It's a Mad World

As technology has advanced, the disconnect between people has increased.  The content in this video shows exactly what society looks like today.  Everyone seems to be self-absorbed and mesmerized by technology.  All the people depicted in the video have their heads buried in their phones.  They all have tunnel vision and are seemingly brainwashed.

This video starts off with the main subject standing in the middle of a swarm of people as they walk past him while looking down, their eyes glued to their phones.  The main subject is considerably shorter than all the other people and looks like a child.  

In addition, there are scenes in the video that shows the egocentricity of people once they become too invested in technology.  I think the more invested people become in regard to social media and technology, the less human they are; in other words, I think those particular people begin to lose emotion.  

In one of the scenes, a person is getting beat by what looks like police officers while bystanders watch and record emotionless with their main goal being to capture the content.  This seems to be the norm in today's society, watching, recording, and documenting events for views or likes, etc.  The next scene is a group of people eating a meal together but all four people are o their phones.  What's the point of eating with other people if there is no intent of socializing?  When people eat with others, the idea is to socialize with the other people at the table (unless of course your mouth is full of food).  In today's society people struggle to communicate because of the general obsession with technology.

In the following scene, a woman poses in front of a burning picture while taking selfies.  That particular scene reinforces my idea of an egotistical, self-absorbed, and shallow society that exists today.  Those particular scenes stuck out to me the most; however, throughout the video there are scenes, images, and references to society's obsession with technology.

It is saddening to see where society is now, and how technology and social media dictate everything.  People in today's society are willing to do just about anything for publicity, likes, retweets, etc.  People tend to be shallow and self-absorbed and the only things they deem valuable must have something or everything to do with technology.  Technology and social media has brainwashed society and hopefully one day people will wake up and realize how much of a problem technology has become when used excessively.

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The Significance of the Telephone

The telephone was an extremely innovative invention that impacted the world greatly.  The telephone's main purpose was to make communication quicker and more efficient.  With the creation of the telephone, long distance communication became much easier. 

Officially, the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell.  However, others had the idea and were also in the works of creating the telephone.  Essentially, it was a race to see who would get credit for the invention.  An Italian innovator named Antonio Meucci, is credited with inventing the first basic phone in the year 1849.  A Frenchman named Charles Bourseul, is known for conceiving a phone in the year 1854.  Despite all of this, Alexander Graham Bell is the one who won the first U.S patent for the telephone in 1876.

After the telephone was invented, it continued to advance at a healthy rate.  In 1878, the first telephone line was developed.  Then, about three years later, around 49,000 telephones were put in use.  In 1880, Bell formed the American Bell Telephone Company.  Then, in 1885, American Telegraph and Telephone Company (AT&T) was formed.  AT&T annihilated all other telephone communications for the next century.  Bell System employees intentionally belittled the reputation of the U.S. telephone system to drive down the stock prices of all other phone companies and to make it easier for Bell to acquire smaller competitors.  This may seem unethical but it was indisputably a smart business move.

The invention of the telephone also provided privacy.  Instead of people sending letters to one another, and risking the interception of their mail, they could instead make a simple phone call.  Unfortunately, wealthy people tended to be the only people with telephones in their home so most people had to journey to a location with a public telephone like a general store.

The use of telephones continued to expand.  By 1948, the 30 millionth phone was connected in the United States, and by the 1960s, there were more than 80 million phone hookups in the U.S. and 160 million in the world.  By 1980, there were more than 175 million telephone subscriber lines in the U.S.  In 1993, the first digital cellular network went online in Orlando, Florida and by 1995 there were 25 million cellular phone subscribers, and that number exploded at the with digital cellular phone service expected to replace land-line phones for most U.S. customers by as early as 2010.

Today, just about everyone has a phone, well a cell phone that is.  The original telephone is now more antiquated and the cellular phone is much more relevant.  It's rare to see a person without a phone.  The advancement of the telephone has made them multipurposed.  The invention of telephone changed the way of the world.  It seems the purpose of every invention is to make something either faster, more efficient, more accessible or all of the above.... and the telephone did just that.

