By the Gods, what have I become? (Parts 3 & 4)

--Originally published at Semana i – Miss F.

First of all, if you wish to read part one, click here. If you wish to read part two, click here.

So, this was Wednesday’s course and I couldn’t attend? I spent my morning waiting for the internet people to arrive and later on I geeked out on my Wireless Network course❤. I literally had Amy’s look the whole time during said course. And my boyfriend, of course, had Sheldon’s look…

me

Anyway, back to what matters. Day four. This morning was about people commenting on other’s blogs. They had the chance to actually read what their classmates wrote and give themselves a different perspective on certain things.

Today’s talk was with Maha Bali, she’s a professor at the American University in Cairo. As one could expect, her culture is 180° different to ours and I found that incredibly fascinating. Many people asked questions and started creating conversation, Maha talked about how people can take things you said out of context and use it against you. She talked about creating public and private digital presences depending on what you want to say to the world. Creating private connections online is equally important. A recurring topic was the opinion people have on “ignoring” each other due to social media or phones. The thing is that when you’re on social media, WhatsApp, Telegram and all these apps, you actually are socializing.

Older generations tend to bash technology blaming every social problem on them mainly because it’s the “unknown” and that can always be scary. Not understanding something doesn’t mean that it’s bad, it simply means that you don’t get it and aren’t used to it. Be respectful to others thoughts and ideas, please. Which takes me to my next topic: censorship.

unacceptable

Maha talked about censorship and how in the country she lives in she doesn’t like to express her view on politics for safety reasons. She talked about Donald Trump and how he is never censored and thus, everyone that follows him and agrees with him isn’t censored either despite giving a full-on hate speech. So Maha asked: “Is the solution censoring?” and proceeded to talk about freedom of speech, religions and cultures. You can’t just censor someone because then you’d have to censor everyone and create an attack on freedom. The whole thing turns into a complicated dilemma.

I think her talk made people think about how the world is a huuuuge place and everyone lives through different things. At least that’s what I got left from the whole thing.

Be ready for tomorrow’s blog. The last blog.