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[murrayinnahurry]

Don't Tell Me What I Want To See

I've recently been tasked with reading through Sara Wachter-Boettcher's book "Technically Wrong" and I've just finished chapter 5. Chapter 5 focused on companies desire to create an engaging, 'fun' product, often with little regard for the reality of user experiences.

Wachter-Boettcher discusses the growing trend of flashback features and services, like FB's "On this Day" and TimeHop. Features, which I personally as a user have always despised. I laughed my way through "Technically Wrong's" fifth chapter. I could relate to almost every listed example. How many times have I opened an app only to be reminded of one the worst things in my life? Far, far too many. Or how many times to I have to be reminded how bad my spelling and sentence construction were at 13-15?

It's an obnoxious and often tone-deaf feature that social media companies are all cramming into their services. I dislike it immensely and as noted in the book; these companies make these required features of their services. A blast from the past is inescapable according to likes of Musk, The Zuck, and every other corporate bigwig trying to dredge up our memories so they can sell more ad space in between them.

This chapter highlights a growing issue among the tech industry. Businesses are no longer designing products to fill a need. Theyre designing products and hoping to create a need for them along the way. These ideas are usually half-baked at best, and while not intentionally malicious, they often have consequences not immediately apparent to the designers.

[murrayinnahurry]

Content Warning: Content Writing in 2025

Recently I've been reading through Dan Lawrence's "Digital Writing: a guide to writing for social media and the web". I'm currently on chapter 3, which focuses on writing for the web in general. Lawrence's discussion captivated me, but I found myself gravitating towards section 3.12 - Content Writing.

Content creation has swept the nation (maybe more accurately its ensnared the entire planet). 3.12 discusses and dissects the emergence of 'content writing' from within the larger, older discipline of digital writing. I like Lawrence, hold firm that effective content generation is primary way we hope to capture and audience's attention online. Content creation opens up avenues for creators large and small. The never-ending stream of new content feeds the classics economic model of supply and demand. The only issue in the digital space is that the supply often far outweighs the demand. There is so much out there, that no single person could ever consume all the content on the web. It's probably safe to say a single person couldnt handle the amount of content added to the web in a single day. Content creators have to stay on top of trends in order to capture the fleeting attention spans of users.

It's readily observable. We can see major corporations like Wendy's using colloquialisms and slang in their social media posts in order to engage with the segment of their clientele that inhabits those digital spaces. Wendy's doesn't need to push coupons on Twitter, it needs to push memes. When creating digital content and content for the web, creators have to be willing to meet their audience at the audience's level. Content creation has changed the way we think, interact, and purchase products and services.

[murrayinnahurry]

AI, is it coming for our jobs, or just changing how we do them?

Hot in the news, hot in the classroom, and increasingly hot in the workplace--AI. Artificial Intelligence isn't new to the scene, the first chatbots came into the existence in the 60s. Those beeper-speakers of yesteryear pale in comparison to the intelligence, fluency, and accessibility of modern AI models and partners.

As this tech evolves at such a rapid rate, we are forced to address how we will utilize and subsequently reckon with it. Scholars, staff, and students at educational institutions of all levels are either embracing, blocking, or confused about AI applications in the classroom.

There is a fear that as AI improves it'll come in and take away human jobs. For some AI represents the true final death knell for the middle-class. AI will come in and take out all the white-collar office jobs, while their dumber robot brethren come in for all the blue-collar ones. (Side question: Would robots associate jobs with collars? Side-side question: Would robots even wear a collar?) Yet, many people are seeing improvements in their work, thanks to the assistance of AIs.

Nervous Nellie's and Frantic Fred's have reported using AI models to write correspondence, both inter-personal and professional, and seeing extremely acceptable results. (Harwell, et. al.). Other people have reported being booted from their writing gigs, only to later be brought on to train the AIs that stole their jobs. AI is a newish, scaryish tech that's threatening to shake up the way we write, interact, and do business. Rather than eliminating positions, AI is shifting the ways in which we perform these duties and services.

[murrayinnahurry]

Digital Rhetoric and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

While the field of Digital Rhetoric is still emerging, the spaces it occupies have quickly grown vast. Yet, despite the growing importance of Digital Rhetoric as both term and field of study, it's only as good as its tools. Without platforms to express it on, Digital Rhetoric quickly becomes meaningless.

HCI is a related field of study that focuses on production of physical interfaces between humans and computers. Think touchscreens, keyboards, mice, software, VR displays, and then beyond. HCI is all about how WE connect with technology. This field focuses on all the ways we can and should be interacting with technology. The interests of HCI and Digital Rhetoric align in that they study ways humans interact with and in, the digital spaces of the 21st century. The field incorporates elements of other fields like psychology, cognitive science, and sociology. Human-Computer Interaction is all about making those technological and digital interactions more accessible.

More closely aligned with Computer Science and Computer Engineering than Digital Rhetoric; HCI's efforts facilitate the application of Digital Rhetoric in the first place. In ways HCI shapes aspects of Digital Rhetoric by changing the way we access and interact with these new, ever-changing digital environments (Eyman, 2015).