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The Progressive Era

In an article by The American Conservative, sixteen-year-old, Greta Thunberg shared her opinion on climate change.  Free speech is a right to Americans but sometimes free speech isn't everything it's made to be.  It seems like people don't have an issue with free speech until it interferes with their personal opinions and beliefs.  In this particular case, Thunberg is only sixteen years of age and many who agree with Thunberg's beliefs enjoy seeing her exercising her free speech.  However, if Thunberg's beliefs differed, the same people who previously had no issue in her free speech, may have a problem with it and may even go as far as to say her opinion has no weight because she is too young to have an opinion on such a controversial issue.  It seems free speech is acceptable to people when it's convenient for them.  Thunberg made a call for change and even went as far as announcing her and fifteen other young peoples' move to sue the countries of Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, and Turkey, in a bid to pressure them into considerable action on preventing climate change.

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Civil War and Reconstruction

Fake news has been an issue for quite some time now.  It is already difficult enough to verify if news is true or false, but now with people creating fake news headlines, it becomes even harder.  Facebook is no stranger to public criticism and scrutiny.  Over the past few years, Facebook has had its fair share of encounters with the spread of false information  and fake news and taken action against it, however; recently, Facebook users discovered a major loophole in Facebook's numerous strategies in combatting fake news.

A digital media company called 'Mashable' discovered a glitch in Facebook Groups that allows Facebook users  to easily create and spread fake news and misinformation via a feature that was previously shut down 2 years ago.  In a 2017 Facebook post Facebook said, “By removing the ability to customize link metadata (i.e. headline, description, image) from all link sharing entry points on Facebook, we are eliminating a channel that has been abused to post false news.”  Facebook has created various security protocols and taken different safety measures to protect against the spread of false information and fake news.

The biggest problem with the spread of false information is the laziness of people.  People are impatient and many just read headlines and assume any headline they read is factual.  Rarely do people actually read an article and learn information for themselves.  However, despite the laziness of people, everyone should have access to accurate information.  In this day in age, we expect people to be well-informed and well-versed in political, national, social and many other issues that may affect their lives from day to day.

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The Founding Era

Prior to watching the video about the history and workings of the U.S. Supreme Court, I had a relatively basic idea of the justice system and the responsibilities of the Supreme Court Justices, or at least I thought I did.  The U.S. Supreme Court has nine justices and the Justices have a lot of responsibility.

One famous court case, Dred Scott v. Sanford is one of the most well-known cases in history.  The court case was around the time of the Civil War.  The court case found that Congress had no power to  ban slavery and that blacks could never be citizens.  After the war the Constitution was amended to grant voting rights, abolish slavery and define citizenship.  The 14th Amendment told the states they could not deny due process of law or equal protection of law to any citizen.

One thing about the video was I thought it refreshing to hear Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist talk about how he implemented a rule that everyone must speak once before anyone spoke twice.  Supreme Court Justices oftentimes may be discussing a persons livelihood, and if there is no order or balance to the discussion, all the opinions present may not be genuinely heard.  Every single Justice is a different person with their own opinion that should be heard.  That particular moment in the video showed that although the Justices may have different personalities, perspectives and opinions, they still try to find a way to respect each other's opinions.

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In this article, Muhammad Ali's expression of his first amendment rights are discussed.  Ali expressed his first amendment rights when he was drafted to fight for the United States in the Vietnam War.  Ali refused and because of his refusal, he was sentenced to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.  Ali appealed the decision, but while he fought his legal battles, he was stripped of his championship title and lost his boxing license.  Ali refused to fight because he was a Muslim and identified with the religion of Islam.  He deemed himself a "conscientious objector" and missed the prime of his career.  Ali is a historical figure because of his refusal to forfeit his rights.

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About Me

My name is Alex Gibson. I was born and raised in New York. I'm a sophomore at High Point University majoring in Sports Communication and Journalism and minoring in Athletic Coaching.  After school, I hope to coach a college or professional basketball team and with experience in Sports Communication and Journalism, possibly expand into creating podcasts, radio shows and appearing on sports shows like ESPN.