What is going on ladies and gentlemen! This is Matthew Ma back at it again with another physical fitness blog. If you are new to this blog, I would like to introduce my blog by saying I am a blogger that enjoys to spread the knowledge on the world of physical activity. If you wanted to do some catching up, I have my first blog post called The only bad workout is no workout which gives an insight about the benefits of physical activity, and why it is important to incorporate it into one’s life. Secondly, I have another blog post called Faulty sources is like faulty technique which provides you readers with knowledge on what sources of information one can or cannot trust, when it comes to looking up information on the physical fitness realm.
For this blog post specifically, we will be talking about the dark scary world of the internet, and all of the data collection of information that is occurring without the user’s even noticing. As a result of this, today’s blog will give you some tips regarding internet safety and how you can best protect yourself against the potential dangers of the internet. Have you ever felt like your iphone, Amazon Echo, or Google Home seemed to be listening to you? Have you ever been having a conversation with a friend on Facebook Messenger or IMessage about buying a new supplements at GNC. Suddenly you have advertisements pop up on your Instagram, Facebook, and Amazon account all about the supplements you were JUST talking about. According to Jennifer Golbeck in her TED talk Your Social Media “likes” expose more than you think she talks about how social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Google, often collect the information that users are looking up or liking online and selling that information to other companies in order to create advertisements that are tailored toward specific individuals. As a result, this puts into perspective the potential dangers that can occur because of this data collection from these so called companies that we are supposed to trust. Everything that you are searching or liking on social media is leaving an online trail that is basically creating an online profile of yourself that you aren’t even aware of! Although it may not be these companies that is releasing our information…if there is ever an event where a hacker is able to get ahold of this stored information they can potentially begin doing dangerous things that would not be so pleasant. This can include things like advertisements toward false information and sources for their benefit. What can we do to protect ourselves from these dangers?
Scenario: You are searching up a new supplement and want to know if it is a good product to use. You notice that you are starting to get targeted ads for this product…can you trust the ads that are being given to you?
Protection Tip : When you are being fed targeted ads it is important that you always do a little bit of extra research in order to determine how legit the product is. This can include fact checking the product with more reliable sources like the ones provided in my Blog 2!
Another common issue that occurs in the internet world of blogging, is the issue of copyrighted information and claiming credit for other’s peoples work. In my blog posts I tend to give my readers a bunch of content that I did not write or create. As a result, I will create hyperlinks that link you guys to the original source in which I found this information. I use my blog as a secondary source in which my reader can obtain knowledge about physical activity in a more simple and approachable way, without having to filter through the bad information.
Another topic that I wanted to address in this weeks blog is about how the rise of technology and the internet is slowly beginning to dampen the creativity of our incoming generations. According to Lawrence Lessig in the Ted talk Laws that choke creativity John Philip Sousa states ” These talking machines are going to ruin artistic development of music in this country…today you hear these infernal machines going night and day…we will not have a vocal chords left”. This quote refers to how the automation of many of the new technologies is taking away from the experience of struggling to figure things which is taking away the potential for us to create new ideas. In terms of how this relates to physical activity, is that when struggling with a new work out routine or technique that you are trying to perfect, sometimes going straight to the internet is not always the best thing. Discuss with your peers, refer to an instructor and PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. This allows you to compare with your peers or instructor by talking through your issues, rather than just going straight to the internet. In the end you will feel more accomplished.
In today’s blog post we have talked about a lot of different things. We have talked about the dark scary internet and some tips in which you can protect yourself, how copywriting is a major issue over the internet, and finally we talked about how technology is holding us back from creativity. For those of you who best learn visually, I will be linking my Vimeo, Instagram, and Facebook which are my other social media platforms that address physical activity. These will just give you more sources to further your knowledge on physical activity!
Matthew's Fitness Guide and Blog 