in the future.

Today I learned about how things on the internet go viral, and what entails that. First, it must have some sort of connection/chain with its audience. People must share it with people who share it with people. This can only be done, or people only want to do this if there’s an emotional connection with the video, such as it’s a fundraiser, for a good cause, or appeals to other feelings of emotion like rage or joy. Finally, there has to be an element of surprise. For example, with the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, it’s strange to see people dumping freezing water on themselves on purpose. Then, the person in the video challenges other people, inherently sharing it with them. These people must share it with other people, who do the same etc until it becomes viral.

People often hide behind anonymity to share their hateful opinions online. I think it’s more common nowadays that people don’t need to share their personal information and can just spread hate online. People are often more bitter and expressive about how they feel when they’re not under scrutiny of the people they know, or the fact that people they know don't know that you are you (if that makes sense). I think that as long as the internet remains a place of elective anonymity, there will always be hate, it’s hard to combat it. I think with aggressive hate filtering, it might help, but it could also lead to less disagreement about opinion pieces, which I don’t think is intended. I think it’s a developing struggle, but something that can still be worked on to this day. Maybe with more AI tools, we can detect hateful language and purge it before it gets put out on the internet. I like the quiz idea though.

Our accounts are really the first thing that interviewers/recruiters see, even before first round interviews. I’ll often go on Incognito and search myself up, trying to find any information about myself that I don’t want to be public, and change my accounts and image as much as possible. For example, I currently play the Pokemon TCG, and won a tournament back in 2025 (back before I had cut my hair, and it was really unkempt). I saw this, and was appalled at how bad I looked in the photo, and asked them to remove it for personal reasons. It goes to show that, if people are willing to take time out of their day to find dirt on you, they can and will if you’re not careful. I learned that account security and personal image are incredibly important in a professional field, and it’s something I should be concerned about for pretty much the rest of my life.

This assignment really got me thinking about how much of the news I consume is through social media. I’m not really super up to date on current events, besides what I see on social media. While most of my feed is related to things I like, such as games, anime, and music, some national news does pop through. Usually it’s through reposts from my other friends, or the algorithm determines it’s popular enough to show me even though it’s not something I generally like. This also got me thinking about how social media companies can hide news from people, and silence them for speaking out about political issues and other things. Social media as an outlet can be used to have widespread sharing of news, or they can shut it down completely before it spreads too much. However, once something is viral, word of mouth and other channels are often used, making it hard for them to silence the general public.

When I was younger, I accidentally went onto a site that was a replica of Amazon, and didn’t realize that I was on the wrong page until I saw that my autofilled password and username didn’t pop up, which was strange. I realized I had typed a second ‘z’, and quickly closed out of the site. Things like this can be used to steal information from unsuspecting users, and is more common than you think. I think that in another context, media literacy is incredibly important. Understanding every aspect of current events requires more than just clicking on one social media post and watching a video with an AI generated speech over it. It requires a little more nuanced understanding that I don’t think the average person really does. This makes it difficult to engage in discussions with other people about these controversial topics as a lot of people don’t have that effort to put in to understand the issue on a more concrete level.

The internet is such a fascinating space. It’s both cool and scary how easily something can go viral. We talked about things like the Ice Bucket Challenge (which gained some popularity again last year? That was kind of weird) and that was designed to spread, as people who did the challenge nominated other people. Due to the nature of the challenge (being for charity), it would look really bad on your image if you didn’t participate as well, so a lot of people did it out of protection of their image which was interesting. However, there were also some interpersonal things that went viral that definitely weren’t supposed to go viral. I can’t imagine my texts being blasted on live television for everyone to see, especially if they were meant for one person. I would be so embarrassed I would probably hide for 5 years or so in a cave. However, we can use this and kind of game the system in a way if you want something to go viral. If people have connections with the emotions in the video, a point of connection to start sharing it, and an element of surprise, it is more likely to go viral.

It’s insane to me how many couples meet online in the modern age, the Data is Beautiful (2024) visualization was shocking. I also thought the data on how many relationships end online was interesting as well. I don’t find it surprising that many people who meet online end up breaking up online, because it’s normalized in our society. While rude, it’s understandable because some people might feel it’s safer to do online, and they don’t have to confront their partner directly. I read the optional readings as well, and the idea of AI companions is really scary. I know birthrates in Eastern countries (Japan, South Korea) are declining rapidly, and I’m worried about the future of our society globally. AI is designed to keep you interested and keep you using it, and there’s a loneliness epidemic going on right now which AI companies are taking advantage of.

I’m not a super big fan of online dating, as I prefer to meet people in person/through social interaction or common interests/hobbies. However, I do think it’s cool that there are ways for people who struggle with that in person meeting or interaction to find people with common interests online. There were a lot of really niche dating sites I found, such as for artists, gamers, readers, high income individuals(?!), and more. I think this really connects with the idea that people usually find romantic relationships from people with similarities. Interpersonal attraction is so interesting, and it’s cool that people can find that online.

