Diffusion of Twitter

Of the multiple social media networks that have flourished and are still flourishing, Twitter is a free, universally used program that allows members to upload posts known as "tweets", follow other registered Twitter members, and access the site on multiple platforms and devices. Users are able to send private messages to one or multiple other users at a time, to include photos and videos within their tweets, and to view and discover trending posts and worldwide news stories. Created and launched in the United States during 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams, Twitter rapidly gained popularity. Currently, nearly fourteen years later, Twitter holds over 330 million users all over the world. One might wonder, how do four ordinary people create an idea that can be communicated to and adopted by so many? What did each of the 330 million individuals see in Twitter that caused them to incorporate it into their lives? Everett Rogers, a professor in communication studies, developed a theory expressed in his book, Diffusion of Innovations, that questions why, how, and at what rate new innovations are adopted and spread. Rogers proposes that four principal elements sway the widespread of a new idea. These elements are the innovation itself, communication channels, time, and a social system. In 2006, nothing else quite like Twitter existed. There were other social media platforms, but what made Twitter different was the ability for users to post short, quick statuses within a 140-character limit. This made people's statuses short and sweet, making it easy to keep tabs on what the people you follow are up to. Since this idea had never existed before, Twitter was considered an innovation people had never seen before. Adopters are what makes an innovation really take off. Anybody can adopt an innovation, whether it be individuals, businesses as a whole, or groups of people. The creators of Twitter connected with people to introduce their new platform to, who evidently found benefits to bringing it into their everyday lives, spreading Twitter to others who all did the same thing. The diffusion of Twitter continued through communication channels and the passage of time, in which more people adopted and spread knowledge of the innovation.

Self-Fulfillment

Often times, in the world we live in, one can find themselves having a sense of uniformity within the individuals living amongst them. Each person on this planet is their own being, however, those beings are constantly conforming to universal standards that depict how humans should live their lives. From the moment an individual is born, they are expected to become educated, establish a career, and provide for and support themselves and their families. Amongst the wide variety of countries, cultures, and ways of life, humans around the world are all constantly doing those same things in order to remain good enough. This then ignites the question, where is the individuality? How does one differentiate themselves from the rest of the eight-billion beings on the planet that are essentially doing the same thing? Of the conformist principles that take place, one must seek and portray the qualities they comprise that make them different than others. These are the qualities that will, rather than making them part of a group, make them an individual. It is through the expression of these characteristics that one can make a difference in this similar world, influence others, and become influenced themselves. Expression requires an outlet. Whether this outlet is art, fashion, math, literature, athletics, or the billions of other ideas that exist or will exist, these outlets are the reason human beings are driven to learn, to work, and to live. Taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture, our world was created with many different forms of life including countless animals and plants, none of which are considered intelligent life. Simply being a human being, having the ability to learn and create is the most incredible opportunity that exists. Being a part of the only intelligent life on our planet comes along with constantly experiencing this world, constantly thinking, and constantly producing our own, individual and unique ideas. Every person has different experiences, different thoughts, and different outlets that they find their passions in. The ability to express what truly drives us about living on this one common planet is what makes us who we are. That ability is what makes us different, and what gives meaning to each of the billions of human beings that have been and are to be. Of the eight values of free expression, I feel that the most meaningful and inspiring is the value of individual self-fulfillment. Self-fulfillment comes from the freedom we have to express what we are individually driven by, influencing others while being influenced in turn by the drives and passions of the human lives surrounding us.

Youtube: Then and Now

https://www.businessinsider.com/key-turning-points-history-of-youtube-2013-2#in-october-2010-columnist-dan-savage-used-youtube-to-launch-the-it-gets-better-project-16

Youtube is the internet's most widespread website dedicated to the creating and watching of videos. There are billions of hours of content on the loved video streaming platform, and users are constantly making and uploading videos as well as watching all the content creators are putting out. Since the creation of the site, Youtube has evolved from an amateur video site to what it is now. 

Before 2005, only a small amount of people had even heard of Youtube. Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, four previous PayPal employees had come up with the idea of the website in 2004 upon Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the super bowl, and the tsunami in the Indian Ocean. They wanted to come up with a website able to stream news videos with content such as celebrity or world news. Google and other companies sought after Youtube throughout the next few years, seeing it's potential to become a popular site.

A certain video in 2007 was uploaded onto the site, and became the first video to go viral. This video was titled, "Charlie bit my finger - again!", and consisted two brothers being filmed on a home video camera, and one of them bites the other's finger. The reactions of the kids were funny, and the video now has almost a billion total views. After this, many videos on Youtube have gone viral.

Throughout the years, Youtube has become an updated platform of many different genres of creators. There are beauty gurus, gamers, lifestyle influencers, dancers, athletes, and many more types of videos to view on the site. Youtube has also introduced Youtube TV which provides TV shows and movies with the purchase of a subscription, much like Netflix or Hulu. Billions of people use Youtube every day, and I expect it to continue growing and being updated, gaining new generations of creators and viewers every day. 

