How the Internet has Shaped Us

     'The Machine is Us/ing US'. This video is thoughtfully made by Michael Wesch. This video describes the start of the internet. I liked how it starts with paper and the person in the video writes down his thoughts. If he didn't like it he would just erase it and write something different but if he didn't like that new thought either he erased it again. It then switched to him typing on a computer, and you can backspace as much as you can to get your point across because the backspace doesn't go away on a computer. The video then goes into the evolution of the web and its impact on society, communication, and knowledge of the internet clearly, it especially dives into Web 2.0, which has transformed from being a tool for reading static pages to a very interactive platform where users can create, share, and modify content this already there for everyone to see. The video especially highlights the flow of digital text, linking, tagging, and collaboration, demonstrating how the web enables collective intelligence.

With the video, you can see it is very well done and put together with the rapid visuals and text that is used from the jumping website to the website that is on the screen and understanding that the web is consistently trying to reinvent itself with every new website that is taking its turn on the screen. Wesch, the maker of the video suggests that the web is not just the tool we use but something that is evolving and shaping us in return. It emphasizes the power of human interaction on the internet and raises questions about ownership, copyright, and the relationship between technology and culture. For example, in the video, there is a part where Wikipedia comes on the screen. Wikipedia is known for users who can edit the information and make it fake/ false. That is why a lot of information and a lot of professors in universities try to tell us not to use information from that website because it can spread false information. The video ultimately implies that as users of this tool, it is reshaping and constantly changing, and it is blurring the lines between human and machine-driven content creation.

The second video that was watched titled 'Epic 2014.' The video was thoughtfully made by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson that imagines the future of the media and the internet. Set in the year of 2014, it traces the evolution of technology and media, presenting a timeline of key ideas from the early 2000s leading up to the future where Google, Amazon, and other big technology companies dominate news and content delivery. The video envisions a world where traditional journalism has been over taken by personalized algorithm-driven news gatherers. Google and Amazon merge to create 'Googlezon' a powerful entitie that controls information, tailoring content based on individual preferences, behaviors, and trends. The New York Times, in this context is representing old media does resist to this idea but they eventually become obsolete. The video cumluates with the creation of 'EPIC' (Evolving Personalized Information Construct), a system that assembles the world's news and information according to each user's tastes and data, making everyone both a consumer and a contributor. Overall, Epic 2014 reflects on the media's personlizing but it can result in questionable balances between actual journalism and big technology companies and how much freedom you should give them.