My Relationship with Technology

 

My Relationship with Technology

    How many times a day do you think you look at your phone, whether it's for a message notification or to search for something? According to Zippia, Americans check their phone an average of 96 times per day and spend about 5 and a half hours on their mobile device a day. The amount of cell phone users has doubled from 2016 to 2023 having about 6.92 billion users in the world. 

Aren't these stats crazy to think about? And this is just for cell phones, I didn't even get into laptops, PCs, television, and gaming devices. Technology is such a huge part of our everyday life, I mean I'm using a computer right now just to write this up. But what effect does it have on me, you, and our society? Should we be worried about how technology will affect our future?

Technology and myself

    Growing up, my family used a lot of technology, but to a healthy extent. We would watch tv, and play video games together, however, we would have our family time with board games or going out on walks. I've noticed though, the older I got the more technology has taken over my attention. I catch myself staying locked up in my room to play video games to sit on TikTok for hours. My mental health was at an all-time bottom as the effects of social media got to me. I would compare everything about myself, from my looks, friends, family, and life to all the girls I would see on my Instagram or Tiktok. So I would stay in my dorm and lock myself away from the world. My social life had plummeted and everyone was worried about me.  This is when I knew I had a very unhealthy relationship with technology. 

    I knew I needed to do something to fix it, so I decided to delete social media apps such as Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram. And for a couple of months, I also deleted TikTok. I read a story titled, "I'm 14, and I quit social media", and I realized I wish I had done what this girl did so much sooner. This girl discuss how when she got social media at the age of 13 she learned how her mom had basically been sharing her entire life publicly on that app. She then goes on to explain why she decided against social media and how that decision has affected her. I feel like this article connects to the article "How Facebook users don't know how Facebook Works".  It shows how we truly don't know how social media platforms use our data and yet we still post so much of our life into them. 

    After deleting social media, I realized how free I felt from the judgment of the world. I felt like I could dress and do the things I wanted without wondering if I would get a lot of likes or compliments on an outfit. Today I only use Instagram and TikTok, and I try to limit my time on both apps. I probably get on Instagram once a day for like 10 minutes. While I am on TikTok for about 2-3 hours a day, which is still way too much. I'm still learning and trying my best to grow so hopefully soon my TikTok usage will decrease. My Social media presence is well put together. I post once every other month on Instagram and always keep it appropriate so if any future employers search for me I give a good first impression. While my TikTok is actually promoting my content creation as I am trying to grow as a Twitch streamer right now. I have my own personal website that I made so if I am ever googled that will be the first thing that pops up. It has my work experience, a bit about me, and some writing portfolios. So while technology has so many negative side effects, I feel sometimes we do overlook the positive. It is all about how we use technology and if we let it control us or we control it. We should always stay informed of our digital footprint and how our data can be used online. A great article about how our data is used in this article titled "I left the ad industry because our use of data tracking terrified me". It talks of how ads are specialized to our interests based on the data these ads get from our cell phones. From our locations to our conversations, our phones track more than we think and we just let them. 

Technology and My Family

With the knowledge, experiences, and lessons I have learned personally with technology. I make it a priority to teach my younger sister about it as well as my parents. My sisters are 9 and 4 years old and I have noticed how they use technology way more than I did when I was their age. From television to the Xbox and even their own personal tablets, they are engulfed in the technology world. Even my parents have become more and more reliant on technology as my mom works from home and my dad has started to become more interested in video games. While right now, their use of technology is pretty positive and helps them in many aspects, I can see where the negative will happen soon. We try to take time away from technology and all spend time together just like we did when I was little. However, as my sisters get older they will experience the negatives I went through as a young teenager. I plan to teach my family more and more about technology as learn myself and encourage them to learn how to maintain a healthy relationship with it as we should all learn this, especially with how quickly technology is growing.