Technology is something I rely on greatly in my day to day life. It's become an integral part of each day to me through the use of my phone, laptop, television, and various other devices. I would say in terms of good or bad, my relationship with technology is quite mixed.
One of the primary uses I have for technology during the school year is the use of my laptop to do my homework, access a sizable amount of my textbooks, doing my tests, and constructing projects for various classes. Most of this is done on websites like blackboard (https://highpoint.blackboard.com/ultra/course)
In this case, my relationship with technology is quite healthy, as I use it in this way to be productive and focus on my schoolwork and my future.
Another use of technology that dominates my daily life is that of social media. I use social media everyday, varying from using it in healthy doses and in very unhealthy amounts.
My screen time is fairly high, which is something that I am not heavily surprised by as I know my habits when it comes to screen time. There are times where I will be in a public place with friends or family and I will be scrolling on my phone instead of engaging with the world around me. The biggest reason I am usually mindlessly scrolling is due to social media.
Social medias I use include:
YouTube: (https://www.youtube.com/) YouTube is a social media site that I mindlessly use, most likely the one I use the most. Some of it's uses can be important, like getting news and information, but a majority of time that is not the case.
It's to the point where I have trouble eating alone without having a YouTube video playing on either my phone, laptop, or television.
Given the fact that most videos on YouTube are longer in length than posts on TikTok or Instagram, I find myself spending far more time on it. Granted, I'm usually engaged on whatever I'm watching but a solid majority of the time it's not something very useful to me, or even something that really pertains to me.
Snapchat: (https://www.snapchat.com/) Snapchat is an app that I originally didn't care for or use much, but has become my main source of communication for a lot of people in my life. In all honesty, it's my main form of communication for all people outside of my immediate family.
This makes it difficult for me to gauge how healthy/unhealthy my use of snapchat is. On the one hand, I use to it to communicate with people and set up plans for later on in my day that don't involve technology and in some cases to find out about information that could help me in the future.
On the other hand, mindlessly responding with snaps to people can be something I do far too often, even when I'm out with friends. Sometimes I even feel the need to check it in class, more than any other social media due to the fact that I rely on it as a primary source of communication.
Overall, my relationship with snapchat has some healthy components to it, but it does have to be regulated more to become something that is consistently healthy for me.
TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com) TikTok has become the new standard for mindless scrolling in my experience. Unfortunately, TikTok is an app in which my relationship with it is pretty much entirely unhealthy.
Most of the videos on the app are very short, so you'd think it would be hard to waste so much time on it, but you'd be wrong. Somehow, just a few videos on a 5 minute break could turn into multiple hours of content you've just consumed, with a majority of it being content that won't matter to you, even if you remember it.
TikTok has also been an app that has made my attention span dwindle, which is something I'm sure isn't a symptom unique to me. The short videos in constant succession of each other make every user long for the next video while they're in the middle of a one already. This lowers people's attention spans a crazy amount, including myself.
My digital footprint is something I've had to increasingly worry about as I've gotten older. In middle school, I could post any random things I wanted without thinking much for consequences because I was little and didn't know any better.
However, starting with high school I had to become much more self aware of what I posted. Inappropriate posts could get students expelled. Especially now that I am in college and I have to focus on my career and future, the pressure to keep my digital footprint and presence clean is at an all time high.
I believe most people's relationship with technology is pretty unhealthy. The ways it can be unhealthy vary depending on the person, as it clearly does with me as well, but there is always a large amount of ways it can be detrimental to a person, whether it be socially or mentally.
It is actually quite ironic that social media actually makes us much less social in public areas. It can drag us out of social situations and suck us into our devices while we miss the moments that are passing us in the present moment.
Mentally, much of technology can bring us down or up, depending on what is being shown to us. Either way, we rely way too much on technology to deliver happiness to us and it has a large and unprecedented hold on us and our emotions.
Overall, technology is a wonderful thing that continues to innovate and excite in the world, but a majority of people's relationship with technology, including myself, can be quite unhealthy.
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