sonitaprinjha465-blog

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Google Maps, the creepy stalker or friendly companion?

I was surprised, impressed and slightly concerned on opening my Google Maps app the other day as I was greeted with the latest update. The new feature titled “commute” showed me exactly how to get to work, to university and to my parents home - I had no idea I had let google maps know where I worked so this was already slightly alarming. Not only does this feature allow you to see the best route, avoiding traffic which is where this comes as an affordance, it tells you how often you travel to this location and at what time of the day. Luckily turning my location services off for this was something I had miraculously seemed to manage.

Another new feature was the “for you” section of the app which is a collection of establishments that google believes I’ll want to visit, including restaurants in both my home town and uni town. In the settings you can add areas - already suggesting areas it thinks you’ll be interested in based on your location history. This is starting to sound a little creepy now right?

One step further - there’s a section called “my contributions” - this is where the app shows I have got directions to recently, asking to contribute with reviews of what I thought the place was like. This exemplifies Pre-text in the sense that Google implies understanding, that you visited this establishment and therefore insinuates that you are helping out by “contributing” to helping these brands with feeding back positive reviews. For the places visited, this is an easy way of prompting reviews from people they are sure visited. They also make even more of an incentive by suggesting that the more you contribute to companies reputations, the more reward points you earn with “invitations to exclusive events and contests” and “early access to new Google products”. These promises, to me sound a little strange and ill-fitting but highlight the lengths that Google is going to, to ensure they are able to gather data from naive users. 

On further investigation I found out that Google is able to track your mobile device even if you opt out of its tracking services. A scary statement that I found was “When you have location services turned on, Google constantly pings your phone from cell towers and Wi-Fi and is using GPS to see where you are. The frequency with which it finds you can be every few minutes or every few seconds, which paints a pretty accurate picture of where you are at all times. And Google Maps keeps track of every step you (and your smartphone) take. Your activity is then archived in your Google Timeline. The feature, introduced in 2015, can be a walk down memory lane, but it can also leave the door to your privacy wide open. With Timeline, Google Maps can not only show you where you're going but also where you've been. There might even be photographic evidence, since Timeline syncs with any shots uploaded to Google Photos.” (PCMag Uk). Now picture Google as a person - following your every move, watching what time you leave the house in the morning, seeing that you get a skinny late from Starbucks at 10am on your break every weekday, becoming familiar with your daily routine and then approaching you, asking you to rate how good today’s coffee was and offering alternative options along your route home. You would run a mile, 999 would be next on your call list and you’d get that person a restraining order. Why then does it seem so different that this is all happening to us, just through our phone screen?

Although these functions are, in part, intended to make our lives easier, it is a slightly disturbing thought that companies can collate this data. The idea that there are databases logging our every move, seeing what time we leave our house for work, which local supermarket we go to and at what time of the day and even the kinds of restaurants we would be interested in visiting all seems like a complete invasion of privacy. Google then has the ability to sell this information on to third party organisations, targeting us with further advertising, influencing our behaviours in the future.

So, in essence, Google Maps knows; my name, my address, the university I study at, where I work, which supermarket I go to, where my parents live and how often I visit them, the kind of food places I go to and basically everywhere I have travelled to on foot or in the car as long as my phone has been present. This has been a serious eye-opener for myself, Locations services has swiftly been turned off and my regular routes have been deleted.

With companies seeming so open with the amount of data they are collecting on us it is so easy to forget that this is massively compromising our privacy and it’s so important to be aware of what information we are freely giving out.

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Sticks and Stones - How words can break the “Untouchables”

When logging onto social media daily, it is not uncommon to see depressing  amounts of online abuse spanning all corners of the web. Undoubtedly the individuals most susceptible to the wrath of online haters are those with large followings, celebrities, influencers and so on. There is a certain expectation for celebrities to know what they are getting themselves into by being in the public eye and to expect and accept trolling. Why should this be the case when at the end of the day celebrities are still humans just like me and you, they have feelings and can be hurt by the same words that we can.