I also think that it’s a sign of our society and how we are developing as more people are trending to find partners online, rather than in person. I was thinking about this the other day, like how people in person generally don’t talk to people they don’t know on the street. Is this being supported by the increasing amount of online dating and interactions moving online instead? It’s almost like people have headphones on 24/7 and get freaked out when you give people compliments and things like that on the street. I don’t know how I feel about it, and am slightly concerned for the younger generations.

This article made me really sad. I can’t imagine feeling so depressed and isolated from targeted cyberbullying from one of my previously closest friends. The lengths that her cyberbully went through just to make her feel isolated are insane. The fact that she didn’t even tell her parents at the time was also awful, I felt so bad for her. I usually don’t ever comment on any posts on the internet, unless it’s one of my friends and I’m pictured (sometimes they choose super unphotogenic photos of me which is really annoying). However, I never get so emotionally charged that I think about writing hateful messages to people, ESPECIALLY people I don’t know. From an early age, I learned that generally, people might not have the same opinion as you. However, this doesn’t mean you’re always right and they’re wrong, perhaps their perspective is just different due to differing previous experiences. It’s also important to realize that people on social media and the internet are people too, and humanizing them makes you realize that they have their own set of feelings and emotions, just like you.

Our discussion today was really productive! I think that generally, kids are afraid to speak up about bullying because they're afraid that they might be the next target. I definitely felt this when I was in elementary school, and just tended to ignore it. However, I don't think this is possible with cyberbullying. People are always like "oh just put the phone down" but it eats at your mental state, and it spreads a lot quicker than traditional bullying. This is why we talked about how we can implemnent things like better auto-moderation on social media, having emotionally charged messages ask the user to think about what they're posting and have to confirm before they submit, as well as an easier anonymous reporting system for when you see cyberbullying online. This would hopefully help with the cyberbullying problem, and would hopefully make the internet a safer space for youth and adults alike.

Interpersonal attraction on the internet is really fascinating to me. For one, I don't know if you can really get to know a person online. There's so many quirks and mannerisms of people that aren't possible to see online. I honestly hate texting people, and would rather just meet up in person. However, this is hard when people don't have that time or energy to meet up, which is why texting or calling is usually the default. I've stopped pursuing a lot of friendships and relationships even because, even if they were super cool person and there was that interpersonal attraction, it wasn't enough to urge me to continue working towards fostering a friendship/relationship with them because they weren't matching my energy or weren't willing to put in as much effort as I was. While difficult to swallow, it's definitely something that does happen and you kind of just need to accept that not everyone you talk to is going to stay a friend, and that's okay!

I’m so grateful that we’re talking about emotional contagion! I’ve felt this way before and am grateful to learn more about it in detail. Usually whenever I’m walking outside, I try to smile at people on the street, or in general. After being outside in the sun, I feel much happier in general, and even if it’s placebo, I feel that it’s easier to be in a good mood. There’s a lot of negativity on the internet, and I feel that it’s easy to fall into a spiral of doomposting and digging a hole for yourself. However, I think that it’s equally as easy to find happiness on the internet as well. I think it’s all a matter of perspective. Whenever I see something that really resonates with my emotions, I’ll put it on my Instagram story, I like things such as hopecore, happy music, or silly cats and things like that. I mainly post it for myself, but if it makes someone’s day better, that’s wonderful! I try to bring positivity to wherever I go, but sometimes it’s difficult. In times like these, I find that I often try to catch happiness from other people, whether it be in person or online, which helps make the day better for me.

I think that the idea of pocket friends resonated with me a lot. Of course, I love my friends in person at school, and my roommates and my close personal circle. However, it’s nice having access to my friends online as well. I often game with my friends back in Illinois, it feels like we’re always connected in some way. I’ve also made some really close friends strictly online, friends from all the way since the pandemic who I’ve stuck with, played games with, and talked about current events and other difficult topics with. I’d call them close friends, and it’s interesting that that relationship can exist strictly through a digital medium. I think for people who are relatively isolated, such as during the pandemic, it’s great to have friends to rely on online. However, I think it’s unhealthy to only have online relationships and none in person, but some people are too afraid to approach people and make friends in person, so they resort to online because they feel safer. I’m not a fan of this, but I know some people who rely on this sort of thing.

I have always wondered why there is such a preference for cats online than dogs. I like both, and this assignment was an interesting thought experiment as to why cats are preferred on the internet. I think it’s a combination of all the hypotheses. My main thoughts are that: 1. Cats are cute, and people often capture funny animals doing funny things. 2. Introverts are more aligned with cats as they’re alike in the sense that they’re low maintenance and don’t need much. 3. They’re the perfect animal for relatable and authentic content.

