Final Blog Post

My Relationship With Technology

Technology is one of the most important and prominent things in our lives today. It is something at this point that is unavoidable. It has become so necessary for everyone and in everything in life that to think of life without it now would be quite strange. It has become something that has the capability to help us with anything and everything. Like finding information, communication with others, speaking your voice, and many more helpful tools. It is fused into our daily lifestyle, and majority of people cannot go without and would not know how to function if they did not have the internet or technology. Along with technology, social media has become bigger than ever. It is a way for anyone to communicate with their friends or others online. Both technology and social media have become such important and influential developments in our lives. But they both come with their pros and cons. 

With all of life's complications, technology has been learning from it and evolving. Things such as wars, pandemics and new lifestyles has made technology have to adapt and evolve to fit with what is currently happening. A larger example of something good that came from technology when the world quickly changed was during COVID. When everyone had to remain home, it became a concern for those working when they needed to interact with their coworkers or bosses they did not know how they were going to do it. Thankfully, Zoom was created for large groups of people could get together easily and talk to one another. This is an example of something that was extremely helpful and necessary during tough times. However, there have been not so good. With the implication of search engines, there has been serious violations of privacy. People's privacy of their own information has been taken through Google and other applications. Every time you enter your email into something for information Google sees. In an article I read, it showed several ways Google is easily taking our information. This is complete invasion of privacy and it should be more talked about, but since Google is majority of peoples search engine, it is never broadcast. 

Social media also has its pros and cons. It has become one of the most popular forms of entertainment and as well as being one of the most used forms of communication. Social media has been great to find things you like, post and communicate with other online, and keep updated on what is going with friends, celebrities, or anything else. However, it has become more and more of places to show off what you are doing and see how much better other peoples lives are. The negatives of social media are starting to out way the positives as they get more popular. In an article I read about the negatives of social media use, there have several ways in which it has harmed the youth of today. It has caused people to have FOMO, fear of missing out, depression and anxiety, or has made them completely addicted to it that they cannot go a couple days without checking the app. There have been more and more teen suicides as well since social media became apart of everyones daily life. Feeling about your own life compared to other online and online bullying has made people feel that they are not worthy to be alive. I have definitely been off social media less and less as I realized how harmful it can be and all the information that I put online will be analyzed forever. 

  

With social media and the internet it has made mine and many others digital footprints larger and will continue to get bigger with how much more we use it and how much more important it gets. A digital footprint is "one's unique set of traceable digital activities, action, contributions, or communications on the internet or digital devices." Something I have really come to learn is how important privacy is online. I am really glad that my Instagram is private because if it was public anyone online could look at me and the things I post that are intended for my friends. It also gave me a sense of security because in class when we looked up our names online there was nothing of me online since all my socials are private. Giving away my information online is not something I want that accessible that easily. With the popularity and advancement of these technologies our information and digital footprint will spread. Social media has been great in some ways, and has evolved technology and the way we do certain things, but it has severe negative impacts on people. Technology has also been a great advancement in our society but knowing that my information is constantly being shared with different website and browsers is definitely something to not forget.