Fitness Influencer and body positivity activist Chessie King created an anti-bullying campaign after receiving an onslaught of disgusting comments about her appearance. The campaign aimed at raising awareness of online trolling and attempting to create a thought-provoking combative method to change people’s thought process on bullying others online. Chessie took to her Instagram stories to raise awareness to followers of some of the messages she had received, she then photoshopped images of herself adhering to complaints she’d been given on the way she looks. Comments from followers such as “she so fatty”, “Girls shouldn’t lift weights, your arms are wayyyyyy too big [sick emojis]”, “when you smile you have no lips” demonstrate the amount of hatred that online celebrities have to put up with. Chessie reacted in a way that showed her haters that these comments won’t negatively impact her, with reflection on how ridiculous these comments are and her zero tolerance attitude to this kind of abuse.

Something that has always baffled me is the disregard people have online for others feelings, do they believe that because they are sat behind a phone or computer screen their hateful words suddenly fall on deaf ears and the person receiving such nasty character assassination should take it as constructive criticism rather than bullying which it invariably is. 

By the end of Chessie’s day of succumbing to trolls she looked almost unrecognisable. Obviously this is such an extreme way to react to online hate and one that you wouldn’t expect to see on a daily basis but it is definitely becoming more apparent that celebrities are being severely affected by the cruel words from other social media users with many even coming off of social media altogether to save themselves from the scrutinity they are expected to face on a daily basis.

It is easy to forget that although celebrities lives seem a million miles away from ours they are very much still people and no one should ever expect any amount of abuse in person or online. The anonymity of social media makes it much easier to target people online but there should be clear consequences for violations of politeness etiquettes online, and not just for us “normal” people. 

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The Do’s and most definitely Do Nots to bag yourself a Tinder match

Tinder is the new speed dating, the ability to sit in our comfies of an evening judging whether we see potential in others as life partners or 10 minute emotionless flings gives us an abundance of choice. The geographical settings allow us to accept only suitors within our chosen range and the quick swipe layout allows for us to scroll through a seemingly endless amount of eligible bachelors/ bachelorettes to choose the most appealing. For an app based solely on first impressions based on looks the need for users to present their most desirable self has become all too apparent. There are specific ways in which people can show off a side that seems the most worthy of a swipe and bag themselves a match. 

People are basing their opinions on your photo - therefore you must have at least one photo featuring yourself if you want to get any matches at all. If you’re a guy some of the most eye-catching and match-worthy pics to get the girls are:

1) A photo of you doing something absolutely hilarious - holding a traffic cone that you’ve stolen on the trek home from a night out might just about do it. You are definitely a guy that doesn’t take life too seriously and any girl is sure to be able to have a good old laugh with you.

2) Have a picture of you holding the most adorable good boy - girls are like putty in any hands that have cupped a precious pup, don’t ask why. Maybe it ensures a caring individual or maybe it’s just the reassuring prospect that if we end up with you it’s easy to assume that receiving a puppy as a Christmas gift isn’t completely out of the question?

3) Please don’t do these cringey Powerpoint slides of “why I’m such a great catch”. I don’t think I’ve seen one yet that has been half as witty as the creator supposes it is. Just put a weird chat up line in your bio that we’re going to ignore anyway and be done with it.

4) Please don’t be a Catfish - we can tell from a mile off if the photos are clearly too good to be true. What’s the point anyway, if you are lucky to bag yourself a date it’s going to be obvious that you aren’t the 6foot7 model you were impersonating online and that’s just going to embarrass the both of you. Most of us don’t want a model anyway - just someone confident enough in their own skin that they don’t have to use other people’s photos to feel good enough for us.

5) Under no circumstance are we expecting to see a topless mirror selfie. We can see you have worked hard on those rock solid abs and by all means be proud of them but it does seem a little vain and modesty is a virtue after all. If I’m looking on Tinder for a potential hubby (as you do), the idea of the whole of the single female population in our area seeing you half naked is probably not going to do it for me. You might get a match anyway though because your eyes looked beautiful in that pic. 

Hopefully these are helpful tips to increase your chances at hacking Tinder and putting your best self forward. In this modern age of technology there are so many ways we can manipulate our identity to show people exactly what they want us to see of them, whilst even catching a life partner. 

