My sources

Sam Wineburg is a reporter because he provides a lot of data on how young people do not know how to spot fake news but does a good job by not mixing in his opinion with his work

Allcott Hunt and Matthew Gentzkow are reporters and interpreters because the provide a lot of data but at the end of there study they analyze it and explain why they think the data is what it is.

Joshua Benton- Is an observer because he gives his opinion on data he recovered 

Nicholas Browning and Kaye D. Sweetser are reporters and interpreters

Anthony Leiserowitz is an problem solver by giving ways fake news can be solved 

Ways of writing

1. Instagram-To show all my friends pictures or videos I find funny and to talk to them in the comments
2. Twitch- To communicate with the streamer
3. Snapchat- To have one on one conversations with friends
4. Texting- To have one one one conversations with friends and family
5. Emails- Only use emails to communicate important information
6. Essays- Self explanatory?
7. Class Notes- Self explanatory?

Getting annoyed

My roommates are great and I get along with them pretty well. However they got on my nerves pretty badly this week. When I about to try to sleep they kept me up by yelling in a very high pitch voice and laughing really loud in the living room. This wouldn't usually bother me but it was 12:00 a.m. and I had a class in the morning. Then when I was about to get out of bed and say something the finally calmed down and I couldn't hear them anymore. But the sounds of laughter and yelling soon changed to loud music coming from my roommate who lives in the room right next to mine. I thought to myself "Does he not have classes tomorrow?". This was really getting on my nerves but instead of saying anything i just put on my headphones (did he not have headphones???) and put on relaxing music to fall asleep to. I usually would say something in this scenario but it was a one time thing and didn't feel like getting out of bed.

Getting Noticed

My mom always ignores me when she is watching T.V. (she says she can't hear me but I don't believe this) and it can get on my nerves sometimes. I can call her name multiple times with no response at all. One day I was in a not so good mood and needed to ask her an important question however she was watching T.V. so she was ignoring me. This began to really frustrate me so I went to our circuit breaker and turned off the electricity in our living room. My mom had no idea what was going on and came to me to see if I could fix it because her favorite show was on and I told her I could if she answered my question. She answered me and I fixed her problem immediately. The funny thing is she never suspected that I was the one to turn off the power in the first place.

College Transitioning

Going from high-school to college was a big move in my life. It is very different socially here compared to my home town. It is very nice that I am away from my parents and I get to be more independent however, the residential assistants can be kind of annoying and feel like they are always in my personal space. Next year I am very excited to get my own place and will never have to deal with anyone in me personal space. The work load compared to high school is very different. Sometimes I have work that will keep me up all night and sometimes I have none at all when compared to high-school I had a steady work flow that I could more easily adapt to. The type of work is also different as it is much challenging compared to high-school. Here I have roommates that I have to try to get along with but it is not to bad because he all have separate rooms. I have no idea how people share rooms in college sometimes. Here there are much more fun things to do but in my home town the only things we could do for fun is go to the beach. It might be much different here from my old life but overall I think it is the best change I have ever experienced.

Thesis

Fake news is a major threat to our nations democracy and we need to teach students how to detect while simultaneously try to find a way to stop it.

Perfect Vacation

I have always wonder what it would be like to travel out of the country. I have never left but really want to at least once and that is why Japan would probably be my dream vacation. I would pick Japan because there are beautiful things to see and would love to look at all the technology they have. I would love to see and take pictures of Mount Fuji. And going to Tokyo is a must, actually that is probably where I would spend most my time. I have heard there are many crazy and extravagant restaurants in Tokyo. I would try to visit as much museums as possible. Tokyo Tower has always caught my attention and I would love to ride to the top floor and look as far off into the distance as possible.  

Weird Work Day

One day I was at my job at the bowling alley I was assigned to be the person in charge of the bull ride. As it was started to get late and no one else was around I texted my friends to come over and told them id let them ride the bull for free. When they got there we were all having a blast and a couple of my coworkers also started trying it out. What was really weird about this story though is our manager stopped by but instead of getting mad at us he started hanging out with us and riding the bull too. Thankfully no body let it slip out that I let my friends ride for free. As soon as he showed up I signaled to my friends that they couldn't ride for free anymore and that they should probably go. I'm very lucky that my old manager was very relaxed and liked all of us.

