Online Reputation

By Mikala Lindhardt

            Have you ever tried to Google a friend or a classmate or even an ex-boyfriend/girlfriend to see what they are up to? With the number of social media sites and “friends” someone can have, it is not hard for people to find out about you—both good and bad.

            This week I googled one of my classmates, Ashton Henderson Crump. (Don’t worry, she knew I was going to do it.) There are some patterns I found as I used Google to learn more about Crump such as, Bingham High School basketball, Snow College basketball and she was recently married in the past year. Everything I know about her is from the internet. We actually didn’t even speak before this assignment.

            Let’s begin. First, there were a number of basketball states for this girl. However, I learned quickly when googling and looking up things on the internet you need to be very specific. Apparently there is an Ashton Henderson (male) who plays football for the Southeastern Louisiana Lions. Ashton Henderson Crump is female and graduated from Bingham High School in 2013 and had a career of 444 total points, according to the Deseret News. She also awarded, by the Deseret News, to be on the first team for All-Region girls basketball for the State of Utah. Click on the link to see an interview she did after a basketball game. 

 Crump, then a Henderson, not only excelled in high school basketball, but was offered to play for Snow College in Ephraim, Utah and shined for two years as she played for the Badgers from 2013-2015. Crump was respected by her peers and teammates at Snow College. In an article written by Snow College’s newspaper Crump had a player profile written about her. It said, “Teammate Jill Powell describes Ashton as a leader and someone who cares about everyone. “I guarantee if anyone has a problem on the team, they would go to her. She’s the mom of the team. She is a leader and is always full of energy,” said Powell.”

            According to her statistics during her Snow College career, Crump was not only a leader off the court, but on the court. In an article written December 5, 2014 by the Scenic West Athletic Conference, Crump, along with her teammates were ranked No. 16 in the country with statistics and wins for Snow College.

            “Ashton lives by the motto ‘don’t be beat’. She explained that this involves working hard at everything and never giving up or letting anyone down,” an article written by Snow College stated.

            Crump met her husband and they were married on August 14, 2015. Her and her husband, Kolten, were registered at myregistry.com and target for their wedding (not that that is relevant to anything), but that is information

She is currently studying at Utah State University in Logan, Utah and in a social media class. That is how we know each other. According to her LinkedIn profile she is a communication and marketing major at USU and is working on earning her bachelors. She has already graduated with her Associates degree from Snow College.

Legal, Policies and Ethics

By Mikala Lindhardt

            Have you ever wondered why the “terms and conditions” or “privacy policies” are so long? My thoughts are they make them so long, so they seem, so it is unappealing to the user to actually read them and see what their getting themselves into. How many of us actually know what we agree to when we hit ‘Accept’ or ‘I agree’? Probably not a lot of us. I know I don’t.

            For this blog post, I want to take Snapchat and reveal what we actually agreed to when we decided to download this application on our phones.

            Snapchat is a social media application that is famous for the disappearing photos and videos after ten seconds or less. You are able to send a photo/video to your friends and have them vanish forever. Do they really vanish though?

            In an article written in November by Market Watch author Sally French said, “You grant Snapchat a world-wide, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to host, store, use, display, reproduce, modify, adapt, edit, publish, create derivative works from, publicly perform, broadcast, distribute, syndicate, promote, exhibit, and publicly display that content in any form and in any and all media or distribution methods,” the Terms of Service state.”

            That can be a pretty scary statement for some to know that the owners of Snapchat can take that picture we all think vanished and use if for their company or anything they wanted. Even though this new, updated terms and policies are a little bit alarming, Snapchat tried to console the concerns by saying, It’s true that our Terms of Service grant us a broad license to use the content you create—a license that’s common to services like ours. We need that license when it comes to, for example, Snaps submitted to Live Stories, where we have to be able to show those Stories around the world—and even replay them or syndicate them (something we’ve said we could do in previous versions of our Terms and Privacy Policy).”

However, Snapchat also said personal privacy settings within the app could restrict the scope of that license. In other words, your private snaps are still safe.”