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Why do we feel the need to have separate Instagram identities?

It’s becoming increasingly popular for the youths of today to not only have active profiles over various social media platforms, but to have multiple accounts on the same platform to project different identities to different groups of people. The most saturated network where this has become the case for so many is Instagram. Nowadays it is not uncommon for people to have two separate accounts: one would present ones most desirable self to hundreds of followers, the other depicting “reality” and all it’s depressing-yet-hilarious incidences.

The main, solely featuring images of oneself - The big night out. Perfect lighting meticulously located, posing in the (deceivingly) tidiest section of your bedroom, the outfit you chose weeks ago for this particular occasion flatters you perfectly, you laugh at absolutely nothing to get the perfect “candid”. The one suitable image out of the 100 plus from this particular photo-shoot is carefully selected, your favourite filter is applied, the saturation is upped to give your washed-out winter skin the illusion of a tan in Feb. The photo is uploaded at exactly the right time for optimum exposure and the much anticipated likes start flooding in. If the goal amount of likes is not achieved, the photo is to be swiftly deleted. You would not want a photo on your main without a substantial amount of likes, that’s just utterly embarrassing, besides the lack of likes must suggest you weren’t looking as good as you previously believed. (I hope the sarcastic tone has been picked up by now).

On the opposite end of the spectrum comes the “private” post on your “finsta” account - “A spam instagram account where people post what they are too afraid to post on the real accounts” (Urban Dictionary). Uploaded to your wittily named profile with a highly exclusive number of followers - only your nearest and dearest have the privilege of seeing this side of you (although definitely no family members allowed). A snapshot of you from later on of the same night, lying drunk on the floor in your student accommodation tip of a kitchen, make-up running down your face from the tears shed earlier in the night (why couldn’t he just text me back?!), your previously, perfectly curled hair has been shoved in a bun on the top of your head and the obligatory chicken nugs lie next to you. The caption explains to your friends how eventful the night was and the appalling state your life is currently in. The number of likes you get on this photo is completely irrelevant and you just want some recognition from your friends on how tragic you are.

So why the need for both accounts? Could we not just put both photos on the same profile, after all they are both us, right? I already hear the millennials screaming - NO. This would be the biggest violation of the unspoken Instagram procedures. We must only post a representation of our most attractive and perfected life onto our main account. This self-presentation creates the illusion of the idealised version of ourselves that we want others to see, besides, these images are going to the hundreds of people that may not know us personally and therefore we want their opinions of us to be as positive as possible. Whereas we do not feel the need to create this unrealistic version of ourselves to the people we are already closest to and therefore the use of a private account can just be an online documentation of funny, embarrassing or note worthy moments in our life that we would casually tell our friends at the pub on a Friday night anyway.

This is therefore potentially an online representation of Goffman’s Impression Management as we are acting as mediators of our own online self presentation, allowing only certain people to see certain aspects of our lives in a way of creating identities according to the relationship we have with the people viewing us online.

In this respect, although it seems as though the upkeep of two separate profiles appears to be such a waste of time with little reward and seemingly no added benefits, there is some understanding to be drawn from the reasons behind why people have these different representations of personal identities. In some ways it can be compared to real life situations in which we wouldn’t necessarily show our work colleagues what we look like on a Sunday morning sat in front of the telly but we would invite a close friend round in this state. However, in my opinion we have become so obsessed with the perfect Instagram feed that we have lost sight of what it should be about in the first place as a free expression of identity without all of the pressure that come with the amount of likes we get and how picture-perfect our life seems.

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Lost in translation

Technological advancements and the abundance in ever-expanding means of communication between humans allows for relationships to flourish, not only when the other person is sitting right in front of you, but from the other side of the globe. Ingenious video calling inventions such as Facetime and Skype enables the comforting feeling of face to face (FtF) interaction even when this is not a possibility. The most common form of online communication however, is through the medium of instant messaging, through a multitude of networking platforms keeping friendships active and reinforced, such as Facebook Messenger, imessage and my personal favourite Whatsapp.

