My relationship with technology is very healthy. I do not use it too much and I do not use it too little. I give credit to my parents as they raised my sister and I in a way that only gave us specific times to watch television and be on our phones. All of our chores had to be done, homework, and we had to read at least thirty minutes a day. I learned very early how to prioritize my time and what was actually important. My dad calls it, “ do what you have to do before you do what you want to do.” I did not get a phone until the age of 14 or 15 I think. Nowadays kids have their own iPads coming out of the womb. As I take a look at my average screen time per day on my iPhone it is only fifty four mins. I am proud of that, spending an average of sixteen minutes on tik- tok, twelve on Instagram, eleven on both messages and Snapchat, and only a couple of mins on both Linkedin and Twitter. It is good to stay updated on current events, news, and find humor, but you do not want to become trapped in it. As the wise words of Dave Chappell, “ Social media is not a real place.” This is not me saying I haven't sat there and spent an hour straight on my phone but you have to know when to put things down. Taking a look in the mirror I would say my social footprint is little to none. I have five posts on instagram. Three on twitter, zero on tik tok and rarely post on snapchat. Linkedin is a different story because I use it for business and to update people on accomplishments in my personal journey. If you google me my linkedin profile will show up, old basketball stats and pictures, and a picture of me as a child when I won a fishing tournament.
Technology and social media does have its flaws. I believe society as a whole has become less social as far as face to face communication, especially in our younger generations. With kids getting phones / ipads as early as grade school they do not really have the chance to develop those social skills. One of my professors even said it the other day that also teaches at a local middle school. “Those kids are best friends with their phones. If someone took it away they wouldn't know what to do.” Rather than talk in those situations where we are in new environments we are all prone to getting lost on our phone to pass the time rather than having a face to face conversation and developing new relationships. As technology emerged we also saw problems such as bullying on social media arise. This in my opinion is worse than your old school in person bullying. Once a person posts a nasty comment, picture, or video to intentionally embarrass another, you have no idea who will see it, how far it will spread, or how many people it will affect. You now have kids hearing a million voices repeating that same negative thing only making it worse and worse psychologically. I've seen this a lot with athletes as well. Up and coming stars having to deal with the added pressure and haters, it's to the point where I have heard of athletes refusing to even get on social media or have a whole nother person handle their accounts. Another big flaw would be misinformation. Anything and everything can be posted on the internet. It's up to you to decipher what is true and what is fake. This can be flawed from an educational standpoint, social in terms of catfishing on dating apps, and much much more.
Let's discuss the good now. All the information you need and could ever want to find is right at your fingertips. Technology has made it simple to where you have a handheld computer sitting in your pocket. Communicating with each other is easier, you mentioned the story in your class of sending your first email to someone in France I believe. Before email it would take weeks to get what you needed to get from one conversation in a letter. Now it’s a matter of minutes according to response times. Technology has also allowed the accessibility for mass communication to anyone. If you are trying to spread a message, sell something, or just get a laugh anyone and everyone can see it in a matter of a couple of hours. In one of the prompted questions it mentions how this would change the equality movement of Martin Luther King Jr.? Personally and to be brutally honest, yes more people would have seen and heard his message but it would have done absolutely nothing. We have made progress but for Kyle Rittenhouse to get acquitted post a picture with recent president Donald Trump after killing protesters we haven't made much progress at all, and we see this with the continued acts of police brutality, and minorities getting handed the short end of the stick. But back to technology it has plenty of upsides and I believe it will continue to shape the world for the better. We have to remember to put a cap on the time we invest and how we go about using it though. Once the world is able to find the correct balance then we will succeed.
