7:00 am

Got on YouTube to watch Joel Osteen videos. On a typical morning, I wake up, go on YouTube and shuffle my playlist of my favorite Joel Osteen sermons to listen to while I get ready in the morning. This morning I watched one called “Blessed By Your Enemies”. I prefer listening to Joel Osteen specifically because he does not speak in terms of following Christianity being right or wrong, but rather an approach that is uplifting and inspiring. This type of message delivery helps avoid cases of misinformation and disinformation There are many other bible-based churches that have preachers who utilize an approach that entails scorning the bad and glorifying the good.

The difference between these two types of delivery is that one of them demonstrates misinformation, because when spreading God’s word with the right-or-wrong approach, the preacher as an individual may truly believe ideology such as “God does not support certain behaviors and that sinners shall be punished”. The reality is, not one individual on earth is having a one-on-one discussion with God himself, that gives him or her the credibility to make these claims for him and establish them as facts. Further, I enjoy watching the preachers that simply share positive and encouraging messages rather than do this and that or else you are “bad”.

9:00 am

I checked my work, school, and personal email inboxes for any new information coming in for the day. Nearly every day, I come across at least 3-4 potential scam emails that I classify as 100% disinformation that are created and disguised as other entities to get me to believe it is legit and enter my personal information into a form for them to steal. On this day, I received a scam email from an impersonation of a company called Plex.tv, so I spent a few hours doing a security briefing on my computer because I have a lot of valuable information relative to the company I work for that I need ensure always remains secure. Luckily, because of my brief experience in the cybersecurity industry, I can determine this type of disinformation easily.

NOON

Navigated to a solar client website (digital marketing account we signed) to get more information and background on the company to better develop social media campaigns for them while optimizing the aspect of custom-made advertisements. Because I work in digital marketing for contractors, I have seen a lot of different persuasion techniques used by the contractors to stand out to consumers (homeowners) in their area. One common form of disinformation that I see on nearly every solar company website, is claiming the title: “#1 solar company in the U.S.!” to attract new customers. The company’s website I visited today did in fact include this disinformation but claiming “San Diego’s #1 Solar Company”, which I quickly discredited through 1 google search. While this type of disinformation may not have malicious intention, it is still an act of publishing false information intentionally to manipulate the audience for the company’s benefit.

2:00 PM

I check my Snapchat memories from 1-3 years on the same day. I enjoy looking at my snap memories from the same date in previous years because it allows me to see what I was doing 1-4 years ago. This allows me to analyze progress in all areas. I don’t really enjoy browsing on social media because of the high frequencies of negativity and fabricated content people share (typically not all the time).

4:00 pm

I watched YouTube videos (again) as background noise. When looking at my YouTube subscriptions page I always notice the extremely dramatized headlines/titles, also known as “clickbait” that sometimes have no relation to what the video entails. For example, a lot of YouTuber creators utilize the term “world’s best” such as world’s richest, strongest, etc. This is a form of disinformation because it consists of the creator intentionally putting the wrong information with the objective to attract more user engagement. While this is not an extremely harmful form of disinformation, it is still unfair to the viewers who engaged. An example I saw today of a young, well-known YouTube creator named Piper Rockelle who titled her YouTube Short, “Worlds Most Expensive Pokemon Card”. This title drove me to click on the video, only to be disappointed by the video being her opening a Pokémon themed happy meal from McDonalds with Pokémon cards as the complimentary toy… none of which were rare, valuable, or expensive in any aspect. The concept of pricing was not even mentioned minimally, so watching the video felt like a waste of my time.

8:00 pm

Watched YouTube psychology videos. – I love to watch lectures posted by Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes because she explains every concept in psychology with factual reasoning and evidence to support the information. The video I watched today was called “Addressing Fears Of Abandonment With Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes” which was very informative and intriguing. The other psychology video I watched called “6 Signs You’re Depressed, Not Lazy” was published by an account called Psych-To-Go. Unlike the videos from Dr, Snipes, these are more for sharing ideas and encouraging open-minded thinking and self-assessment purposes and less an educational approach. These videos are animated and contain broader claims with lack of explanation or reasoning behind the ideas that are being presented. I will note this is not considered misinformation or disinformation because the videos related to a mental health disorder such as depression, always includes a disclaimer at the beginning (shown below).