I read about ISGs (Internet Support Groups) for individuals with depression, and I think it’s a wonderful idea. I have witnessed how people with depression and other mental health disorders have been able to communicate online with other people, and it has helped their recovery. This is also true for non-mental health disorders, I know that I’ve had experience with things like “Oh my PC is broken, let me ask my other PC-savvy friends” and they were able to help out. Kind of in the same vein as “Pocket Friends”, I think it’s super cool that you can have access to support at your fingertips, as sometimes it’s hard to find people who are able to support you in person. I also think it’s just cool in general that you can create meaningful friendships online.

I feel like after talking with my group, we came to the conclusion that synthetic happiness, or the happiness that we make in our brain when we don’t get our way (for example, oh they ran out of this ice cream flavor that I wanted, but the one that I got is pretty good too) is just as impactful as natural happiness (the ice cream flavor I wanted was in stock!). I thought this was really interesting! With a background in social and cognitive psychology, I thought it was cool to learn you can kind of “fake it ‘till you make it” like the saying goes. I was also thinking about how this ties into the internet, but I’m still kind of stuck as to how it connects. Maybe I’ll think about it during a later journal entry and write about it then.

Back on the topic of emotional contagion, I think it’s super interesting how this works in real life. Just this week I had an experience where I was having a really good day. I had a productive day at work, got a free burger for helping with some IT stuff (it was a burger tasting survey thing at work for Carl Jr.’s?), a new album came out for a band I like, and it was sunny outside! I went to the 7-Eleven near my apartment on the walk home from work and was talking to the cashier, who looked a bit down. It almost felt like their emotions were affected by mine, and their mood was a bit lifted by the interaction. It's so cool to see emotional contagion working in real life, and how happiness can spread. I want to be someone who’s able to make other people happy, even through small and seemingly meaningless interactions.

This was a LOT of information to cover, even I think I need a break to cyber-slack a little after writing all of this. I feel like this assignment could’ve been split into two responses. However, there was a lot of good information here. I think it was interesting to learn about both why students get distracted in classes, as well as how professors respond to this distraction. If you’re not paying attention in class, it could impact how a professor feels, they worked so hard to get to where they are, and they’re taking time out of their day to teach students who don’t even pay attention. It might feel pretty miserable if your passion is to educate the youth and their eyes are glued to their laptops as they type. I usually try to type notes quickly before looking back at the professor, because I enjoy a lot of in person teaching methods. Also, I think that it was cool to learn that students who use laptops don’t actually distract those who are around them, which contradicts what other professors have told me before such as in African American Art History.

It was fun to talk about my books! I love reading, and can do so for hours on end. When I was younger, I often would go through 30 library books in a week, and take a big bag back to the library. Over the past few years of college, I haven’t had a ton of time to read. However, this year I made it a goal to try and read more, which I’ve been successful in doing. I think the psychology behind binging is interesting, there were a lot of points I agreed with. I also agree that it’s kind of become socially acceptable to binge with the younger generation. I know my stepsister likes to binge shows a lot, but my parents view it as unhealthy. The shows that I like usually release weekly, so I try to watch them each week as episodes come out. However, I have found that binge-watching a whole 12-episode anime has been enjoyable, but I’m unsure if I enjoy it more than watching it weekly. Next time I do so I’ll be more cognizant of it.

When thinking about how I would design a classroom, I honestly kind of like the flipped classroom model. It puts the work onto the students, making sure that they get the lecture info ahead of time. Currently in my Computer Architecture class and in other engineering classes I’ve taken, we’ve had to watch lectures before class, basically self paced. Then, we worked on exercises and “homework” essentially in class. This was great, because it gave us time to ask the professor and TAs questions without having to go out of our way to office hours. I think a model like this would work for technical classes, and honestly any class in general. I’ve done something similar for a social studies class, so if the professor structures lecture like a discussion with lectures done at home, I think it might be worth looking into for psychology courses as well, if they haven’t done so already. I also don’t think it’s the laptops fault at all, and the studies behind it show that they actually don’t distract the people around the laptop that much either.

It’s kind of crazy to see how often I use the internet, and for what tasks I’m using it for. Whether it be actually work related or related to personal motivations, I use it for pretty much everything. I also wasn’t aware that so much of my internet usage had multiple motivations tied to them, but when I think about it now, it makes a lot of sense. Often, there isn’t just one motive for something, but rather a combination/conglomeration of different reasonings behind it. For example, even doing the Wordle involves Conative (related to self efficacy and self motivation) and Cognitive (problem solving) motivations. It’s interesting to know all of the different types of motivation defined by Huitt (2011), I’ve found myself thinking about WHY exactly I do things, and this is kind of connected to it. I think I’ve gained a greater understanding on my motivations as well as what generally drives me.

Today I’ve been working on trying to choose a new group for the rest of the discussions we’ll have for this class. I reached out to another person who I always see working at the same pace as me, since I think we’ll both find it nice to have the discussions done ahead of time. No hate to my current group, but I would enjoy having the discussions on pace with the rest of the work that we’re doing instead of doing the previous week’s discussion while I’m already working on new information. I hope that it works out, as I’m trying to complete this course as early as possible so I can focus on final exams when that time does come. I also think that’s why I’m trying to do the six-days-a-week journal, as it’s something I can do efficiently.

