EOTO 2 Reaction

I chose to react to disinformation as my EOTO reaction, since it is pretty similar to and has some overlap with my own topic of echo chambers. Disinformation is the willing spread of wrong information to serve some purpose, unlike misinformation which is the unintentional spread of wrong information. 

I learned that some of the "good" effects of disinformation can include bringing people together over their beliefs, it can cause people to feel vindicated and empowered for their beliefs and can provide explanations to the unexplainable. 

However, disinformation also damages trust in people and information sources, creates division, and often manipulates people's emotions causing anger and bitterness. It can also be dangerous and harmful in more direct ways, like a child dying of a treatable disease because of anti-vaccine disinformation.

Lastly, I learned that fighting disinformation involves looking deeper into authors and sources, checking personal biases, checking publication dates to make sure information isn't outdated, and when in doubt, consulting with someone more educated on the topic (like a college professor). Even check to make sure the source isn't satire since, as ridiculous as it sounds, I actually have heard of people quoting The Onion and other similar platforms thinking they were legitimate.

Like echo chambers, disinformation relies a lot on confirmation bias to spread. People are more likely to not question misinformation if it's what they want to hear, and will be more scrutinous of (or outright disregarding of) information that challenges their beliefs. Thus, for both topics, having an awareness of personal bias is paramount to avoiding the manipulation that comes with these things. 

I'd say the biggest difference between the two topics is that, while they're not good, echo chambers aren't inherently malicious like disinformation. They do have pretty similar ways of being avoided, in checking your sources of information, taking time to get educated, and confronting personal biases, especially about controversial topics. 

EOTO 2: Echo Chambers

An echo chamber occurs when a person is only exposed to information that they themselves agree with. These can happen in real life or online, although they more widely occur in online spaces, thanks to things like algorithms. 

Wanting to be among like-minded people isn't inherently a bad thing, but echo chambers can become dangerous because they can distort a person's perception of reality, like by convincing a person that "everyone" believes what they believe. It also makes people less open to different ideas, since the person's existing beliefs get so thoroughly cemented through the constant affirmation these spaces provide. 

A couple of concepts that tie in with echo chambers include confirmation bias and filter bubbles. Confirmation bias is people's inclination to believe things that affirm their beliefs over things that don't. Echo chambers are pretty much founded on confirmation bias, since people will naturally follow the things that they agree with and want to see more of it. 

Filter bubbles occur when digital algorithms filter people's online content into what it believes they will want to see, hiding anything that the user hasn't shown interest in. This isn't inherently a bad thing- there's so much content available on the internet, why shouldn't platforms just focus on showing me things I actually want to see? But like echo chambers, these can also cause people to be uninformed on certain topics and less open to new ideas. The main difference between filter bubbles and echo chambers seems to be that echo chambers may be formed naturally, whereas filter bubbles are always curated by an algorithm for the specific purpose of creating more engagement.  

If I had to guess, the demographic most vulnerable to echo chambers are those who, for a multitude of reasons that could cause this, spend more time socializing online than they do in-person. Online spaces are likely to expose you exclusively to like-minded people, whereas in real life, especially in a place like a college campus, I interact with lots of different people with lots of different beliefs on a daily basis. I don't have to be friends with all these people, but it's good to at least encounter a large variety of people and values.

The best way to avoid falling into echo chambers is to make sure to vary your sources of information. Checking multiple news sources of different affiliations is a good place to start, as well as seeking low-bias sources (there really isn't such a thing as no-bias sources, as nice as that would be). Unfortunately, though, the modern internet and algorithms have made doing all this digging a high time investment, potentially more work than the average person can be reasonably expected to do. 

I don't necessarily have a source for this, but as I mentioned earlier, a way I believe people can avoid echo chambers is to make sure real-life interaction is balanced properly with online social interaction. Even still, just being aware that echo chambers exist and constantly checking your assumptions about what "everyone" believes is a great start to avoiding falling into echo chambers.  

Antiwar Media

After taking a brief look into ANTIWAR.COM for a bit, I can see that most of their writings focus on Isreal and Ukraine, two of the most debated topics recently when it comes to American intervention. Isreal and Palestine are especially hot topics, and I myself know plenty of people who vehemently defend one side or the other. Going a little further, there's even news from other countries and continents such as Africa, Asia, India, and even Greenland.

The American Conservative is another website that offers similar anti-war and isolationist views. They seem to encourage a much more reasonable take on conservativism, claiming that "what passed for conservatism in the United States wasn’t conserving much of anything". 

As we learned in class, when America first got involved in World War II, the Espionage Act made anti-war voices outright illegal, and those who helped spread the belief were imprisoned. But today, while the writers for a site like ANTIWAR.COM aren't being thrown in a jail cell for their views, their voices aren't getting properly heard either.

There are usually monetary reasons as to why the US gets involved in foreign warfare. This article claims that one of the reasons for the US getting involved in World War II is because of investments to European countries that would likely never be paid back if they lost the war. Thus, that means financial incentive to make sure that anti-war sentiment spreads as little as possible. I'm not going to get too far into the anti-government conspiracy theory rabbit hole, but it's definitely worth thinking about why sites like these are so hard to come by. 

It's important that people should see and support platforms such as these. The last thing any US (or anywhere, really) citizen should want is being sent off to go die in a foreign war to make a few people richer, yet that seems to be exactly what is happening. 

History of TVs

 I chose to write about the history of the TV, since it ties in very closely with my own subject of the history of video games.

