SE07EP03: What your Phone Knows about You

Every time we have Dr. Eric Anctil on the podcast, we take a deep dive headfirst into the murky waters of robots, AI, social media, and all things future-tense.   Always provocative and insightful, Dr. Anctil, Associate Professor in the School of Education, serves up his observations on where tech collides with relationships, development, societal norms, and daily life.  Where are we heading? Where are we now? What does it mean? Just a few questions we kick around with our guest who will tackling these topics in the next installment of UPCrossroads on February 15 at at 3 p.m. in the Digital Lab.

In this podcast, Dr. Anctil talks about the shift he sees in how his students are reacting to the use of social media.  Are we on the edge of a new trend that moves away from the all-consuming use of smart phones, he wonders? Even if students are starting to take notice and show signs of aversion to how much information social media companies gather on us, does that mean people will opt for flip phones so that they can have more control over their private lives?

“We are starting to learn more and more how monetized we all are and how it’s inescapable,” Dr. Anctil said.  “This is a really different kind of relationship.  They {social media companies] have so much access to who you are and what you do… I feel unsettled in a way that I haven’t felt before and that’s telling me something.”

Constant surveillance, dynamic pricing, words you’ve spoken to a friend suddenly turning up in ads in your browser — it can seem that there is an invasive presence everywhere.   Dr. Anctil has seen a shift in the way that students talk about their relationship to social media.  “There’s a guardedness there that wasn’t there before,” he said. “There’s this unsettled feeling that things are mysterious and dark in places and we don’t really know what the companies are doing with us.”

Don’t miss the next UPCrossroads event and be sure to listen to the podcast — if you dare.

 

Continue the conversation at the Teaching & Learning Community Blog: https://sites.up.edu/tl

UP TechTalk is a bi-monthly podcast with cohosts Stephen Loutzenheiser and Maria Erb of Academic Technology Services and Innovation at the University of Portland that explores the use of technology in the classroom, one conversation at a time.  The music used in the Season 8 podcasts is “Blind Love Dub” by Jeris.