Artifact 3

I chose to archive module 11’s item as my third artifact. In my happy versus unhappy and selfish versus unselfish pairings, I had nine people I would say are happy and unselfish. I had one person I would consider unhappy and selfish. I had nobody who was selfish and happy or unhappy and unselfish. I think selfishness and happiness are perceived as not going together because we associate selfishness with a negative feeling and happiness with a positive feeling. I do believe happy people can be selfish to some extent and that happiness alone is far from being enough to determine if someone’s selfish or not. The visual below is a screenshot of my matrix filled out and I chose this image to show how I came to my conclusions.

Artifact 2

I chose to archive module 10’s item as my second artifact. I went with this option because this has been an interesting topic that I’ve paid attention to for some time. Working in a restaurant during the height of the pandemic gave new social norms such as mask wearing and social distancing between our tables, but some people never complied with the norms. I can’t even begin to count the amount of people who swore off masks or didn’t care how close they were to somebody else. It always felt like an entitled perspective to me because of how many other people they put at risk just so they didn’t sacrifice their comfort level.

Being that the pandemic raged on for months, I had the opportunity to observe this trend through the ups and downs as it went on. I don’t look at the people who didn’t conform to the guidelines as any less of a person now, they just stood up for what they truly felt was right and weren’t willing to back down. As the pandemic has slowed down, we’re now at the point where the CDC says that most Americans don’t need to mask up so the norms have changed once again. All things considered now, they’ve probably shaped my thought process and opinions to the point where I would seriously have to contemplate my options if something like this were to happen again in the future. I went with a face mask as my representative picture for this artifact because I feel it’s central to my entire point.

Artifact 1

I chose to archive the item for module four as my first artifact. I chose to watch the 20/20 report on how the media can shift public opinion because I feel like it’s just as relevant in 2022 as when it premiered. I also liked this archived item because it taught me different methods of how the media doesn’t always show the whole picture when reporting on a story. Reporters are trying to keep people tuned into their broadcast over their competitors’ broadcasts which can lead to them using more dramatic wording to try and get people to take the bait. I don’t see any easy solution to this issue as it seems to grow larger every day, but I think holding media organizations to higher standards would be a good start.

I think the media plays a large role in both the representative and availability heuristic. For the representative heuristic, I would say look at how the media portrays the borders of our country. One side might spend so much time talking about illegal immigration that some might assume all immigrants are here illegally. For the availability heuristic, let’s look at Joe. Joe is an investment banker who won’t fly because he watched a special news report on a plane crash over the Atlantic and thinks he’s safer as he drives his car for every business trip. If Joe did research on the numbers himself, he would realize that he’s much more likely to have an accident while driving his car rather than while sitting on an airplane. I chose the picture below because it’s a graphic of how many days off your life these activities will take. This correlates with my example about Joe and how flying is significantly less of a risk than driving.