This assignment asked me to list 6 of Huitt’s motivations and show examples from my journal, but I definitely did not use 6/7 of them. I don’t think my biological needs were met through my internet usage, and neither were my spiritual needs. I kind of BS’d it, but there have been things that I have done that could be classified as motivated by spiritual needs, such as finding a sense of self etc. I think it’s interesting that so many people use the internet differently as well. For example, my grandpa is incredibly religious and sends me Facebook posts about God often, and I just react with a heart to them usually. I think that’s definitely a social motivator as well as a spiritual motivator. However, most of my internet usage is just to kill time, gain information, make connections, or talk to my friends.

It’s kind of interesting to think about how all of the icons on my computer and phone are meant to represent something, or they used to represent something. For example, I can definitely tell that the Books icon on my Mac is meant to be a book, but are there some people who don’t understand that? Also, the Move icon on Google Docs is a file folder, but I haven’t seen that style used with the little tab in a long time. Eventually, things like that will phase out, and who knows what it’ll look like in 100 years. It’s really interesting to think about how skeuomorphism affects our lives, and it’s so specific to our generation. For example, will people in 100 years even know why the camera icon looks like an older camera? Will they know any cameras besides the ones on their smartphone? Will we even have smartphones? It’s really a rabbit hole and not something I want to get too deep into, but it’s definitely an interesting dinner table topic in my opinion.

I found that doing the Brooks’ Multitasking experiment was really hard, I am definitely not good at multitasking. I know some people who argue that they’re really good multitaskers, and can do things like working and watching the TV at the same time, but they’re really just task switching in fast intervals. I watch a lot of shows in foreign languages that require subtitles, so having to switch from working to reading subtitles is really taxing and I would rather just finish my work and then watch my show. Arguing that you’re doing things simultaneously and then just switching back and forth really fast is kind of silly if you think about it. For example, when I’m cooking and trying to talk to someone on the phone at the same time, it’s often difficult when someone asks me a question and I’m doing something that requires a lot of cognitive focus like trying to measure a liquid for a recipe. There’s also the idea that Gloria Mark talked about in her article that really stood out to me and made me ponder, that often people tend to spend their time scrolling social media and other lightweight tasks when they have significant sleep debt, since it’s an easier task and doesn’t require that much of our attention or cognition. I think this is definitely the case, as a lot of young adults don’t get enough sleep. Even talking to my friends who I used to play games with, they argue that they just don’t have the motivation or time anymore to play games like they used to, but scroll Instagram and Tiktok for multiple hours a day, which is quite silly.

This was honestly pretty absurd to me. The shock value that humans have a shorter attention span than goldfish would definitely make some of the less media literate people in my life consider it as fact. It’s also a lesson that fake news is always prevalent, and could even come from reliable sources like Microsoft. Never believe anything you see online as fact immediately, you should always be hesitant to believe from a random person online. That’s our job as students, scholars, and just members of the internet, to prevent the spread of misinformation.

Another person in my group (this was a “reply to someone else’s findings” type of assignment) talked about if we can identify if photos have been edited/photoshopped. I think with someone with a bit of experience with photoshop, I’m generally pretty keen on edits and things like that, especially with lighting. Obviously if a photo has edited lighting to be slightly abnormal it’s pretty clear, but things like cuts and pastes are also relatively easy to detect. What I am worried about is the increasing prevalence of AI media, and the idea that any photo you look at could be AI generated. Currently I have no problem detecting the AI images, I know some older people often just send me AI generated products and are totally unaware that it’s not real. However good we are at detecting the fake images, the generation is only going to get better. I’m afraid of what’s to come, and definitely agree that AI policy is a super important topic to focus on, especially in politics. So many older people aren’t as technologically aware of AI and deepfakes, and seeing someone like a presidential candidate blowing up a hospital could seem as real as the newspaper to them, which is something I am not looking forward to seeing more of (to a lesser degree of course).

Having used Pomodoro before, helped a lot except when I was really enjoying the work and wanted to keep going. I’ve also used social media blockers before, which I haven’t found to be that helpful. An extension called “Just Focus” was honestly pretty helpful, and reminded me to stay on task when I set a timer to explicitly block my social media usage for an hour and I left my phone in my bag turned off. It was hard to focus at first as I always craved that notification’s dopamine, but I realized that I was so much more focused when I was just dealing with my work.