This constant access to interaction enables a great deal of affordances as aforementioned, alongside the expected constraints. I would argue that, you’re in denial if you disagree that the occasional arguments arguments are part and parcel of normal relationships, between friends or partners and when they occur over online communication there is much room for misunderstanding and heightened negative reactions. Things can often be taken out of context or simply the tone of the message can easily be misconstrued and end up being taken completely differently by the receiver to what the sender was intending.

It is also often east to exaggerate emotions when interacting through computer mediated communication (CMC), with not being able to see the other person face to face it’s easy to forget that there is an actual human at the other of the phone and therefore it’s common to say things over text without a filter that you wouldn’t necessarily have the guts to say in face to face interactions.

A further constraint of CMC is the potential for asynchronous replies, I’m sure we’ve all been in a position where we’re engaged in a heated debate with someone over text and the other participant decides they can’t be bothered and they’re going to bed or they just suddenly stop replying. EURGH! This not only comes with much annoyance for the person who suddenly gets ghosted but also seems counter-productive to sorting out issues between both parties. This luxury (or not) often doesn’t come with FtF communication, with the ability to just stop replying to someone whilst being physically with them seems like a much harder task.

On the other hand, because of the advances in technologies, an affordance of CMC is that it’s equally just as easy to sort out issues online rather than having to wait to see someone when you can simply just pick up the phone and have a meaningful chat without scheduling a set time to sit and sort through disputes in person.

Without a doubt, we are incredibly lucky to be living in such an advanced technological age, with online communication enabling many positive and life affirming connections. However, we need to remember that there are differences in communicating online as opposed to in person interactions and we can’t take for granted the effects that this has on the understanding of all participants.

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Do memes create a sense of belonging?

We have all been amused by the side-splitting, viral memes dominating our newsfeeds on the daily, enabling us to momentarily forget about our looming deadlines, with a chuckle lasting a small fragment of time, and then we’re brought back down to reality, they’re old news and we carry on with our everyday routines and struggles. But do memes actually run much deeper than just a humorous photo accompanied by an equally relatable and comical caption? Do memes actually strengthen friendships, providing a means of inclusion, opening doors into more meaningful and solidified relationships?

The amount of notifications for posts I’ve been tagged in with a “this is so you” or “couldn’t be more true for us” of people relating our personal experiences and situations, in some way to the memes, is a regular occurrence and comes with much amusement and even privilege, that I am the chosen friend in this sort of special club. Often memes can be argued as a way of reinforcing friendships, making each other (and the rest of your online friendship list) aware of how well you know each other. 

Even friendships that haven’t been active for years can be rekindled with a simple meme and the added “This made me think of you” sparking conversation, which can often replace the more daunting idea of a random “hi, how are you?”. This is definitely an advantageous aspect of the online world and makes everything seem that little bit more trivial and light-hearted in this increasingly dark and scary modern society. 

With the introduction of “Meme Studies” (yes it is actually a thing... I know) as an academic course in the US, there is no doubt that they have become such an integral part of the day-to-day lives of youth culture. Memes are representations of the mind-sets of young people today, valuing light-hearted and relevant entertainment, with feelings of belonging in a large-scale group of people. Not only does the receiving of memes have the ability to make you feel included and cared about, they insinuate understanding, familiarity between sharers and receivers and show recognition of one’s personality, sense of humour and lifestyle.

It can therefore be said that, although on the surface, memes seem completely irrelevant and in some cases just bizarre, when shared with friends they often draw meaning on real-life scenarios, creating bonds, suggesting sympathy, humour and potentially most importantly - a sense of belonging. 

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Is imitation always the sincerest form of flattery?

With lines being blurred on taking inspiration from higher end best-selling products to plagiarising merchandise for profit, it is difficult to decipher where morality comes into the business world.

A particular brand stirring much speculation and controversy when bringing out “copycat” products is German chain Aldi. In this case, discount supermarket Aldi goes above and beyond to make their products almost identical to those of brand leaders. With knock off much-loved “Penguin” bars being re-named “Seal” bars it seems almost comical. The amusing image of Aldi’s product developers sitting around a large meeting table sparking debates on the appropriate alternative Antarctic animal to rival a penguin with the conclusion that a seal will suffice. Is this just to make sure that consumers aren’t silly enough to overlook the chocolate coated biscuit bar as being anything other than a Penguin bar in disguise? 

