My Relationship with Technology
When you think about your day and look at what you did, a huge majority of people will mention something about using technology. The technology available today is way different then what was available when we were younger. When I think of my relationship with technology I realize how much of my day is consumed in technology. According to a Penn State article, Americans spend up to 10 hours a day using electronics and it is growing. In general, I use technology in three different ways, my personal use, my podcast, and school. All of these require me using some sort of technology especially the podcast part.
My parents have always told me that anything you send, post, or say on the internet is out there somewhere which is why I like to my online footprint/digital footprint clean. I always think twice about posting something on snapchat or instagram because one day it could come around to bite me. My mom is a recruiter for Nike and always tells me that the first thing she does is look up the applicant which is why I like to keep my online profiles clean. When I look myself up my linkedin, twitter, instagram, and hockey websites that contain stats such as Elite Prospects pop up. I make sure that everything I can control has only good things about me and nothing negative.
In my opinion there is no appropriate amount of time spent on technology, some people have jobs that require a certain amount of time on/using technology which is understandable. In terms of myself there are obviously some things I could cut down on such as scrolling through instagram and other social media apps aimlessly. Everything revolves around technology nowadays so it is tough to completely block out technology but it is possible to slightly cut it down and overall I am happy with the amount of time that I spend on technology.
For an example, my Mom works from home instead of going into an office which means that all of her work is done online using technology. The entire day she is at her desk she is using technology, now this is acceptable in this day and age because of COVID and what that did to the work place and schools. I would definitely say that it plays a positive role because it is currently paying for me to come to school.
Overall, I feel as if my relationship with technology is both unhealthy and healthy. It is healthy when I am being proactive, such as doing my work or working on my podcast which I consider to be a healthy thing. The time wasters such as going on youtube or social media I consider to be unhealthy and probably don't need to constantly be scrolling or viewing it. Technology has so many options to help cut down by showing me my screen time and trying to lower it every week by a few minutes helps me not constantly going on my phone to check social media.
Social media is one of the biggest time wasters in my life and life in general for the majority of people who use it. One of the scariest things social media can do is influence you in the wrong way. Media companies know this and target audiences directly by social media for political gain, to scare us, or anything you can think of. I think that the media can both inform me in good ways but also in bad ways. For an example, back in December of 2012 the media scared everybody into thinking that the world was going to end, but in fact, I am here writing this final post in December of 2022. This is proof of how the media can mislead us. But on the flip side of things, while I am writing this paragraph I just found out that Chris Bassitt, just signed with the Toronto Blue Jays. This shows that the media can inform us in good ways also and can sometimes be overlooked by the bad ways.
Lastly, I believe that society has just accepted the internet and all of its lies. I talked to my friend and asked him about whether or not he cares about what he reads or puts on the internet and he said that it doesn't matter to him. I think that a lot of people feel the same way in terms of how they feel about the internet and their digital footprint. I also think they just don't know how dangerous technology can be and if they did even the slightest bit of reading into it they would be shocked of how posting whatever can have a negative impact down the line. People need to be more careful about how they go about in the internet because this is just the start of what the internet will reveal as we have seen from whistleblowers and more.