On the topic of visual attention, I think that I once thought I was good at multitasking. There are a lot of people who think they’re good at multitasking. My mom thinks she’s a good multitasker. In reality, we’re all just slightly decent at context switching, It’s interesting to think that people think the internet is changing our brains and messing with our attention spans, where people have always been distracted. I think an example of this is that, no matter what I’m doing, such as thinking about an exam or working on a project or driving, my attention can switch to something else relatively quickly. I don’t think it’s due to the internet. I think that if I put my mind to it, I can distract myself from working without the need for anything at all. If you want to be distracted, you will be. This is true regardless of the access or the introduction of the internet. I think the internet is just an easy gateway to distraction, as well as an easy scapegoat for people who are arguing against it and it’s negatively affecting our attention spans. It’s actually a very good tool to get all of the boredom out quickly and then refocus, which research has described and I have experienced personally.

I feel like I’ve often heard in elementary and middle school that Wikipedia wasn’t a valid source, and we shouldn’t use it in our academic assignments. Whether it be due to dated professors, used to Wikipedia being a mess of a website, or ignorance of valid sourcing on the site, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to use it for essays and the like. However, I have definitely used them as a collection of information, helping me summarize information about topics. I like using Wikipedia to find the sources, which are usually listed at the bottom, which I can then cite with APA or whatever specific method my teachers/professors have required. I appreciate all of the research being done about Wikipedia’s validity, and I appreciate that there’s actual scientific backing behind the validity of its information. With the abundance of AI being pushed in our faces on the Internet, I think it’s really important to be careful with your sources, and if Wikipedia is doing a lot to prevent trolls from editing important medical information and the like on the site, then props to them.

As a renowned Google Reviewer myself, I know the true importance that reviews have on the average consumer’s perception of a restaurant (lie). I only review restaurants for fun and when they give you a discount for it LOL. However, even my little reviews of things like card shops and restaurants get likes, and are seen by people who might be thinking about going there for the first time. It’s kind of crazy that I can even have an impact on other people’s lives, even across the country. For example, I reviewed a lighthouse I went to on the West Coast, and it has over 30 likes. The review was also about a paragraph long in terms of length, which is in line with what the research showed about how people are more inclined to like and see more specific reviews than just “ate good food”. I have also been thinking about how even a marginal difference such as rating a restaurant as 4 stars instead of 5 stars can impact how people see it. For example, if you see a 5 star average rating vs even a 4.5 star rating, you start to wonder why people rated it below 5 stars, which creates a negative perception in your head. I’ve also found that the best Chinese restaurants often have reviews under 3 stars, don’t have seating indoors, and look super run down. Also shoutout QQ Express.

I think this assignment was really interesting. I got to write an email about the impact of wikipedia as an online resource, and other people chose to talk about the dangers of bots online. I was shocked to find out how many bots were present online, and they could take up over half of the population of Twitter which is absurd. I also think there could be a lot of AI generated users or profiles online, which makes it hard to detect for some people. Obviously sometimes it’s really easy to tell because of the art style of an image (I unfortunately have some people in my life who don an AI generated profile picture) or the way that they type (the em dash is not indicative of AI please and thank you). I feel like AI is just a more modernized internet nuisance of the bot, and with both prevalent it’s crazy to think that someone you’ve known for years could actually just be a robot.

This assignment was really fun, it’s kind of interesting to see that, the more satirical reviews a product has, it indicates how, when one person writes a review with heavy sarcasm, it almost eggs people on to do the same. It’s like the “if someone jumped off a bridge would you follow?” kind of rhetoric except I think it’s very slightly different. I think it could be that people just want/like the attention, or they see that there’s an easy target to make them feel in-group? Make them feel more secure or included. What drives someone to be sarcastic when writing a review? I think it’s generally just to get some sort of reaction out of people. Me, me, me! That’s all I care about. I’m generally sarcastic in tone, but only around people who know that I’m joking. I guess looking introspectively I could definitely see how I might just want to get a reaction out of people, poking the bear per-se. I don’t think it’s necessarily bad but it does tell you certain things about people especially if they have difficulty detecting sarcasm both in person and over the internet.

It’s really interesting to think about how heuristics make such a big deal in our decision making. I wonder if marketing has a lot of emphasis on the emotional and psychological motivators when designing advertisements and websites. I have been influenced by star ratings, especially when choosing where to eat in a new location. I’m pretty adventurous when it comes to food, so I always try to go somewhere that is local, but star ratings definitely play a role in deciding what that is. For the availability heuristic, I have also been affected by this online. I talk to a lot of people who are from the United Kingdom, and they have completely different norms than us in the United States for some things. For anchoring and adjustment, I’ve been influenced to spend more money because of the “added benefits” of the slightly more expensive option. For example, buying a “deluxe” edition of a game just for a few extra outfits, even though it’s completely unnecessary.

It’s fun learning about the different heuristics of reasoning again, it’s kind of silly to think about how much we’re affected by things like the representativeness, availability, and anchoring heuristics. I think for reviews of restaurants specifically which I’ve talked about before, sometimes the restaurants with 3-4 star ratings end up being the best, and it’s due to poor customers that don’t get served like royalty at the family restaurant who end up bringing the rating down. When thinking about the example posed in the document about heuristics as well as Professor Gernsbacher’s lecture video, it’s pretty interesting to think about how anchoring works as a marketing tactic. As an example from my personal experience, when choosing an internet plan for my apartment I chose the middle option since it was only $10 more for a large increase in speed. This was so close in price to the lower option that had a much slower speed, it only made sense (in my mind) to choose the slightly more expensive but a lot faster option.

