Blog Post 11 | Final Blog Post

Technology and its Impacts

It's clear that technology has revolutionized the world as we know it, however, with its revolutionary impact comes both positives and negatives. 

For instance, the biggest positive that comes from technology is that it has made things both easier and quicker than ever. Inventions like the iPhone, the internet, and AI are all prime examples of this. 

Back in the day, everything was so much harder to do because these things did not exist. If you needed research done, you couldn't just look it up online, but would rather have to go find the research yourself. Along with this, if you needed to call a friend or family member, the only option would have been to find a payphone or telephone poll where there would be a time limit and lines waiting behind you ready to use that phone right after you. It was a different world back then and because of technology humans have been able to truly make jumps in development.

The problem that comes with this is something called unintended consequences. Unintended consequences are effects that are unanticipated from something that is typically intended to be good. 

Creations like social media are a prime example of this. Social media's original intent was to allow family and friends to stay connected through sharing images and other news going on in their lives to each other. This was successful but it also became a dependency for people. The average person in the United States averages over 7 hours and 3 minutes in a single day. If you think about it, the sun is only up for 12 hours a day and people decide to spend more then half of that looking at a screen. 

This is truly a sad thing and we see that in the video "Mad World Remix of Moby Video". In that video we see a young kid trying to grow up in a happy world, however the sad music and grey color emphasizes the depressing world that we live in where technology has taken over people's lives.

This is a perfect example of a techno dystopian which is a person that believes that as technology grows the world has more and more negatives arising compared to positives. The opposite of this would be a techno utopian which is a person that believes that technology is affecting the world in a more positive manner than negative.

About Me

Image of my personal screen time

Now that I have discussed the backgrounds of technology, I will begin to reflect on myself and how I believe technology impacts me. 

When I look at my screen time my daily average is 4 hours and 19 minutes which is significantly below the daily average for the country. 

When I look at the specific apps that I spend the most time on it consists of messages, phone calls and Gmail, which makes sense considering I am working in the broadcasting world a lot and have to answer those messages or emails on a day to day basis. Along with this, I have a long distance girlfriend that I am typically on the phone with so that raises my phone call average as well.

So the question arises, do I believe my relationship with technology is healthy? The simple answer is yes. I believe that the time I spend on my technology is for the exact positives that it was created for which is to make communication easier. If I was spending hours upon hours a day on social media then I would change my answer however as I said before, my top 3 apps used are all work and communication related. 

To sum, my overall relationship with technology is something I would consider to be healthy however similar to things like drugs, can be a slipper slope of addiction if not controlled. After doing my research on this topic and reflecting on myself, I will be very smart about how much I use my phone in the future.