I learned that the earliest precursor of the TV was Paul Nipkow's Electric Telescope in 1884, which used his patented Nipkow Disk to display a series of images.

Next came the Cathode Ray Tube in 1897, which used an electron beam and magnets to project an image onto a screen. They weren't commercialized until the late 1930's but remained popular until the early 2000's when they were replaced by LCD screens. This is relevant to video games as well, since the earliest games were played on primitive CRT screens (with a “Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device” even being patented in 1948 by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle R. Mann), and video games continued to evolve alongside TV technology. 

The Iconoscope, invented in 1923, was another essential part of the history of TV's, being the first portable camera designed specifically for TV broadcasting. 

BBC began incorporating regular TV broadcasts via its new expanded service, the BBC Television Service in 1936, moving away from its previous exclusively radio based service. 

Lastly, I learned TV's impact on the world included great advancements in both news and entertainment, creating a whole new medium that information could be conveyed on. I also learned that it raised concerns over depictions of violence and graphic content, particularly for children. This stood out to me because video games raised (and continue to raise) those exact same concerns, and a lot of research has been done on both topics. These issues were actually addressed at pretty similar times, with the ESRB being established in 1994, and the Telecommunications Act was implemented in 1996, forcing TV shows to have ratings. TV, overall, has had profound effects on both information and entertainment, that was dominant for over half a century before being shaken by the Internet and portable devices. 

Privacy

Privacy is a major issue today, with the amount of information about people readily available to anyone, with a wide variety of intentions.

How do these issues affect you? Your friends and family?

Part of the problem is that, most likely, it won't. People aren't speaking out about these issues not because the information isn't available, but because the average person is not going to be given any reason to care. Like for the license plate issue, millions of Americans are going to have their license plates read and stored every day and are never going to know the difference. It's only when the data gets leaked, used for discrimination, or any other blatant issues that the average person will start caring. There are things people can do, though, as a county in Virginia has already ruled that license plate data can only be stored if it pertains to an ongoing investigation. Others could also follow suit if they took the opportunity.

What should the government be doing about these issues?

This one is interesting because, truth be told, I thought the laws about this were a lot stricter than they actually are. I was really surprised to hear that, for all intents and purposes, revenge porn is perfectly legal. I thought for sure that it would fall under defamation or similar laws. Your only shot at dealing with it is civil suits, which are extremely demanding both time and money wise to pursue, and thus not a route everyone can afford to take. So, I'd definitely agree that passing the law that criminalizes it is a must.

What can we do to protect ourselves from invasions of our privacy?

There is only so much people can do to protect their privacy online. I could give the generic spiel about being careful about what you post online and what people should have access to sensitive information about you, but that shouldn't be the whole answer either. People should be able to post about what they want online, without having to sanitize their lives out of fear of how that information could be used against them. 

History of Video Games

There is some debate as to what the first video game is, depending on how a video game is defined. Two of the earliest video games were A.S. Douglas's Noughts and Crosses (tic-tac-toe) in 1952, and William Higinbotham's Tennis for Two in 1958. I'm going to be focusing on Tennis for two, since it was the first game designed specifically for entertainment rather than education. Higinbotham wanted to create an exciting, interactive showcase for his workplace Brookhaven National Laboratory's annual visitor day, noticing the mostly static, unengaging exhibits. A game, he thought, would be a fun and understandable way to demonstrate the company's technology to the people. Tennis for Two was a huge success, and hundreds of visitors lined up to give it a try.

After that, video games only kept growing and developing. Here are some other notable milestones for the growing industry:

1962- Steve Russell at MIT releases Spacewar! 

Spacewar! was a two-player spaceship combat game that, while widely popular, was limited to universities, laboratories, or anywhere else that would have access to the bulky Programmed-Data-Processor-1 (PDP-1) computer. 

1972- the Odyssey, first home console released

It was rather primitive and didn't meet huge financial success, but it paved the way for other consoles, like the Atari 2600, to emerge. 

1983- video game crash

An oversaturated market and a slew of low-quality products caused the public to mostly lose interest in the industry, until Nintendo revived it with the NES. The most memorable of these includes the infamous ET game, widely considered the worst video game of all time.

1989 - the first console war- Sega vs. Nintendo

Sega's Genisis became the first real competition to Nintendo, pushing innovation on both their ends. Sega also became the first company to raise concerns about violence in video games with its releases of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, which led to the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) being established. 

1995- the beginning of 3D games

The dawn of 32- and 64-bit consoles like Sega's Saturn and the Nintendo 64; Sony's PlayStation now entered the market, and despite not having a legacy to lean on like its competitors, its superior technology made it a smash hit.

2005- beginning of modern gaming

The Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii became the dominant consoles of the industry. 

Impact:

Video games have become a massive industry, generating nearly 455 billion USD in 2024. Video games have come to exist in many different facets of our lives, even serving practical purposes such as helping medical students train in an immersive, risk-free environment. Many researchers are concerned with the effects of video games on the mind, especially for children. Some scientists see positive impacts on children who play video games, citing increases in concentration, problem solving skills, and imagination, while others raise concern over addiction, social withdrawal, and aggression because of video games. 

As a game design major, I may not be the most unbiased source, but I believe that video games are a wonderful thing. They're a means to tell great stories, craft unforgettable experiences, and, in the case of social games, a great way to connect with friends near or far. 

 BNL | History:The First Video Game?

Video Game History ‑ Timeline & Facts