When I was younger, I was limited to only 16 minutes of screen time. I was given 15 minutes at first, but I was so smart and got a 1 minute extension by haggling with my parents. I think when I was younger there was definitely more of a caution over the usage of the Internet for children, as it’s almost like a lawless zone for kids to get into all sorts of trouble in the 2000-2010s. I mainly just played games (like Clifford!) but I did find myself accidentally clicking on Ads and finding myself in places I shouldn’t have been, like gambling sites. I see my parents (specifically my Dad and Stepmom, who are both great parents) kind of off-hand the parenting aspect to Kindles or other tablets, and while some people write it off as bad parenting, there are good aspects of these devices when used correctly. There’s a lot of educational content available, and whenever I go over I always end up being shown something on a game from one of my half-sisters. It’s interesting to think about if I was born even 10 years before I was, I would be living a completely different life. Technology advances so fast and it’s hard to imagine what it’ll be like when I’m raising kids of my own.

I really like these email assignments, I think they provide an opportunity to put yourself in the shoes of someone who’s actively trying to help another person figure out the Internet. I generally like helping people through their technological problems, and think it’s great to see people come out of it with an understanding of how things work. I also think it’s great to help dismiss these precognitions and negative assumptions about technology, as they’re mostly just false. It’s almost like a fear cycle, new technologies come out that the older generation isn’t comfortable with, and they crap on it, and then the new generation likes it, gets used to it, and it repeats. Just today I had to help someone with OneDrive, and they asked how long it’s been around. I think OneDrive has been around since I’ve been using Windows, which is kind of interesting to think about because the older generation’s idea of technology and timelining is so different from mine. 20 years for someone older could just be the time they’ve been at a company, but for me that’s my entire life.

I think the Internet is really beneficial to older people. Thinking of my grandparents specifically, I know my grandpa on my dad’s side uses Facebook (and sends me way too many posts), and my grandma uses the internet to watch Japanese news and chat with family back in Japan. I know they also use the internet to chat with friends locally, as well as communicate with people from their churches and other communities. I think it’s great that older people especially have access to this kind of stuff as when people get older, there are a lot of factors that impede the ability to see people. One is their bodily mobility of course, and another is just the fact that people move away and drift apart (this is applicable to all ages of course). Another factor is the idea of loneliness. When my grandpa on my mom’s side passed away, I was kind of worried for my grandma as she’d be living alone, but I think she’s adapted well and I get to see her pretty much every time I’m back home from school (she lives like 30 minutes away). She’s still active in her communities and finds time to make new friends as well, which is awesome.

This assignment was to teach an older adult (I chose my grandma) to use an aspect of the internet. I taught her how to use Instagram, as well as how privacy settings on it worked. I think she learned a lot, and was excited to be able to chat with her nieces in Japan and cheer them on as they were applying to colleges and doing entrance exams etc. She was a little difficult to work with since she had very little experience with social media as well as the Internet, but I kind of took the approach as someone who works with older adults on a daily basis at work. It’s easy to get frustrated, so it’s important to stay calm while explaining things and make sure that they really understand it. I also taught her the importance of choosing a password that was both complex and memorable, since she forgot her iCloud password and we had to wait an hour to download an app due to the security measures. Overall, it was a fun time and a good way to spend an hour or two playing card games.

Today we talked about the digital divide. Learning about the disparity of internet resources between different families, schools, and communities across the US made me realize how grateful I am that I’ve pretty much always had access to the Internet. I’ve been living in a suburban/urban area all my life. I feel like I’d be much different if I lived on something like a farm in the middle of nowhere. I would probably have different values, and would think differently about the Internet. I think about lower income families that can’t afford access to the Internet, and think about what resources that schools can assist with when giving out assignments. Our group talked about always having a paper version available, which I think is a great idea.

I’ve been thinking about the Internet a lot in this unit. Especially how it affects lives across such a wide age spectrum. Even kids from the age of 3-4 all the way to elderly use the Internet now. I can’t imagine what it was like when the Internet and the World Wide Web first came out, who was using it, for what were they using it for, how long did it take for them to adapt, as well as for older adults, and younger kids alike? I think it’s interesting to see how integrated it has become into our daily lives, we’re all basically connected through this giant web with our phones and computers and the like. Even our cars are connected to the Internet now. I think it’s probably similar to how people feel when AI became more popular now, and I can definitely see some similarities in how people are treating AI with what we’ve learned about the introduction and immediate feedback to the start of the Internet. Excited and scared to see where it’ll go, excited to be at the relative front of the pack, scared for the possibilities it brings.