On the one hand, it seems like an ingenious, fail-safe method of driving product sales, as who wouldn’t want to buy their favourite Pot Noodles, with the same taste at a hugely discounted price? For consumers it’s win-win, they are getting exactly what they desire without the price tag, alongside a bit of a chuckle at how ridiculously identical the copies are. Similarly Aldi are winning, being bound to increase sales through making the products as similar as can be to that of competitors and then seeing them flying off the shelves.

I must say that I have fallen victim to the tempting prices of the alternatives to some of my staple items that I have already used and loved but saw with a bargain price. One being Pixi’s Glow Tonic, a skincare product who’s brand I had become a loyal customer to, but with a 250ml bottle of the real deal costing £18 in comparison to Aldi’s equal 250ml Lacura - Healthy Glow Toner priced at £3.99, I couldn’t resist. Not only do they look almost identical, the ingredients list has surprisingly not been compromised and the outcome has been the same after using it alongside the suddenly seemingly extortionately priced alternative. For myself, it’s a no brainer, and although it feels slightly cruel to take my loyalty to a more underserving substitute, I personally see no reason as a student to pay £14 extra for a product that looks, smells and acts the same.

With that said, it would be assumed that this blatant imitation must come at some detriment to the original brands and their products, with people opting for the cheaper alternatives, knowing they will be so undistinguishable. This has potential to decrease sales and subsequent profits for the companies who had to do the initial leg work of actually coming up with the concepts, packaging and names for businesses to then exploit this hard work and tailor the products to suit their brands. This begs the question of whether this should be allowed as a form of “inspiration” or condemned as flat-out plagiarism. 

In my opinion, it should be acceptable to take creative initiative when designing products and as they say “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” so maybe brands should feel honoured to have products so desirable that competitors want to follow their lead making replicas. However, there surely must be a line in which it goes from being an inspired influence to just theft?

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Should we be more aware of what we “Accept” online?

We often take for granted how much of our behaviour is observed by the all seeing eye of the organisations tracking every search we make online. Our online explorations are not only viewed, these companies and organisations then use the information gathered to try and sell their products or push information that they think will be relevant or of interest to us. Although this is no secret and is a totally legal system, it is a much overlooked area of the online world. Are we too naïve to think about the compromises being made to our privacy or do we just choose to turn a blind eye? The “Cookies” pop-up annoyingly delaying precious browsing time appears to many as something completely innocent and with a thoughtless click of a button you have suddenly, willingly begun passing on an abundance of information for brands to use at their advantage. It always seems so bizarre to log into your Facebook account after perusing through ASOS for a new winter coat when suddenly every single advert that pops up on your News Feed seems to be of the ideal Puffer or duffle. I can’t be the only one to find this, although usually spot on, a little creepy and alarmingly invasive. I would be lying if I said I knew what cookies meant before this week and had constantly, ignorantly “accepted” without any concept of what I was accepting. I now understand Cookies as being small files which are collated and stored on your computer for many reasons, with one being to tailor your online experience according to previous information obtained. For some, Cookies appear as harmless, even helpful, making life easier and online navigations more personalised. Conversely, it seems that this seemingly positive ease of access and personalisation should not come at the cost of privacy, with private information being stored for anyone to acquire. A controversial aspect of Cookies is the inability to navigate sites that use them, the pop-up being positioned in the centre of the screen, blocking access to the site without their acceptance. This seems unfair… all I wanted to do was a bit of Pull and Bear sales shopping without the feeling of signing my life away. There’s no doubt that Cookies are a feat of technological advancement, with the capacity to make users lives easier whilst giving brands the ability to specifically target products to consumers they know will purchase. However, the ever-growing concern of cyber security should be at the forefront of consumers minds, with awareness of what they are agreeing to online.

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Does the ability to virtually “unfriend” make it too easy to lose true, real-life friendships?