            There are a lot of little policies we accept everyday that could potentially get us into trouble if we don’t understand what we are accepting. I think that the best way we can be safe is to educate ourselves and be smart when using social media. Think before you post or press send.

            To learn more about the Snapchat privacy policy click here.

Collaboration and Distance Communication Platforms

By Mikala Lindhardt 

            Before I dive into what I will be talking about, let me say this: I am an Apple product lover. I rarely have had trouble with it and that being said I think FaceTime is better than Skype. There is your little disclaimer.

Now before you all get defensive, let me just say that there is a time and a place for Skype, but overall FaceTime quality really has been a positive experience for me as far as one-on-one conversations with friends and family.

            I’m not saying I have not had good experiences with Skype, because I have and due to the fact my parents don’t have iPhones, Skype became our mode of communication when I would travel or we wanted to communicate. It worked well for us (for the most part). The few times I used it, there was a bad connection and not very impressive in my mind, but we were able to use the “chat” feature in Skype and communicate that way.  

            I think another reason why it is better is because of how easy it is to FaceTime. I am not very intelligent when it comes to technology and so using FaceTime is easier for me because of how stupid-proof it is. In order to FaceTime someone, just a phone number will do the trick, but with Skype I have had a hard time finding people’s usernames and their ‘Skype name’ and sometimes I can’t even find them. Maybe there is an easier way I am not aware of. I wouldn’t be surprised.

            Not only is it easier to find people and to FaceTime with them, but iPhone to iPhone communication makes it possible to be talking on the phone and with just a touch of a button you can be Facetiming them.

            The interesting thing is both of these services, Skype and FaceTime, have become verbs. I find myself saying “Let’s Skype!” or “FaceTime me later tonight” and people know what I mean. 

            Both are pretty amazing services if you think about it. An application built in to see someone across the world in a matter of seconds is quite amazing. The downfall? You need internet connection (either Wi-Fi or cell phone data) and depending on where you are, that can be limiting.

            That being said, with all the technology advances and amazing connections we can communicate with people across the world and have the potential to be very efficient. How will you use technology to the fullest?

            To see the pros and cons of Skype click here.

            To see the pros and cons of FaceTime click here.

Location Based Platforms

By Mikala Lindhardt

            Social media and technology is amazing. It is always evolving and one thing that makes it so amazing is the ability to have your location services turned on, on your phone or whatever mobile device you have, and share it with the world if you wish.

            I thought it would be fun to talk about the pros and cons of this service. Let’s talk about the cons first. (It’s always better to end on a happy note) J

            Con: Security. Let’s use Facebook as an example. An article that talked about this privacy issue could have many people worried. It said, “with Facebook facing a backlash over recent changes that share information about your activity on select Web sites, and an unrelated snafu that exposed users' private chats, it's natural to worry that geolocation features from Facebook could venture beyond your comfort zone. I just hope the service is opt-in, and that Facebook clearly explains to users how their location information will be used.”

            It is also important to realize we are the ones who set our privacy settings and we are the ones who post. Of course hackers are still out there, but we need to use our heads when we are posting on social media sites, especially posting our location. It would probably not be a good idea to post that you are going out of town for a few days or a few weeks because all that does is give thieves an invitation to your home and makes it so much easier for them to steal from you.

            Let’s talk about something more positive though.

            Pros: Emergency situations. The same article, also talked about some pros of location devices and a GPS tracker. Take a hypothetical situation. You are out hiking and get lost from your group. You don’t know where you are, but you have your phone with you. With location services and a GPS you will better be able to find your way out. Also, if you are stranded and injured, emergency personnel will be able to track your mobile device and find you easier and more accurately.

            Pros: Business. If you are a business owner, you should really take advantage of these location and GPS services. In an article it says, “Combining mobile and location-based services, social tools such as Foursquare and Yelp have been changing the way customers interact with the physical location of a business. These services offer more information for consumers, helping them make more informed decisions on where to eat, sleep, shop and relax.” If you are a business owner, it would be in your best interest to take advantage of social media and use your location to the fullest. Put yourself on social media sites and location services so people will be notified when they are within a certain radius.