Personal Narrative: How Technology Is Taking Over

My main problem that I possess when it comes to my phone dependency is how to fill my free time with efficient activities like reading, homework, or other things. When I went through school without using social media, I was much more attentive in class and I did not really miss the connection I had with my phone. I also discovered that I do not deal with the “fear of missing out” because in actuality I did not miss out on a single thing. Identifying this fact enabled me to understand that thinking I need my phone because something important could potentially arise is a complete lie that I feed to myself to give a “valid” excuse that I need to be connected to my phone at all times of the day. This challenge revealed to me how detrimental social media could become if I keep using it extensively. I have read several articles about how media are physically altering our brain in a bad way and leading to a lack of essential skills in people, mainly in the millennial generation. This made me question if new media has contributed to the rise of social anxiety in individuals or aided the downfall of literacy in America today. This project has truly opened my eyes with my personal media use and the potential risks that can spawn from abusing

People in the world today depend on technology to help them succeed through life. However, the rate of its use among young kids and teen customers is increasing at a rapid pace. The reason being is that they would rather text a class friend and use social media rather than meeting up with them. In Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, the scenario is similar to the world today, because nobody communicates or connects with people personally, leaving them isolated and alone. Also, in the article called “Tasking Multitasking To Task”, by Mark Harris, he explains that technology is affecting the human mind to lack interest in social skills and hobbies. Harris’ claim that technology is corrupting our lives is correct because many people have lost their attention span for anything beyond a simple phrase.

People rely on technology to survive in today’s society. People feel like they have to always be on their phones to be accepted, but they are missing life as it passes right in front of them. For example, I tend to get annoyed when I try to have conversations with my little sister and she sits on her phone not talking or paying attention. I have to take her phone to get her to look me in the eye and talk about things. People in today’s society lack socializing skills and that is all thanks to technology.

In the modern day, we use technology to every benefit we can and I am not ashamed of that; my opinion on the use of technology (specifically computers) is that in quantities of moderation, technology can exponentially expand the growth of our civilization. For my second cultural object, I chose my home computer because I can spend upwards of hours upon it each day, primarily doing work or visiting recreational, social websites and games. The renowned scientist Carl Sagan once said, “We’ve arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.” This quotation blatantly applies to modern day society, where it is nearly impossible to communicate with people without an email or cell phone. The laptop is also an immense part of my culture regarding schoolwork, where I need the laptop to access the websites teachers use. With so many hours per day enveloped the laptop, it has grown to be a large part of my daily routine and culture overall.

Tech Wreck Every day technology is getting bigger and better. But do we really know what effects technology is having on us, the human race? For starters many people complain technology is making us lazier, antisocial beings. Others argue there are devastating effects on the planet.

Technology is the inevitable force that is sweeping countries, and taking millennials with it. Simon Sinek states that “adolescents are becoming addicted to social media. Social media itself is not bad, but the imbalance is. Like all addictions, being addicted to social media will ruin relationships, it’ll cost time, and cost money.” Not to mention, using technology too much and not interacting with others face-to-face is depriving adolescents of important relationship skills that are essential inside and out of a job. Electronic usage itself is not bad, but using too much of it is, as with anything else. As Ray Bradbury points out in The Veldt, “Too much of anything is not good for

We live in a world filled with technology. School teachers and college professors use technology to give lectures, health care professionals use technology to keep medical records, or monitor patient’s vital signs, we use technology such as social media, to connect with people and gain acceptance. In 2014, Gary Turk posted a video to Youtube titled Look Up, in which he argues that technology, such as smartphones, causes us to miss out on certain things in life, because we don’t use it in moderation. Technology benefits our lives by making us more efficient in our professional and personal activities.

Do you have dinner with your family or with your phone? Having dinner with your family creates more bonding but having dinner with your phone or technology cause you to get dumb and dumber exponentially. Meaning starting slowly but increasing rapidly over time. From the article by Ron Friedman “A New Year’s resolution for the workplace,” Friedman talks about how study shows that devices or technology has been (can) cut our thinking ability in the workplace. He also talks about how phones can be such a distraction and you can get most out of it by keeping it away. This article talks about how technology is getting in the way of you making friendships or interpersonal connections with humans. A survey from “Pew Research Survey” from feb. 14-23 of 2014. “When is it okay to use your phone?” from 4 different generations. In “The Giver” by Lois Lowry, everything in the community is controlled by technology and that really limits them from knowing that technology is only hurting them. Technology hinders society because it gets in the way of person to person interaction, community is too dependent on technology, and lowers cognitive performance.

