DAWN'S DIARY

Hi there! My name is Dawn Nguyen and I’m a freshman student at Creighton University. I wouldn’t call Omaha home though since I was born and raised in Estes Park, Colorado, also known as the gateway of Rocky Mountain National Park and the home of the Stanley Hotel. You might think you have no idea what the Stanley Hotel is, but trust me, you’ve definitely seen it before. Does Stephen Spielberg’s The Shining sound familiar to you? Or what about Dumb and Dumber? Yes, the Stanley Hotel was THE hotel in both films.  

Outside of class, I love to hike, swim, play my guitar, hang out with my friends, and most of all, scroll on my phone. Yes, it’s well known and researched by the Be Present app that like many in my generation, I have an unhealthy addiction to my phone; you can always find me liking my friend’s latest post on Instagram or sending people I barely talk to a snap (picture on Snapchat.) My consumption is so unhealthy to the point where I basically have an Apple ecosystem; there’s always a phone in one hand, my MacBook in my backpack, my iPad on my desk playing a movie, and AirPods living in my ears. As such, I am well-versed when it comes to all things media, whether it be how to use the latest technology or decode internet language. 

If I were to live two decades ago, I would’ve likely found out world news through the newspaper like everyone else. However, in this modern day and age, news travels like lightning speed and is delivered through videos, television, online headlines, memes, etc. Although modernity brings haste and swiftness with it, I believe that we are going way too fast; misinformation is spread so rampant that it’s nearly impossible for fact-checkers to correct information before it’s already been implanted in the heads of hundreds of people. In fact, according to CBC, misinformation is rampant on social media apps by design as it generates more profit. That’s the most frustrating thing about the media and technology for me and is also why I’m very interesting in this class; although I’m part of Gen-Z and am well-versed in media literacy, there is still much that we can all learn from being more aware and cognizant of all the issues that plague our world wide web. 

In a world that’s constantly looking down at the flashiest new headline on their phone, the best approach to solving such an issue is not to decrease the amount of technology we consume necessarily. Everything is connected to and reliant on technology to the point where we cannot function without it and that’s okay. Rather, as I hope this class seeks to provide, we as a society should be more cognizant of the type of media we’re consuming and how accurate the information we see on our screen is. Technology is constantly adapting to the point where I feel that even Gen-Z needs to start learning how to discern what is true and false. For example, I’m starting to find myself falling for AI videos as AI is rapidly developing to the point where it produces nearly realistic photos and videos. It’s certainly disheartening that I find myself no better than a grandma who is new to an iPad, but changing times call for changing hearts and eyes. As I write more blogs for this class, I hope to further delve into the issue of the rapidly changing internet and discover more intuitive solutions; this issue is like a complex spider web where it will take the help of multiple people, such as my classmates and instructor, to solve and untangle, and I’m ready to take the challenge on.