8:19 AM
Woke up and instantly opened my emails. It’s an everyday habit to check both my personal and ASU email to make sure I am aware of any assignments or announcements for my classes. I then made my morning coffee and took a quick look for any interesting headlines on X. I watched the watched the local morning news for Phoenix-ABC 15 while preparing for the day.
9:14 AM
Checked my messages and responded back to texts between my friends in a group chat. Nothing special besides studying and completing the certification for IRB CITI Training in my MCO 302 Class.
11:42 AM
Started to work on a research assignment for Canvas concerning academic sources discussing the innovation A.I has had on society in the last few years. While doing so, I had a YouTube video playing in the background. The YouTube video is by LinusTechTips who reviews the most recent innovations in computer hardware and software. He is probably one of my favorite sources for finding new information in the tech world due to his credibility and long term experience.
12:55 PM
I began to scroll through X while eating lunch and had seen what I considered to be blatant disinformation on my For You page. It was a tweet with high engagement that stated the Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, was deceased. No sources from the post, 14 thousand likes and 244 thousand views. Upon further research, I saw that the account posts all sorts of unverified information and has seemingly made it’s way through the algorithm posing as real news information when it is clearly false. I searched online for anything confirming these claims, however absolutely nothing came up besides clearly edited videos that contain no connection to any reputable sources.
2:46 PM
I took a break from Canvas and began to scroll through some YouTube Shorts. I saw that there were memes discussing a heist of KitKat bars that happened to be in transit from the manufacturing facility it Italy to Poland. I questioned whether it was a simple joke or complete misinformation. Upon further investigation, I found out that it was completely legitimate and a group of individuals had actually stolen 12 Tons of KitKat bars. Below I linked one of the many YouTube Shorts I viewed discussing this insane sounding heist I had to know more about!
3:09 PM
Listened to one of my playlists on Spotify while heading to the Gym and skipped music constantly through out my workout to find the right song. The playlist I listened to that day was mostly alternative music such as Phoenix, Two Door Cinema Club, Modest Mouse etc. Noticed the large television in the gym playing the first Jurassic Park Movie, one of my absolute favorites. Besides that, I did not consume any other media until I drove back home and listened to the same playlist.
4:37 PM
I began to search for reddit threads about a specific issue I have in launching a video game I play on my downtime called Escape From Tarkov. Not to be too specific, but the game would have issues connecting to a server and would constantly disconnect. The reddit thread offered little to no help and did not solve my issue. Basically just misinformation or a simple misdiagnosis for my specific error code and issue. None of the information or potential fixes were made to be harmful/disinformation while not particularly helpful. Ended up playing another game instead – Minecraft.
5:28 PM
Listened to Yacht Rock style music playlist while making dinner. Looked up recipes online for Teriyaki Chicken with broccoli and followed it closely. It did not turn out very well so I used the stock picture to show what the intended result was supposed to be. I am not very good at cooking.
8:57 PM
Went on X again to keep up to date with world events. To be sure that I receive mostly receive trustworthy news information, I follow a variety of different legitimate media outlets that have actual publications such as @AP – Associated Press, @WSJ – The Wall Street Journal, @nytimes – The New York Times, and @TheEconomist to stay up to date on world events. I noticed on my For You page more obscure accounts popping up discussing the theory about Netanyahu faking his public appearances. I believe that this came up again because I looked at the comments and break down of the previous mentioned post, so the algorithm seemed to believe that I am interested in the topic. Nonetheless, I evaluated the videos within this post and noticed it was simply poor editing alongside audio that was out of sync being falsely claimed as A.I generated content. It’s clear that this narrative has unnaturally begun to spread on the internet and is a classic example of disinformation for a political agenda.
10:52 PM
Watched an episode of the new series by Taylor Sheridan called The Madison. It was alright. Nothing I noticed could really be misconstrued as informational or disinformation.
11:03 PM
Before going to sleep I always check my emails for both my ASU account and personal email to be sure everything for the day has been completed and what to expect for the next day. Afterwards, I checked X one more time and had seen that not much has happened and there was no content that had caught my attention. Afterwards I doom scrolled on Instagram Reels until I was too tired and fell asleep. The reels in my algorithm are basically brainrot, so it’s not necessarily easy to determine if there was any misinformation of disinformation.
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