What will we be like if we continue to develop intimate relationships with our devices? Will we be more connected than ever, or more alienated? In “Can You Hear Me Now?”, by Sherry Turkle, a professor of the social studies of science and technology, argues that technology has made people more connected, but has also made us more alienated from each other. How now, when in public people mostly want to be alone with their personal networks, or devices. People used to talk to one other as they waited in line, or rode on the bus or subway. Now we spend that downtime checking emails, responding to messages, or scrolling through our social media feed. Turkle says, “People become alienated from their own experience and anxious about watching a version of their lives scrolling along faster than they can handle” (p. 508). Our devices are increasingly becoming a part of us, an extension of our mind. Turkle does an amazing job at showing her case by stating evidence that is very relatable, along with real life examples, and feelings that her audience has felt while dealing with their devices.

With this type of mindset, you are so focused in making connections with other people, that you ironically separate yourself by trying to know what everyone is doing and imagine we are at all these places. While this is not a realistic possibility no matter what form of technology we have, being able to view all this information in one place has deceived society into spending its time receiving information about life, instead of actually experiencing it for themselves. Social networking is another prime example of an attention grabbing technology. You can learn about all the information on your friend’s activities in one place any time you feel like it. While it is extremely useful to be able to be able to do this, connective technology is only truly beneficial if you are able to use it as a device to interact in person. Unfortunately, the intensity of this addictive isolation can be multiplied when a person is being controlled by more than one form of digital technology. This can lead to living a life where you are never in the present moment or as Samuels puts it, “If you're routinely using three screens at once, distraction can feel like a way of life”

In her recent book Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun looks at how modern technological innovations force us to adopt new habits. She claims that technology has become more habitual than advanced and that its users are no longer bargaining on tech’s emancipatory qualities, rather it has become something that is part of our everyday lives that is often overlooked. Chun’s writings made me think a lot about technologies role in my life. I am huge advocate for becoming less preoccupied with our devices (first/last thing we see in a day) but I am not critical of others who are dependent on technology simply because I do not know what their needs are. It primarily comes down to the way I choose to go about my life

In our future, our use of technology is just going to get worse. There is going to be more and more devices that we use to make our lives easier as humans. Think about Google for instance, they are coming out with glasses that have TV screens in them. This technology is called Google Glass and it is still in the testing phase. The glasses have Wi-Fi built into them which is another reason it will cause social isolation. Instead of having people being on there phones, they are now going to be watching TV and interacting with the glasses. It is technology like this that we have to learn how to control our urges and prevent it from consuming our lives. We need to be able to determine when enough is enough and to take a break.

Going into this assignment I was wasn’t how I was going to deal with not using technology. I thought it would be a near impossible task, because there is technology everywhere in today’s society. The lights we use to brighten our homes, to the water that we use to cook and or wash with. Luckily before I did the 24 hours of no technology I took a shower so I didn’t have to worry about for Thanksgiving. I would probably like to this 24 hour thing again some time in the future because I felt like it was a little too easy. Since it was Thanksgiving it was easier not to use my phone since the whole point of the holiday is to give thanks to people close to you etc, etc. And having a phone in your face defeats the whole purpose of the holiday.

There is a transformation happening today that is completely changing the way that we do things. The ways that we are communicating are shifting from face to face interactions to short, interactive messages. Technology seems to be making it easier to stay connected, but it is restricting our interactions with others and leading to isolation.

Predicting about the future, Albert Einstein once said, “I fear that the day technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots." This quote does apply for this current generation, a generation that relies on technology for almost everything. Is that a bad thing? Are we those idiots Albert Einstein is talking about? Well that depends on how much we depend on technology on our daily lives. Most people agree that no matter how much excessive it gets, technology is the best thing discovered in the world thus far. On the other hand, others think too much technology is a major tool for people to ignore reality and sink deeper into an imaginative world. Since everyone has to keep up with modern lifestyle, they have to know how to manipulate some sort of technology, but if they don 't know when and how to gain control of it, they will be led to an obsessive life style. Although some people claim that social media has a positive psychological effect to those who have difficulties in the actual world, others argue that unlimited social media usage is an addiction: an addiction causing neurological complications, psychological disturbances, Social and family problems that need serious mental treatment in order to live stable life style.