Month: January 2018

Here are two relevant photos that came up when I searched myself on Google!

I did a little Google searching to see what kinds of information I would find about myself if I typed in my name. I found various results depending on what I typed in.

When I typed in my full name, Olivia Christine Bonsen, I didn’t find a ton of information. Some of the accurate links that came up were my name on the 2016 Fall Honor Roll at WSU and a link to my work’s Facebook page (which is a doggie daycare/hotel). The only relevant photo I found under this search was the cover of a “Winter Sports Preview” page done by the local paper in my hometown, the Lynden Tribune. Clicking on this photo took me to a website that had these brochures from multiple different years. I played basketball in high school and have a cousin with the same last name that is still playing, so I found team images with us in it from a few different years.

When I typed in just “Olivia Bonsen,” I found a lot more interesting things. The first link that came up was the link to my Instagram page. My account is private, so you have to have my permission to follow me before you can see my photos. Therefore, I wasn’t able to view my Instagram page unless I was logged in. The second link that came up was to the MaxPreps website, which had the basketball information and stats from my senior year of high school. It showed all of the scores from the games my team played senior year, which was sort of fun to go back and look at (both good and really bad memories). A lot of the links that showed up went back to articles from the two local papers in my home town, the Lynden Tribune and the Bellingham Herald, which were stories about my high school basketball team. One or two of the articles had my name mentioned in it, but most of them was just my name at the bottom with the box score. This is the main result of the pictures I found as well. My Pinterest account showed up, and so did the obituary for my Grandmother who passed away in 2013. None of this information surprised me, but I found it very interesting!

I was a little more shocked when I visited familytreenow.com. This website had my exact name, middle initial, correct age and year of birth. It also had my current address (with a Google maps view, yikes!) and home phone number. I chose to do the opt out process because it was a little concerning that my address and home phone number was so easily accessible on this website!

Overall, this was an interesting experience. After watching Big Data and learning more about it, it’s crazy to think of all the information we have left on the internet every day that we go on it. There is a trail that leads to you, and all you have to do is a little digging to find what you’re looking for.

To me, digital technology and culture means a couple different things. The first thing I think of when this is mentioned is how society, and the way that we interact with each other, has changed drastically since digital technology has become more prevalent in our lives. For a project in my DTC 201 class, I interviewed my mom and asked her about the ways she used technology growing up in the 70s and 80s. One of the things she said that stuck with me was that her and her sisters played outside almost everyday growing up. Now, kids would rather play a game on their iPad or watch a movie than go outside and play games with their neighbors. We are in an age where people would rather talk to someone on social media than meet up at a coffee shop and get to know them. Although digital technology has changed our culture and the way that we do things dramatically, there are many good things about it that have had positive influences in our lives. Digital technology in the medical field has helped millions of people with different kinds of medical disabilities, diseases and handicaps be able to live their lives with less restrictions. There is no doubt that there will be even more advances in the future, so I think that we have to keep our minds open to all of the possibilities and potential that is out there.

Growing up, I was never surrounded by much technology. My dad graduated high school in 1976 and my mom in 1981. Neither of them experienced much technology in college, and never really felt the need to bring much of it into our home. Even to this day, my dad does not own a cell phone and we do not have a working computer or internet at my house. I’ve had a cell phone since 7th grade and have had a lap top since my senior year in high school, but when I’m home I always go to coffee shops to connect to the internet. I think people from my parents’ generation often look at technology as unreliable, overused, and a bit complicated, but I definitely like to focus on the good things digital technology is doing for our culture. I hope to bring this view of technology into our class and have some good discussion about the good things it is doing for our culture.

From the Drucker and DIKW reading, I completely agree with the DIKW pyramid. It makes a lot of sense to me how Data is at the very bottom of the pyramid. To me, data means information of all kinds. There is an endless amount of data out there in the world, and without understanding that, we wouldn’t be able to obtain the information, process it into knowledge, or think about it until it became wisdom. It’s also crazy to me how much we rely on technology to store and sort our data. Humans don’t have the capacity to process and sort that much information, so this is a good example of how digital technology helps our culture.