Blog #7 - EOTO Technology

 The First Ever Email

A lot of people gave presentations, but the one that stuck out to me the most was the first-ever email was

sent by Ray Tomlinson in 1971. Tomlinson, an engineer and computer scientist, worked at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN), a company contracted by the U.S. Department of Defense to develop ARPANET, a precursor to the modern internet. Tomlinson’s breakthrough came as part of his involvement in this early networking project, which was designed to allow multiple computers to share information over long distances. He would be and continues to be recognized as the father of the email.

In a world where communication had been done over giant computers with heavy limitations on what you could actually do, until Tomlinson's discoveries. Before Tomlinson's innovation, users could only send messages on the same computer, so the challenge was connecting users from different computers with ARPANET. At that time, Tomlinson was working on two separate programs, called CYPNET, which enabled file transfers between computers, and SNDMSG. He thought to combine the two after realizing this could make the messages transferable just as files. He modified the SNDMSG program to send messages from one computer to another using ARPANET. This is where the well-known @ symbol which separated the user from the device and came about since his system required a way to identify a specific user and/or computer combination.  This simple but effective solution allowed messages to be routed to the correct recipient on a different machine.

According to Tomlinson, it was a string of random characters, such as “QWERTY” or something similar, sent between two machines sitting next to each other. This would be the first ever email and although a bit dull it would mark the birth of a new form of communication that would revolutionize how people interact globally. 

Although people weren't too keen on his innovation at the time, it would be a game changer for all of history. The newfound ability to be able to communicate with people live, all while from the comfort of your own computers. He may not have realized what the long-term impact of his invention would be at the time, but his contribution would become one of the most important milestones in the development of the internet.

Blog #2 - Supreme Court

 The Supreme Court

    In my recent extension of knowledge of the Supreme Court's abilities and history, I was tasked with watching this video and following it up with it's second part. This in depth, yet casual video allowed insight to the world of few, which is the supreme court justices. Coming from a school that had a very big standing in American history, I felt like I had a very solid understanding of the US Supreme Court system. However, those videos have definitely changed a few perspectives that I had in the past in regard to the highest level of court in the country. 

Supreme Court Individuality

    Something that was just taught to me that I could have definitely made the conclusion of in the past is that every single time a new supreme court justice gets appointed they take a new picture with everyone in it. A huge thing that I learned is that every single appeal gets treated with the same amount of weight and seriousness. Whether it be from Donald Trump, okay maybe NOT him, but under the guidelines, everyone is said to be treated equal. That means anyone from CEOs to people making their appeal while they sit in jail for life. Another thing that I learned from the video that, I think, is the most important take away is that everyone in the Supreme Court, at least back when they made that video, walks into a meeting with not only something to say, but everyone gets off only a single thing until everyone has gotten off their something. Justice Clarence Thomas was cited as saying, "Everyone gets to say something once before any one gets to speak twice" during the video which I thought was a very respectable way of going about things, however I feel like that's not the case anymore.

Newest Supreme Court Justice 
Ketanji Brown Jackson

Surprising Perspective Change

One very surprising thing that I had come to find out is that the active Supreme Court Justices usually speak of a three to five month rule. This basically means that for the new justices it will feel like at least three to five months before they come full circle, and they realize that this is their job and can start performing it the right way. This made me really change the way I thought about the Supreme Court because it made me realize that they really do work together as a team. The way that they would talk about each other was really standing out to me because I felt as though there should me a divide between them because of the discrepancy in the political parties. This gave me a new found respect for the Supreme Court Justices.

Blog #6 - The Story & Impact of Facebook

 FaceBook

    Facebook, now Meta, was invented by Mark Zuckerberg, along with his college roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, while they were students at Harvard University. The social media platform was created in February 2004 in Zuckerberg’s dorm room. Initially, it was called "The Facebook" and was intended to be an exclusive online social network for Harvard students. It quickly expanded to other Ivy League universities and eventually opened to anyone with a valid email address.

Mark Zuckerburg

Eduardo Saverin

Dustin Moskovitz

Andrew McCollum

Chris Hughes

    As previously stated, the goal of "The Facebook" was initially to connect college student in an easier and more efficient way than email. At the time, there was no central social platform where college students could interact in real time, so Facebook was seen as the true benchmark of social networking. Facebook was designed to solve the problem of social isolation and disconnectedness by offering an organized, virtual space where users could communicate, share interests, and build a personal online presence. As we all know, Facebook ended up expanding much further past what it was originally. As more of a haven for the Ivy League students, it now allows families and friends from all across the world to be able to communicate with over 3 billion users.

Problems Facebook Saw and Solved

• Connection and Networking: Facebook solved the issue of physical distance by allowing people to maintain connections with friends, family, and colleagues no matter where they were in the world.
• Social Sharing: It made it easier for people to share personal updates, photos, videos, and interests, facilitating more meaningful virtual relationships.
• Business Promotion: For companies around the world, Facebook became a powerful marketing tool, allowing businesses to reach their target audiences with ads, build brand communities, and interact with customers directly.

Impacts on Communication

• Real-Time Communication: Facebook changed communication by introducing instant messaging features, such as Facebook Chat (later evolved into Messenger), which made it easy for people to communicate in real time.
• Public and Private Spaces: It blended public broadcasting (posts, status updates) with private communication (messages, groups) in a single platform.
• Social Media Culture: Facebook introduced the concept of the "News Feed," which fostered a constant stream of updates from friends and pages, significantly changing how people consume and react to information.

Issues of Note

• Privacy Concerns: Facebook has faced criticism for mishandling user data and privacy. Issues like the Cambridge Analytica scandal exposed how data could be exploited for political or commercial gain.

Mark Zuckerburg Standing Trial

• Mental Health Impact: Studies have linked extensive use of Facebook to negative impacts on mental health, including feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, and depression due to social comparison.
• Misinformation and Polarization: The platform has been accused of enabling the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories, contributing to political polarization and social unrest.
• Addiction and Time Drain: The addictive nature of Facebook has also been criticized, with users often spending excessive amounts of time on the platform, sometimes to the detriment of face-to-face relationships and productivity.

While Facebook has connected billions of people and transformed digital communication, it has also introduced significant challenges related to privacy, mental health, and social dynamics. This has left people around the world, including myself, in a difficult and somewhat hypocritical situation: struggling to justify our everyday use of social media while knowing the mental health and community issues it causes.