The article "Gin, Television, and Cognitive Surplus" by Clay Shirky is about cognitive surplus and how its better to do something than to do nothing. The main arguments that Shirky is making are that when war world II came around people had to start managing their free time. The act or process of knowing, preserving, and remembering was seen as an asset rather than a crisis. The author argues that this surplus or free time people have could be spent in better ways then watching TV, it could be used to share information on the computer through websites like wikipedia. This article defines literacy as the  ability to use the Internet to spread information, but to also be able to dig deep in to things and not just take it for face value. Shirky says that this is something society grows into not out of. This definition is somewhat like the other articles we read. Shirky repeats the words free time and cognitive surplus in his article a lot which shows me that the two words probably have a lot to do with each other.

Is Google making us stupid?

The article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" if about how the ability for people has changed since the internet. The author talks about how he used to spend hours reading long books and passages, but now his concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. The article also talks about how the internet is changing how we think. Since the internet is a big part of the world now a days, and many people use it everyday, it shapes how we read and think. Literacy in this article is defined as the ability to read and comprehend what your reading, instead of taking it at face value. This definition is very similar to the definition of "Socrate's nightmare". This article says that the internet is causing people to read less and lose focus when reading. The author uses a few people, their blogs, and research to back his claims including Scott Karp's and Bruce Friedman's blogs and a study of online habits, conducted by scholars from University College London. Some of this evidence is effective but some are not since they could be considered opinions and not facts.

Social Media Account

After doing a lot of looking around and narrowing down my choices, I think I found a social media account to do my unit 3 essay on. Miranda Lambert who is a country singer and is also married to Blake Shelton. Miranda Lambert's Facebook page is filled with recent updates, photos and interactions. She has many photos at an animal shelter and many links for adoptable dogs. This shows that she loves animals and wants to help them. Miranda likes to put post on her Facebook about the cities she is visiting for her tours. This could just mean that she's a rock star or that she also likes to travel. Her biography on Facebook also gives you a great sense of what she's like. Overall I think/hope her account will be good for this unit.

Nothing goes away...

On Facebook I present myself as a college student. I have many pictures of the football games and the places around campus. I also talk about the stress I'm under. I think I also present my self as a family person. I have tons of pictures of my family and me. My cover photo is of two elephants, one is big and one is a baby holding its moms tail with its trunk. I think this say that I am an animal/nature person, which is pretty accurate. My more recent pictures before coming to college consist of my family and I. Both my dad and brother are in their uniforms. I think this represents someone who is patriotic and diverse. I also have a few pictures of me kissing a stingray in the Grand Caymans. This represents a person who is adventurous. I have a lot of posts about Auburn, which represents a huge amount school sprit. I think I portray my self very accurately on Facebook. I don't feel like I have a responsibility to maintain a social media presence. I do feel that I need to censor sometimes because I do have family on Facebook as well and if I have a future employer look at it, I don't want to be judged by the words I use to express myself, but it's not going to kill me to censor myself because it makes me a better person. If my future employer handed me a print out of my most recent Facebook post I would most definitely still get the job. I don't put anything on the Internet I wouldn't want my parents or grandparents to see. Its not just for employers its for me too, because no matter what you post or delete, it's never going to go away. It's better to be safe than sorry.