I think I agree with this personality test, and feel like my extraversion has definitely gone up as I’ve gotten older. In Elementary and Middle school, I would often skip out on things like recess to read books or get homework done, since I’d rather spend my time finishing my work than playing basketball or four-square (which was fun from time to time, but only if my work was done). However, in High School I found a good group of friends who would always urge me to go out and do things that I wouldn’t normally do, like go to the mall and other things with other people. I really appreciate my friends, and am grateful for them helping me step outside my comfort zone and realize that I do enjoy spending time with other people and going out, a lot more than I used to. In college, I’m usually out either playing card games or just hanging out with friends 3-4 nights a week. I do know that I want to balance this with studying and more “me-time”, maybe more than another extrovert. I feel like I’m still growing my social battery, and I want to become someone who has no problem making friends with anyone (I guess this plays into the openness and agreeableness factors of the Big 5 Personality tests).

I think it’s interesting to think about how much data goes into advertisements and the algorithms on the sites that we visit on the daily. There’s a reason that you see what ads you see, what posts you see, they know a lot more about you than you think. When dealing with politics and political advertisements, it’s interesting to think that personality could have an effect on how you vote. I’m pretty sure I know opposite ends of the spectrum of each of the Big Five Personalities on both ends of the political spectrum (introversion especially).

It’s interesting to think about how so many people can have varying levels of each trait and be so similar in nature. I had some of my friends and family members take the personality test, and I got some unexpected results. One of my friends who I felt was relatively agreeable at most times got a really low score on agreeableness (something around 37%). I wonder if he’s generally less agreeable to others and more agreeable within our friend group, due to factors like not wanting to cause any contention or just being more open to things. I’ve been thinking about what factors stem from each trait, and how things like your upbringing and environment can shift what factors are more prevalent in your personal life. I also think how you perceive yourself can be really varied from what the test results show, which can be kind of jarring.

Today I learned about how our brains and our technology work together to trick us into thinking our appearance is much different than it should be when we take photos. It’s kind of interesting that we’re so used to looking at a mirrored image of ourselves through physical mirrors that seeing a non-mirrored image is so weird to our brain. I’ve experienced something similar, just through taking photos, and realize that I’m not used to seeing myself not mirrored. It’s so weird to see photos un-mirrored, and think that that’s how other people see you. If you think about it, you’ve also never truly seen your face, just mirrored perceptions and photos of yourself.

We discussed the idea of humblebragging, and how it has the opposite effect on how people see you, compared to what you intended. Humblebragging is defined as trying to brag about an achievement while trying to mask it as modest. For example “Oh, I’m sorry I couldn’t hang out last night, I was sooo busy writing my acceptance speech for this award”. Neither of us had much personal experience humble bragging, I personally was not super aware of it when using Instagram or other social media sites. We discussed what we would tell a close friend the next time they humblebragged. We said that it would be best to be direct with them and tell them to just own up to the bragging or complaining instead of trying to act humble, as we said that humblebraggers probably have some mental or personality based issues that could use work. Overall we decided that we would take more notice of humblebragging and try to snuff it out when we see it in our personal circles.

It’s kind of interesting to think about the idea of a “selfie” is just taking a photo of yourself with your own camera. Therefore I guess cameras could’ve been used for this for a long time, since cameras have been around. I wonder when people truly started to popularize taking your own photo with a camera. Does it seem self centered for a photographer to want to take their own photo? They could always get someone else to press the button/whatever mechanism as well. I think it’s truly a representation of human desire for expression, which is beautiful.

This assignment we were tasked with writing a message replying to a friend about how this course isn’t just about the negative effects of the Internet. It’s kind of crazy how much we’ve learned over the course of just 13 weeks, I’m also grateful as to how much I’ve remembered due to the Course Summary assignment having us review each week, and the sheet just gets longer and longer (It’s almost done thank goodness, having a 14 page assignment for just one day of the week is super taxing). I’m grateful for what I’ve learned so far and I’m excited to finish this course off strong.

I think it’s really cool to see how intervention methods work, especially through things like smoking. The one thing I will never do is smoke cigarettes, knowing my addictive nature. I think it’s interesting to see that if people are given support and put their mind to quitting, if they really truly do want to quit, there is some success. I think it’s also kind of interesting to see that only 11% of participants with Text2Quit were able to quit completely, which goes to show how hard addiction is to quit. I’m grateful for good support groups in person who have helped me stay away from things like nicotine and other substances!

This assignment we learned about cognitive behavioral therapy. I think it’s definitely interesting, and something I’ve learned about before. I know how impactful it can be, but I didn’t know that internet-based CBT is also effective. I also didn’t know about the free resources available on apps as well as on campus. I don’t think either person I had to talk to about these things knew much about CBT, so it was cool to teach them a bit.

