Blog Post #11 (Option #1) - Personal Use of Technology

 

As a member of Generation Z and a young college student, I am a constant user of the internet and social media. Personally, I have tried to make strides toward using social media less often. Last year, I made the decision to permanently delete TikTok due to its intense tracking routines. I also made the decision to temporarily delete Instagram and I only did it temporarily because I use Instagram to promote music I’ve made. During this experiment, I noticed my focus went up a bit in class, and while I occasionally felt the desire to engage in some social media scrolling, it made it so that I would have to find different activities to fill in small portions of time. 

In my opinion, regulated use of the internet and social media can provide benefits. After all, the internet can provide a lot of useful information and facts. You can find anything in the database of human knowledge on the internet. Although, due to the plethora of information available, some of this information becomes susceptible to misinformation or even disinformation. Fake news is everywhere on the internet so while there is valuable, factual, information out there, users must remain vigilant to avoid fake news. This fake news can lead to bias’ built on false pretenses and belief in false ideals. This can become dangerous to our democracy and our society. 

Even though there are many positives, there are known negatives to social media and the internet, especially when it comes to unregulated, overuse. Teen suicides are at an all-time high because of cyberbullying and isolation. Before social media, cyberbullying wasn’t even a concept. Due to the increased use of social media as a form of communication, face-to-face communication has suffered. This will become one of our biggest societal and psychological problems, people aren’t having real conversations anymore. Before my classes, I notice that people choose to use their phones instead of talking to each other. Its become an unexpected phenomenon and I’m scared yet interested in how we will cope with this odd phenomenon. A personal issue I suffer from and am working to overcome is FOMO (fear of missing out). This is easily amplified by social media because you see all the fun things everyone else is doing. How I help avoid this feeling is by remembering that social media is a highlight reel of people's best moments and their life is not like that all the time, we never see the bad. Another issue is the tracking and privacy invasions that come with the internet and social media. As talked about in my privacy blog, our every move is being tracked, whether that's with data points spread through digital footprints you leave everywhere you go on the internet or its cameras on the street scanning your face, taking pictures of your car, and tracking where you go. Privacy issues must rise to the top of our attention, it infringes on our rights as lawful citizens. Often with just a Google search of a name you can find way too much personal information. 

Luckily, when I searched up my name on Google there were limited results. While there were those person lookup websites that had my address and parents' names, there were mostly links to my high school soccer and track statistics along with honor roll postings. What pleased me the most is that I didn’t find a single picture of me posted on Google Images. This showed me that I am somewhat succeeding or at least doing better than others at reducing my digital footprint and keeping my private information, private. We should all remain constantly aware of what traces of information we can leave around on the internet and make an effort to reduce those data points so we can retain our privacy. While the internet is a powerful tool, it comes with many dangers that we need to address. These are all fairly new issues that came with the quick rise of technology and the faster we can regulate it, the better our society will be for it in the future. I am scared to watch the people in this world I’ve grown up in, turn into mindless zombies who only care about their devices. Hopefully, people will help in stopping technology from ruling our lives while also letting it assist us.