Instant Space Travel.

There is a weird law called quantum entanglement. This is when atoms get joined together by some means and when separated they act dependently among one another. So if one atom moves the other atom will move not only the same exact way the other atom moves but also do this instantaneously. And when I say instantly I mean instantly. For example one thing we think is instant is light. When we turn on a light bulb it "instantly" lights up the room. However light is relatively slow. It takes 7 minutes from light to reach the sun to Earth. And it would take 100,000 years to travel around the milky way galaxy at the speed of light. I could imagine in the future us finding a use for this weird phenomenon. We could use it to create worm holes to travel from place to place very easily. We could use this on Earth to visit friends and family whenever we wanted. And we could advance this technology so far that we could travel from solar system to solar system or galaxy to galaxy. This would allow us to populate other planets making earthlings a multi planetary species. It might introduce us to other intelligent species and either help there species advance or hopefully they would help our species advance. Not only would this dream technology help us travel and colonize, it would allow us to harvest more energy from other planets and stars potentially increasing all the technology we all ready have.

Summary Of Article

Camile Domonoske, an NPR journalist, reviews a study conducted by Sam Wineburg, a professor from Stanford University, in this study it shows how a large majority of students in middle school, high school, and even college do not know how to properly determine if a story is fake or real. In this study 7,800 students were evaluated in 12 states. His most shocking discovery was that 80% of middle schoolers believed that sponsored content AKA an ad was real news even though before they read it they knew it was sponsored content. The study on highschoolers showed that 80% of them believed a fake news story when presented with a picture that looked like it fit the story but had no connection to it at all. In the study on college student they were presented with a fake site that was disguised as the real reputable site. 75% of the college students believed that the fake site was the real site and therefore took the story on the site as fact. This study shows how much of a danger fake news is and how uninformed students are. It also shows how bad students are at determining if a source is credible or not. In an interview from Wineburg he says "We cant really blame young people because we've never taught them to do otherwise". The article concludes by stating how important it is to teach young people to fact check everything and how to properly fact check.

C.R.A.A.P Test

I found an article talking about how young people do not know how to detect fake news from real news. It was posted on November 23, 2016 so the information is current. All the links provided on the webiste work. The information relates to my topic and answers the question of why fake news is bad because in the studied they conducted the fake news stories they used were described as "a threat to democracy". The author is Camila Domonoske from NPR news so the article all ready seemed trustworthy. She also provided ways to contact her which gives this article even more reliability. The information provided is supported by a study lead by Sam Wineburg, a professor from Stanford University. The information provided on this website can be found with the links they provide to the actually study. The information is given to inform you and persuade you to start worrying about the increasing danger from fake news. This study done by Stanford showed that 80% of middle schoolers accepted "sponsored content" as real news. This was very surprising to the people involved in the study and they reported that young people must not know what "sponsored content" is. The information is meant to make you worry but at the same time does not really seem objective because the percentages are just so high.

Fake news

Everyone is losing there mind over fake news. People are saying it is destroying our country because it it changing the way everyone thinks and votes even when there is no facts to back it up. They are also saying how it is so prominent in today's society that you can not even tell if something is fake or not without extensive research on the topic. On the other hand some people do not think it is as bad as everyone else thinks. Some people believe that fake news is only rampant on social media websites and that most people do not make there political decisions based on what they find on social media. So should everyone really be in a panic about this "fake news" phenomenon? I mean look at yellow journalism. That was practically fake news and we turned out fine. Or is this new era of fake news way more terrifying then the others because of the fast spread of information on the internet?

