Final Blog Post

Introduction

The Futurama video displays a famous pop up display from the World's Fair in New York in 1964.  It predicts the ways in which technology will affect the lives of everyday humans in large ways.  They see technology as the savior to the people of the earth and believe that technology points the way to limitless promise.  They describe technology as being able to provide new solutions and more opportunities for research to do things like fix world hunger and fix overpopulation by inhabiting previously uninhabitable places.  They did predict some things correctly like how in the future we will have self-driving electric cars (although it is still a work in process), but overall the video displays a sort of dystopian view on technology.  The concept reminds me a lot of TomorrowLand or Spaceship Earth in Disney World where they look as the past and speculate about the future.  Although the Tears For Fears video seems in my opinion a bit exaggerated at times, it presents a lot of truth in regards to the negative affects technology has had on our society.  I do often find people's noses in their phones like in the video and I do think that technology negatively affects mental health like portrayed in the video.  Technology, with all its positive affects, is bound to come with some negatives.  The question is: Do the positives outweigh the negatives? 

As someone who has grown up with technology, I am used to the constant changes and development that it goes through.  People like my sister, who is only four years older than I am, even has a bit of a different perspective.  When I babysit children back at home, I get to observe their relationship with technology as well.  Each generation, although the differences may be small or large, have different views on technology.

My Life With Technology

I think that my relationship with technology is somewhat toxic.  There are a lot of reasons why I enjoy technology and my phone, but when I look at the effects that they have on me, it is usually a negative correlation.  

I grew up going to a private school with my sister, where I never needed a phone.  If by some chance I ever did then I went to the school office and called my mom.  Phones were not allowed in classrooms anyway, so it did not make much sense for me to have a phone.  My first real dose of technology was my mom's old iPhone which I want to say I got around 3rd or 4th grade.  The data on the phone was disabled and I could only really use it when connected to wifi.  I was limited to games that would be approved by my mom which mainly consisted of salon and makeup games.  I also had access to music on the phone which was a nice upgrade from the MP3 player that I had at home.  At the time, this device did not have many negative affects on me.  It just gave me something else to do with my free time and I usually got bored of the games within a half hour.  

In 5th grade, I was gifted a blue iPod Touch for Christmas.  This device had all of the privileges of the last device, plus the ability to text via an email address whenever I had wifi.  This was a big step up for me at the time.  It gave me better access to my friends and family.  

I got my first real phone in 6th grade.  My parents still thought this was too early of an age, but I had just transitioned to public school and they wanted me to have access to them if an emergency or something arose while at school.  This was also around the time that I was allowed to get Instagram.  Instagram allowed me to make more friends at school and express myself with posts.  As time progressed, the climate surrounding Instagram began to change.  More influencers came into the scene and posting on Instagram got a lot more stressful.  Around the end of 7th grade is when I think that Instagram became toxic for me.  I went from posting funny pictures with cute captions to being scared to post anything on social media because of the judgement that I might receive.  I would spend a lot more time on Instagram watching influencers with their perfect bodies and gorgeous photos, all while wishing that was me.  This idea of the perfect personal/influencer on social media began to take a toll on my mental health. 

In 8th grade, I was finally allowed to get Snapchat.  All of my friends had been on Snapchat for a while and I was ecstatic to be in on the fun.  I remember posting my first Snapchat story while on a trip to Disney with my family.  Snapchat itself comes with an entire set of problems that I think they need to do a better job to remedy.  

As I went into high school there was still that weight of importance around social media.  Everyone wanted to get the most likes on Instagram and see who had the highest Snapchat score.  This never-ending spiral did end up having many negative affects on me.  Over a long amount of time ranging through most of high school, my relationship with social media got more and more toxic.  I developed my share of problems, some of which I am still working through.  

Now I do believe my relationship with social media is better, but it definitely has elements of toxicity.  I do try to take some control on my social media usage and how it affects my mental health.  I tend to follow more people on Instagram who make me feel good about myself or inspire me in some way and I have unfollowed a lot of the people who make me feel bad about myself.  I have also had my Snapchat notifications turned off since summer after freshman year.  I now find that my biggest problem with social media is the amount of time that I waste on it (especially Tik Tok).  Even while writing this blog post, there were several times when I took a break to check my phone and ended up on Instagram or Snapchat.  I think technology has also instilled some degree of mistrust in me.  There is so much misinformation and liars on the internet now and it becomes difficult to sift through all that.  I am constantly learning new things and my relationship with technology is forever evolving.  I do worry about the effects that technology has on me and what effects it will have in the coming generations, but I have accepted it to a point.  It is my opinion that there should be self-set limitations put one one's technology usage, but there is really no way to completely go without technology in the world we have built today.  I believe that it is our job to monitor technology usage and be cautious with the coming generations and how it will affect them.  

How I Use Technology Now

Now I live with many forms of social media.  To list a few, I have Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, WhatsApp, Spotify, Twitch, YouTube, etc.  I use Snapchat, Instagram, and Tik Tok the most.  I was required to get Facebook because of college clubs and organizations.  The others I mostly use for entertainment purposes.  When posting anything on social media, I only post things that my grandparents would be okay with seeing (especially since they actually do follow me on Instagram).  Most of my social media accounts are private except my Instagram which I am required to have public for work to better market myself.  

Googling Myself

When I Google myself, not too much comes up.  My Instagram account comes up along with my LinkedIn, Twitter, and some volleyball websites.  There are a few of my profile pictures that show up in the images section.  Most of what comes up is makeup related because there is a makeup brand called "Rimmel" that is pretty popular.  

How I Am Living With Social Media 

There are many reasons why I think social media is great.  For example, I am able to keep in contact with my Spanish host family all while I'm in North Carolina.  Because of technology, I am also able to have a long distance relationship which would have been a lot more difficult without the ability to talk with each other while in different states.  I can see what my hometown friends are up to at college as well.  There are also a lot of damaging parts of social media. In High School I had my share of body image problems and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) because of social media.  I have learned how damaging that can be for me and I am trying new things to combat these problems all the time.  I went through a bit of a social media purge and unfollowed a lot of the people who made me feel bad about myself and followed more body positive influencer and people who made me feel good about myself.  I also recognize that what people post on social media is not necessarily a representation of their real selves or how they are feeling.  I myself post things that make me and my life look good, even when I may be struggling and I know that many others do the same.  

Now in college I am trying to be more aware of my social media and phone usage.  The main problem is the amount of time that I waste and that I use my phone to majorly procrastinate.  I am constantly learning more about the negative affects that technology and social media have on my health.  Just recently, I began reading up on the affects that technology has had on my generations' dopamine receptors.  These facts, although they have not convinced me to completely ditch social media, have defiantly had me reconsidering my usage.  I have my notifications off on Snapchat (as I have since 9th grade) and I try to only go on social media when I am in a good headspace.  I think that monitoring my own social media can be difficult, but I think that is is important to my well being and I believe that more people should be educated on how they can better equip themselves to prevent social media addiction and what comes with it.