One of my classmates read an article about how online self-help services are beneficial for college students dealing with depression. On the surface, I thought that this made sense, but I could definitely see how people might view online resources as negative as it's not as strong as in-person interventions like support group meetings or in-person therapy. However, they found that these had a similar effect to in-person help resources, which I thought was super cool. Online resources are much more accessible to the general public, and are a good choice for college students who can't always find time in their schedule to go to an in person meeting.

Our group discussed the various benefits of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as well as how our term projects were going. One of my group members said that she was feeling really stressed because of how many assignments were all due at the same time, and found that the articles we read about realistic goal setting and managing time well, and I feel like we all got a better grasp on how we were feeling and what we needed to do. We also said that we would keep each other accountable, which I thought was awesome. This was the last discussion of the semester, and I hope that we’re still able to keep in touch throughout the rest of the semester, and reach our individual goals.

Going back to the idea of an “internet addiction”, it’s kind of interesting to think about. I personally don’t believe that you can be addicted to the internet directly, but maybe the access that it enables is addicting. For example, being able to get almost any information immediately, or the dopamine we get from scrolling reels. Also the various things people get addicted to like pornography or gambling, are readily available online. People get addicted to shopping, which is only increased through widely available methods online. I also think it’s just so much easier to do these things online, and you can do it on your couch! This makes it really easy for people to feed into their addictions, as it’s so accessible. You don’t have to drive to the mall or the casino, etc.

The articles we had to read about how Google searches can provide hidden data not just for companies but for users as well were really interesting. It’s kind of cool how, when you ask a question, the algorithm generally points you in the right direction, even if nobody has asked that specific question before. I’ve asked for troubleshooting advice for my specific motherboard before. I didn’t find a direct answer, but I did find that someone with a similar board was having the same issue, and I was able to resolve it through that connection. I also think it’s crazy that people search racist and bigoted things on the Internet, and wonder what kind of communities exist out there on the rest of the Internet. I wonder if there are measures in place, similar to how, when you search about something slightly related to suicide or self harm, that point you to hotlines or try and redirect searches.

It’s cool to think about what the future of technology holds. I’m kind of nervous about it, but I also want to be at the forefront of technology as we advance. I personally have liked thinking about vision technology, like in an Iron Man suit, having a UI around your vision, being able to open and close popups with augmented reality technology, things like that. When it comes to actually benefitting society, I think medical advancements through technology are really important.

For this assignment I re-did Unit 1 Assignment 2. Looking back all the way to Unit 1, I realize how far I’ve come this semester. I kind of treated this class as a joke, but now I kind of understand how much impact it’s had on my learning and my mental state this semester. I’ve loved working on various assignments and projects with people, learning about what I do well and what I can improve on, and how I can change/how I changed to improve that. I realize learning about psychology was a choice I made in High School, and I think that High School Colin would be super excited to take a course like this. I also hope he’d be proud of where we are now, and how much we’ve grown over the past 3-4 years. I’m looking forward to learning more about psychology in the future, for classes or just in life in general! I don’t think I’ll end up in a career in the field, but I think it could be fun if I end up crashing and burning out over computer science.

After the semester is finished, it’s finally time to submit my journals. I’ve really enjoyed this project, and feel like I’ve gained a lot out of this class by analyzing each day of work I’ve done instead of just remembering the information for a final exam, taking the exam, and then forgetting it all. I think by working on each assignment each day and having to re-summarize each week I retained a lot of the information. Psychology is such an interesting topic for me, and I’m grateful to learn about it in context of the Internet. The Internet has been such an important aspect of my development and life, and I think I’ve learned a lot about the history of it as well as the impact it had on the social world.

I completed the Student Course Evaluation for this course. I really enjoyed this course, and think I would take a course of similar style again. I think I might actually be taking a course with Dr. Andrews again next semester (unintentional, but not in a bad way). I really appreciate self-paced learning as it has allowed me to work ahead, finishing way ahead of schedule leaving time to study for exams. I realize that my time management skills haven’t been the best in the past, and I worked really hard to change that for this semester. I knew that my hardest classes would take 3-4 weeks of studying for the final, and I finished this course as well as some other assignments for other courses ahead of schedule. The one thing I wasn’t super keen on was having to wait to reply to other discussion posts, but the nature of the class demands it so I really didn’t mind that much.

Interesting wrap up to the semester, thinking about the future of the Internet is always pretty interesting. I’m really interested in what’s going to happen in the next 5-10 years with AI, I think it’ll pop as they realize that there’s too much money going in and not enough results. However, if we end up developing AGI that’s totally different. I think one of the easiest examples of becoming too dependent on technology is WALL-E? The movie where everyone was in space and just super lazy, which I hope doesn’t become the case. I view technology as a tool to help boost work, but I know there are people who just redirect their work to AI, which isn’t healthy at all. I think that if there’s no learning or growth, there’s really no point. I hope that we can help with the development of AI to design it in a way that really elevates our work and gives us time to focus on things that matter instead of menial daily tasks like checking emails etc.