Smallish Post 6

A friend and I were discussing a topic similar to the reading due on 11/20. We were discussing whether the advancements of technology is a good or bad thing. I was thinking about how it scares me how dependent society is on technology and how much it has infiltrated everyday tasks in our lives. My friend reminded me that it can be detrimental specifically when it hurts relationships between people. I love how David A. Bednar illustrated this in his devotional talk, Things as They Really Are" and warned us to use technology wisely. I also loved how it said that technologies can connect us with people around the world and equally isolate us from people within our own home. Technology can be so beneficial to us and especially the advancement of sharing the gospel and I think that fact is important to remember as we use our devices.

Book Post :: Here Comes Everybody

In the book called Here Comes Everybody, I really connected with the idea of mass amateurization. He describes media has handed the average person technology that will replicate something that other people do as a profession with little to no effort. Some examples of this that I have been witnessing over the past few years are especially with fashion blogging, photography, and general creativity and innovation. I have been following fashion blogs for many years now and have noticed recently that the number of bloggers has increased dramatically. One of the reasons I see for this is that any girl with a nice camera and a cute face can post hundreds of pictures of themselves on the internet in regular clothes and call it fashion blogging. Many of the blogs I see these days are bringing absolutely nothing new to the fashion table and they get sponsored like a skilled fashion blogger for reasons other than their fashion sense. With phone cameras and the neat filters and apps that mimic Photoshop, many people can create a photo that seems really nice with little skill of their own. Professional photographers are not being acknowledge for the talent they possess because a phone and a few apps can mimic a quality photo and fool many people. And lastly, Pinterest has sucked so much creativity from the world. What used to be innovative and fresh is suddenly "pinned" all over the globe and now everyone is morphing into the something ordinary because everybody participates in the "new" looks and ideas.

Smallish Post 5

I always knew that the percentage of women in the sciences and Maths was low but I didn't know that at one point it was not. From the article in the New York Times, I learned that the percentage of women in computing was about 50%. Naturally there is the question in my mind if why the amount of women decreased but even more than that I wonder why in the world the amount of women in sciences was that high! Also, I find it interesting that the idea is sometimes argued that there is a higher ratio of women in technology in other countries such as China and India and use it to argue that the low ratio in the US is a problem because women do not have a good introduction to technology. I find this baffling. The culture in China and India is completely different from here. Here, we have so many freedoms, especially in expectations for women and careers.