My Relationship with Technology
My relationship with technology has always been rocky. As we all have seen and know... technology while it has all of its positives, it has equally as many negatives. It has caused many teenagers, including young adults mental health issues due to how social media portrays what the normal body should look like or how we should all act (not in a positive sense). Social media rarely ever portrays anything good... yet knowing that, all young adults still go on it. Why is that? We all are addicted to it. Technology alone has molded itself into many peoples everyday routines. So many people go on social media or just their technology devices multiple times a day, sometimes without even realizing it.
I checked my phone screen time (The feature that tells you how much time you have spent on your phone a day or over the past week). My daily average for this week has been a whopping 6 hours everyday. It has gone up by 47% from last week. It is quite literally insane to me... when I saw this I thought to myself what was I even doing? Thankfully, the feature tells me how much time I have spent on each app. Snapchat, instagram, and tiktok were my top apps that I go on. I was not surprised, however I was surprised by how much time I spent on each one. It is scary how much of my life has become wrapped into these apps. An even scarier part about it is that Idk if I can stop using those apps, I keep thinking to myself "you need to delete it". I don't think I could delete it. I would feel to disconnected or left out in a sense from my peers or society as a whole. It is very sad that it has molded itself that much to me where I feel as if I can't delete it.
My top three app usage and the time spent on it:
Snapchat: 8 hours
Instagram: 4 1/2 hours
Tik Tok: 3 hours
The future is personally terrifying to me. I could not imagine where my life or mental state would be right now if I grew up in the age of technology that kids now a days are growing up in. I mean kids are now getting phones by age 9. I don't think I even knew how to operate a laptop or phone at that age. A scary statistic I found is that there is a higher rate of mental health in kids under 12 just due to their use of technology.
Privacy within technology
Is our information really private? Do we know what is actually getting posted out there about us? These are questions regarding privacy that we don't always think to worry about or to even ask ourselves. We are not cautious with our personal information or lives at all. All of us young adults are very naive when it comes to what the internet really knows about us. In the article about the 14 year old who quit technology given to us in the directions that i had read she said that once her parents allowed her to download facebook the first thing she did was go to her moms profile. She was baffled to see what her mom had put out to the world on her profile of her and she was deeply embarrassed. She expressed her disdain about it to her parents and even her parents were shocked. This being because no one thinks anymore before they post something. Even a picture of yourself could potentially be harmful in the long run.
She had heard horror stories at school about the dangers of having an online presence, therefore, that is why she acted the way she did. Amazingly, at age 14 she feels as though she isn't really missing out on anything by not having social media and staying sheltered from that world. She stated "I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything because I am being spared from the potential dangers for her at such a young age". He has a social life outside of the digital world. She has had the time now to join more extracurriculars and clubs because she doesn't have any social media. She says her friends consider her a goody-two-shoes. Thats one of the biggest things I am scared of. I'm afraid of missing out with my friends if I were to delete social media. It sounds silly, but when you're in High School, especially college, you feel a need to see what your friends are doing. You have fomo (Fear of missing out).
This girls story has definitely influenced me not only to be more aware, but also to be more cautious with my social media usage. I went back on all of my social medias and realized that people could find out so much about me even by the little I post. People could figure out where I go to school, what state I live in, hell people could probably figure out my actual address.
My Digital Footprint
What is a digital footprint you might be asking? Its definition is "Digital footprint or digital shadow refers to one's unique set of traceable digital activities, actions, contributions and communications manifested on the Internet or digital devices".
I looked up my name online to see what would come up and none of my social media profiles came up. You would be surprised at how many Kaitlyn Fishers there are out there. The one thing that did come up about me that required some digging was an image taken of me and my old competitive tennis team from ten years ago at a tournament. It was a picture of me and my team after we competed and won the title we were playing for. That picture was at the very bottom of the first page of pictures probably because it was taken so long ago. Part of me is thankful that that image was the only thing about me I could dig up right off the bat, however, another part of me wished there was nothing about me posted there for anyone to see right away. What happened once I looked deeper? Once I looked deeper and put in my username for instagram and tik tok (the two social media apps I use most) I was shocked at how easy someone could pull up my profiles. Now since i am private on instagram they would have to request me and it would be my choice or not wether to let them follow me or not, but tik tok was just available for anyone to see. Frankly, that scares me more than i thought it would. I didn't think it would be that easy. I post a lot of tik toks some being with defining things in the back round... such as; The High Point University sign, my neighborhood sign, or the beach I am at at the time. People could find out where I live or where I am located at any given point. I wouldn't say i have a fairly large digital footprint because it did take a lot of digging to find my social media profiles, but I did have somewhat of one which terrified me and honestly made me consider deleting them.
My final thoughts?
All in all, I truly believe that technology is a very addicting part of our society today, like I previously stated it has molded itself into our everyday routines. It truly impacts how we feel about ourselves or see ourselves. It shakes me to the core knowing some of the statistics that i have found while writing this blog post. I will defiantly be more cautious when using social media because of the dangers it has physically, but also emotionally. Some of my body image issues i have struggled with are most certainly linked to technology. As for my future with technology, I will be limiting my screen time everyday and be more aware of what I am posting and whats in the back round of the frame just so I can make sure I am being spared from all of the potential dangers that could come from posting. Technology is looked at as something that could brighten our future... but theres a question that we should all start asking ourselves... What if we're wrong about that?
Links
https://www.fastcompany.com/90315706/kids-parents-social-media-sharing
https://www.fastcompany.com/section/the-privacy-divide
https://www.fastcompany.com/90359992/an-ad-tech-pioneer-on-where-our-data-economy-went-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it
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