When looking at my relationship with technology, I see a split in the middle of it being both healthy and unhealthy. There are three main “ways” or purposes of my technological uses: school, social media, and direct communication (being calling, emailing, or texting).
I think I give technology more than the appropriate amount of time in my life in all three of these usage components. When it comes to school, I miss using paper in classrooms. Writing notes and doing worksheets are much more beneficial for my retention of material and more helpful when studying. I don’t remember the last time when I was given worksheets to fill out, and typing notes takes a lot less focus than actually handwriting them. Always being on my laptop for class assignments is definitely more efficient, but it often gives me a headache and I don’t like looking at a screen for extended periods of time. I honestly don’t even want to get into my relationship with technology social media-wise – I know I’m on some platforms way too much and am aware of the negativity it brings me. My use of direct communication is the healthiest of all three. I love being able to text, call, Facetime, and email people, and how it’s only done when reciprocated. Since these require another person, it’s easy to have a balanced and appropriate amount of time spent utilizing these forms of communication.
There are times when I definitely worry about the power technology has, especially what our individual devices have over us. I often wish I grew up how my parents did. Hearing their stories about life without laptops and phones makes me jealous of society’s long-gone simplicity. Their childhood memories seem so happy and genuine. I’m thankful I could get to the age of 13 without having a phone because it would’ve robbed me of a real childhood. Seeing little kids in public today with phones or ipads makes me so sad because they’re likely going to grow up with technology dependency and struggle to manage their time on it. Furthermore, allowing children early access to social media is just a dangerous slippery slope, and it shouldn’t be societally acceptable.
The Fast Company article about the 14-year-old girl “unplugging” from social media emphasizes the permanency of digital use, even if it’s not yours. This article stuck out to me because it takes a commonality of social media and shares it from a differing perspective. There are so many parents and siblings who post content containing younger children that’s more than just a nice family photo or a cute sibling selfie. So many people can access your content, especially if it’s not private, and it’s dangerous and dumb to give your child a digital footprint before they can even do it for themselves. However, her family members violating her privacy and resulting in her deactivation of social media can be beneficial later on. Although there’s information of her out there, she’s very aware of social media consequences and her unplugging until she’s older will be something her future self will thank her for.
Other articles that were very interesting to me were all of the ones on Facebook. When writing my “In the Age of AI” blog post, I google-searched things like “Facebook tracking us” and “Facebook privacy scandal” and did not get these same articles in my results. Each piece that popped up was a link to a newspaper-like source that said I had to pay before continuing to read. A few gave explanations, but they were just slightly harder to come by. Facebook is actually one of the social media I have an account for, but I don’t really know how to use it so I never do. It’s crazy to me that most Facebook Users Still Don’t Know that they’re constantly collecting information on them. Lots of other articles at The Atlantic share about Facebook, and there’s one that raises the question, “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” I found this question intriguing because it’s something I’ve wondered about before and know it’s unfortunately true. A quote from the article states “We are living in an isolation that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors, and yet we have never been more accessible.” I wish more people could see the striking truth behind that. It’s hugely contradicting how we’re supposedly the most connected we’ve ever been, yet the loneliest at the same time. The video below, "Are You Lost In The World Like Me," is an amazing depiction of this loneliness and shines light on the consequences we don't always see.
There are times when I think I have too much of an online presence. Strangely enough, when I place myself in comparison to others in my relative age group, I really don’t. I don’t have a Twitter, YikYak, or know how to use Facebook. The main outlets of social media I have are Instagram, Snapchat, VSCO, and Tiktok. If I was applying for a job today, a prospective employer would see my Instagram account and my VSCO (which I haven’t posted on since this past fall). They would find the Instagram posts I have, all with family, friends, or myself. There’s nothing inappropriate on my Instagram (in my opinion at least,) and I also googled myself for fun to see what would come up. The first thing that comes up is my Instagram account, my LinkedIn, and some links to my swimming times from high school and college. There’s an old embarrassing picture of me from a tennis tournament on my old club’s Facebook page I wouldn’t mind editing out of my online presence, but that’s about it.
Going back to what I said about having a split relationship with technology, I should be proud of myself for having a more minimal online presence as a 20-year-old college female. I definitely do feel the social effects of technology, especially social media, but I’m glad that I can recognize them and do what I can to keep myself safe. I understand the potential dangers of it and honestly want to be less active. It’s conflicting at times because I do want to connect with others, like fellow classmates, and make myself known for people to communicate with me. As previously said, communication is reciprocal. With everyone around my age being active online users, it’s important that I do have some online presence for those relationships – but it’s even more important that I reflect on my relationship with technology and make sure it’s appropriate, beneficial, and overall healthy.
After watching “In the Age of AI,” I think the most frightening part to me was how not a lot of this information surprised me. It’s kind of defeating to think about because it’s not like we can really turn things around or reverse back to the way things were before major technological advances. However, there were a few things shown in the video that really struck me that emphasize the significance of our digital trails. The first one is a chart with the title, “US Productivity and Median Household Income.” When looking at this, it’s evident that US productivity continues to increase while the median household income stagnates behind. It illustrates how automation is the substitution for human labor, and that’s terrifying to see on a graph because most people probably don’t even realize it’s happening and really affecting them.
Another statement spoken in the video that’s still in my mind is about our predictive value. There are countless digital systems that track where we are, what we eat, what we think, and so much more. Everything we do online has immense predictive value and enables the describing, explaining, and predicting of human behavior. In the video, they broke it down in an explanation using Facebook. Facebook provides a free service to us so we can connect with friends and create content for others online. In return, they collect information on us – and just one like, comment, or scroll, is enough to give them more predictive value.
I do think it’s beneficial for governments to have technological power and strong surveillance so criminals and the bad guys out there can be stopped, but I also think it’s going too far. Everyone deserves their privacy and it feels like there’s a continuous violation of it. There are definitely positive aspects of artificial intelligence, but the more complex it gets, it’s more and more threatening to our daily human operations.
