We have to invest in girls futures. It is important for all of us. If we reach gender equality the world will become a better place. But we have to solve problems on both sides. For boys and men the problems are more social, like not being able to talk about feelings, and mental health issuses such as depression. For girls and women it is both social and economic. Fewer girls get an education than boys, women have on avrege lower pay than men. These are all issues we have to solve. If you want to know more about them search for the HeForShe campaign led by Emma Watson.

Globalization brings us all closer, and the internet is one of the main “highways” that allow this. Letting us talk to anyone, anywhere in the world instantaneously. One could think that this would show each and every one of us many, varied perspectives on all the topics in the world, small or big, difficult or easy, and it did, and still does so… on paper.

Today’s society feels more and more polarizing. Whether it be politics, movies or anything in between, you are either for it or against it. Donald Trump is one example. Everybody seems to be either for everything he says, or entirely against it. There is no one that agrees on some topics and disagrees on others, at least not publicly. Because if you agree on one thing, you have to agree on everything. However, this is obviously not true, but it seems like it. This might be because of the internets “echo chambers”.

Each and every one of us has our own personalized “bubble” of the internet, filled only with things that we agree on. All the major companies like Facebook, YouTube and Google have algorithms that use data about what you have previously watched, liked, searched for, and so on, and shows you more of that. This seems great, but creates the effect of also removing everything you don’t like, and opinions that you do not agree with as well. This conditions us to only seeing opinions from like-minded people, giving us the pleasure of never being challenged in any way. And when we inevitably get challenged, we don’t know what to do. That person instantly becomes the “enemy”, even though they might agree with you on many different subjects.

Globalization brings the world closer, but also divides us. Now a days we might have to actively seek out people of differing opinions to reverse the effects of the “echo chambers”. Having to actively seek out conflict might seem contradictory if we want to reduce polarization, but small conflicts might be what we need to avoid large scale conflict.

I wrote an entire blogpost about how news media control our opinions, but when I tried to publish it, it was deleted. Turns out that if I don’t write a blog post in one sitting I lose everything except for my first save when I try to publish it.

I will still write about media… this does not stop me. I will write about how media affects me instead, so sorry for the misleading title.

There are many types of media, social media, news media, entertainment media like youtube, but recently I tried out a new one… blogging, and I will now write about how it affects me.

In English class we have to create our own blogs, this is so that we can use them as a platform for all the texts that we are going to write throughout the school year. BUT! I can not, for the life of me, get this blog thing to work, so in short, blogging , makes me crazy.