Technology is Taking Our Lives Away

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DU1B_XkyIk

In the Youtube video, "Are You Lost In The World Like Me," posted by Julian West, a child is trying to live his life normally, yet all the people around him have their eyes locked in on their smartphones, not willing to look up for a second. They're looking at their devices while eating, riding the bus, walking the street, and everything else. This demonstrates American society in this generation. Technology is essentially controlling the people of our generation. Individuals wake up to the sound of their phone, snap pictures of the food they eat, constantly check what their peers are up to, and each one of them is attempting to put out content that they think will have them look better. Our generation isn't so much worried about the way people perceive their personality or morals anymore, but worried about the way their Instagram feed will make them look. There are multiple platforms that encourage this including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and a recent following of an application called Tiktok just came into play. To keep track of the content on every social media platform takes a lot of time in itself, and the people of our generation are obsessed with others perceiving them in a certain way. They will put any amount of time and effort into their appearance online. At a point in the Youtube video, a girl was standing on top of a skyscraper, about to jump to her death. A crowd of people stood on the ground next to the building, holding their smartphone cameras up at her, and following her with their screens as she jumped all the way to the ground. After capturing their videos of her, they all went on their way, eyes still locked on their screens. Instead of stopping the girl from taking her own life, or realizing that she needed a friend or help, everybody cared about the footage they would have of it on their phones. That girl needed a friend, she needed human interaction and reassurance, yet nobody stepped up to give it to her. Everybody just kept their eyes locked on their phones. But phones are not human beings, nor are they even slightly as important human life. Human life is the reason people are smart enough to invent a lightbulb, let alone a smartphone and all the media that comes with it. Human life is the root of intelligence, of friendship, of communication. People may think they're communicating while staring at their screens, but people need to interact with each other face to face. People must communicate with each other in order to have healthy, happy, intelligent life that we were meant to have when we were placed on Earth.

Cheaters Never Prosper

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/america-a-nation-of-cheaters/

In an article titled "America: A Nation of Cheaters," by Casey Chalk, Chalk brings up the idea that the United States is made of people who cheat. For example, women freezing their eggs or having an abortion, or people watching pornography. It is cheating because humans have found a way to stop the natural processes of the human body or "short-circuit the essential relational nature of sexual interactions in favor of self-focus and self-gratification" (Chalk). Chalk makes a good point, as our bodies were not made of that type of treatment, and it is essentially "cheating" the system. If we're talking specifically cheating, there is also an entire business that formed just to provide forms of cheating to students of all ages. There are multiple applications or websites that allow students to avoid doing any of the hard work on their own. The majority of college students admitted to cheating at some point in high school, and Chalk even reminds the reader that parents are cheating nowadays to ensure that their children will be admitted into the college of their choosing. What people of this generation are not thinking about is how their cheating will effect the generations of the future. Our consistent cheating "in turn, cheats future generations of Americans. Our national deficit—the gap between what the government takes in through taxes and other sources of revenue and what it spends—is slated to reach $960 billion for fiscal year 2019. And projections indicate that gap will widen to $1 trillion for fiscal year 2020. Social Security allows Americans to start collecting at 62 years old, though the average retiree will live until 85. The original Social Security Act of 1935 set the minimum age for receiving full retirement benefits at 65, under the belief that, due to lower life expectancies, few people would be collecting for more than a few years. Today, it will be younger generations like mine that will be forced to pay for the exorbitant consequences of this reckless spending habit" (Chalk). Eventually, what goes around comes back around, so our generation should be thinking about how their actions will be effecting our country in the long run.

Facebook Antitrust Investigation

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/06/tech/facebook-antitrust-investigation/index.html 

Throughout the history of the United States, the people of this country have developed multiple platforms of social media in order to communicate with each other and keep updated on people's lives. These social media platforms have the intention of building a strong communities of people, so one can chat with and learn information about their peers. Of the many popular platforms that exist in this generation, Facebook is especially known for building a strong bond with one's community because you are able to post statuses, pictures, updates, questions, or just about anything you want. Friends can like or comment on posts, chat individually, and learn more about the people they are friends with on Facebook. Except Facebook does more than just bring people together, Facebook makes a profit off of selling its user's information to other companies that will then use your interests and hobbies to advertise products they predict you will buy. Users of Facebook have become aware of this, and more hesitant to continue posting on the site. In an article written by Brian Fung for CNN Business, Fung reports that the attorney's general of the District of Colombia and eight of states including Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio. and Tennessee, have launched an antitrust investigation into Facebook to determine if Facebook’s actions may have endangered consumer data, reduced the quality of consumers’ choices, or increased the price of advertising” (Fung).  Fung also mentions that Google will also be under investigation as users have noticed when they search something into Google, an advertisement related to that search will often appear on another site, sometimes within minutes of their search. This investigation is being run to discover if Facebook and Google are using this information for the good of the people. or if the people could be harmed by the selling of their information. It surprises me that one would even think of selling somebody's search history, posts, etc., online, let alone everybody's information to multiple different platforms.

Importance of the U.S. Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court is the highest and most powerful federal court in the nation. The rulings of the Supreme Court cannot be appealed, as it serves as a last resort for court cases. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court still receives about 7,000 cases each year, only about 100 of which get accepted. Each Supreme Court case is built on the country's Constitution, written over 200 years ago. This ensures that the court will rule a case constitutional or unconstitutional, following the morals that the country set out for its people.

The court is made up of nine justices, a Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices. The Chief Justice officiates all arguments before the Supreme Court, and arranges the agenda for the court's meetings. The duties of the Chief Justice along with the Associate Justices are considering and voting on cases before the Supreme Court. Every case is heard in the public, and lawyers are allowed on each side of the case to make their allegations for thirty minutes. Each of the justices can question the lawyers and their clients.

After it is presented before the court, the Supreme Court Justices privately discuss and vote on the case at hand. The justices can decide to take the case, and the majority of them must write an opinion that explains the constitutional reasons for making their decision. If justices on the minority side would like to state their opinion for disagreeing, they may do that as well. The opinions are sent to the Supreme Court for review, and cases are reviewed for generally two to six months, sometimes longer. After the reviewing process is completed, action takes place and the public is notified.