Cyber Security

I try to be very safe on the internet because one time I had viruses so bad on my computer I had to trash it and get a new one. Ever since then I realized how common viruses are and began being much safer online. I have about 4 different passwords I use for all my accounts but make sure to save the most complex ones for things such as my email address. I also bought a virus scanner and run it at least once a week but usually more then that. FYI be careful downloading free virus scanners sometimes those are viruses themselves! Sometimes I feel like I am to careful when it comes to cyber security as I refuse to update certain applications on my computer that I do not use often just because in the back of my head that "update" could be a virus. I know that this is most likely me just being paranoid but if I rarely use the application anyways it makes me feel safer. The TED talk today made interested me a lot especially when the speaker brought up the dark web and said you could buy viruses to help you hack into someone else's computer. I mean just think about it, you are downloading something from a person who literally creates viruses for a living!

Designer Babies

Today in class we had a discussion to where or not "designer babies". Many people in our class were against it and I do not understand why. Some of the arguments were the babies would be to smart and become narcissistic or lazy because they wouldn't have to try in school. I think this logic is flawed because these traits are not genetic and if your son or daughter becomes narcissistic or lazy it is the parents fault. For example if you notice your child is having no struggle in school and is getting straight A's without studying it is your job as a parent to nurture there intelligence and to push them to achieve greater things. Not only does this make them reach there max potential it will prevent them from becoming lazy. Another argument is saying that it is just plain out unethical to do this. But the same people who say it is unethical to do this say it is ok to do this if it is only used to prevent disease. This just makes no since to me because how can you think it is unethical when you admit you would use it yourself? If genetic modification was possible and affordable when I came of age to have a child I would definitely pursue it to help my child.

Possible Topics

"Depressed? There's an App for That" seems like a very good topic because I know I have certain apps on my phone that help me relax and it interests me that people are creating so many possibilities for apps. I could learn about how effective these apps are or how ineffective they are. I could learn if these apps are scams or not.  "Teens Hooked on Screens" is another topic that interests me because of how much time i realize the average teen is looking at a screen a day. Does doing this impact us negativity? Positively? Neither? Or maybe a little bit of both? I also think that the next generation of teenagers will probably spend even more time then us on screens. Another topic that interests me is "Digital Friendships" this topic interests me on a personal level because I have many digital friends that I have never met and would like to learn about why some people think these types of relationships are bad.

Clay Shirky Ted Talk

Clay Shirky had a great presentation and went over many issues. He went over how much time us humans have of free time and what we can accomplish with it if we work together. He uses the term cognitive surplus when referring to free time we spend on technological inputs. He states that we can use this time recreationally or productively. The example of Ushahidi is a perfect example of how we can use out cognitive surplus to help each other and keep each other safe with the help of the internet. The other example he uses is "lol cats" which are cute pictures of cats with captions that are meant to be shared to make people laugh. He touches on how fast things can grow by saying how Ushahidi was once only for one country but in only three years time became a global thing. He then goes on to say how we have an intrinsic motivation to do things without anyone telling us to do them. He shows a study that shows parents are more likely to pick there kids up late if there is a fine compared to if there is no fine. This makes no since at first but then you realize that if there is no fine the parents would probably feel more guilty if they did not pick up there kids on time compared to if they were charged a fee.

Mall Torture

When I was younger my mom and her boyfriend took me to the mall every weekend and I hated it because we never bought anything and we walked around all day and it made my legs hurt. Since I constantly complained about walking around the mall all day my mom found a way to keep me entertained and quiet. She began taking me to blockbuster every time we went to the mall so I could rent a video game and be happy. We started going to blockbuster before we went to the mall so I would be preoccupied with reading the game manual that is included with each game at blockbuster. I loved reading all about the game and imagining how fun it would be when I got home. The games I rented were mainly for my PS2 and because we went to the mall so often I was able to play a wide variety of games for it. Unlike now where I only get around 2-3 games a year for my Xbox. I remember loving games with complex stories and/or games that were very free roaming. I still love those types of games now but I really enjoy games that need good strategies. I think I love these types of games because of my imagination. Even now with my strategy games I make up my own unorthodox strategies that most people have never tried.