Technology And Technology : My Experience Of The Digital Media

Most of us assume emerging economic, political and climate changes will be remodeled by the emerging technology we have today. We are sure YouTube, streaming, and video on-demand will be the wave of the future and change our lives for the better; giving us more money, free time, and control of our lives. Our well-oiled lives in the Tech Age are incompatible with our grandfather's blue collar days scratching out a living turning wrenches at the local garage. We’re at the top of our technological game.

The use of technology has catalyzed society into an era that is increasingly interconnected yet impersonal at the same time. Despite technology’s endless list of assets, many fail to acknowledge its shortcomings when mentioning what is lost as a result of using it. Although in “Great to Watch” by Maggie Nelson, she is not afraid to share her skepticism of technology, as well as the role it plays in desensitizing individuals on a day-to-day basis. The internet is an invaluable resource to many because it is a public domain for sharing ideas, opinions, and knowledge that any and everyone can have access to. In a sense, it does not restrict what someone may see or do, and this can either be a good thing or a bad thing. The booming use of new media

Technology, can’t live without it anymore, or can we? Almost everyone uses technology. It is estimated that 100 million people use Facebook, 300 million uses Instagram, and 974 million use Twitter. In 2012, a program called “Shut Down Your Screen Week” was started to get people off of mediatic devices for a week. Over the past few years, this movement, to temporarily get off technology, has racked up a substantial amount of followers, including Mrs. Menge’s English and Literature Class. It is an idea I personally agree with and am in favor of trying. Shut Down Your Screen Week has also inspired many articles. Some of which are: Social Media as Communities, written by Nytimes, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, by Nicholas Carr, and Attached to Technology and Paying a Price, by Matt Richtel.

Our world gets more digital every day. Nearly everyone has a smartphone and a computer. Even more people have a TV and if people do they are in contact with the digital world everyday.

Nearing the end of the 20th century, at a time that is today characterized by disco and bellbottoms, America was entering an era of the future: the Digital Age. Starting with the release of the personal computer in 1970, and likely ending with the release of the iPhone 890 in 2450, the Digital Age shaped America as we know it today. This nationwide obsession with technology has led to massive changes that now simply fall under the mundanity of everyday life. Of course, there is pushback, and certainly no shortage of grumbling about children swapping a day in the park for a video game controller (which is not completely unwarranted; I've had my fair share of, as my father once put it, "reading about going outside instead of actually doing it").

To begin with, one important thing I have learned through this experience is that there is a digital divide that exists within our society. There is a group of people who are the technology ‘haves’, and these people have laptops, iPhone and access to technology. On the other hand,

Steven Spielberg, who is an famous American director, producer, and screenwriter, said “Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we're too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone” (Brainyquote.com). The lifestyle for today's world is totally different from our parents world. As the days go on it’s a big gap between us, as in education methods, social media, and all the advanced technology in our lives. Untimely, there are many forms of technology in today’s world that is different from our parents world.

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

We grew up in the age of transition. Our childhood previously consisting of jumping rope, going outside, and playing in playgrounds quickly changed into something more technological. We watched handwritten letters became electronic, film became digital, a huge corded phones become small computers in our pockets. Now we are becoming dependent on these new technologies.

What effect does modern digital technology have on individuals who rely on it heavily in their everyday lives? Innovations such as video games, internet search engines, and online databases receive great praise as well as great criticism depending on who answers this question. Nicholas Carr and Steven Johnson have both written pieces stating their opinions on technology’s effect on the human brain. Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” explains how accessing information quickly and easily through search engines like Google negatively alters the way people seek and read information and think. Johnson’s book “Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter” covers the positive attributes of digital technology, video games in particular. He explains how video games are intellectually stimulating and help develop complex skills. Digital technology has interesting effects on the different processes of our mind.

The utmost, overriding facet of our society has been placed in our hands, perched on a stand, and then plugged into a socket: modern technology. Today, individuals without up to date technology are christened anomalies that are late to the ‘smart era’ of smartphones, smartwatches, and smart televisions. In Is Google Making Us Stupid? by Nicholas Carr, and Be a Gamer, Save the World by Jane McGonigal, it is made comprehensible that, as a society, we have begun to intertwine ourselves in the tangles of our electronics, which we cannot seem to relinquish. Our generation has been advancing with technology nonstop to the point where a new gadget is practically released daily. Recently, the latest technological fixation that has rapidly spread like wildfire is video streaming: whether it be video-on-demand or live, it has concurrently seized and fashioned jobs, as well as intermixed communities and individuals alike.

In today’s world it is a requirement to be digitally literate in order to be able to function in a capacity that enables one to be more successful whether it is at home, school, at our jobs or even looking for a job. Over the last few decades our environment has evolved into a digital environment. Being or becoming digitally literate is essential in being successful in this digital environment. Almost everything we do today requires some sort of digital knowledge or literacy. From surfing the internet to searching for a job to being able to perform our jobs, we are required to have some sort of digital

As asked by the English alternative rock band Muse in their famous song “Screenager,” “Who’s so phoney and always surrounded?” This song perfectly depicts the effects of technology on America. People are engulfed by different types of technology everywhere they go and even carry around technology such as phones, laptops, and iPods. These items may seem like a blessing, but they are potentially dividing America. Every day, eight to eighteen-year-olds watch four and a half hours of TV, listen to two and a half hours of music, use the computer for an hour and a half, and spend two and a half hours on their cell phones, two hours for texting and one half hour for talking. This adds up to eleven hours dedicated on the media per day (Crawford).

As I sit here and recall my last nineteen long years on this planet and my various interactions with different mediums of technology, it has become very obvious to me that I, like most people where I am from, have had really no major interactions with technology compared to others in my age group. I sit in coffee joints at night and watch people become more introverted than a turtle, ducking into their little shells of technological safety. They look at you through their faux, so-call trendy DKNY knock-off glasses, dressed in their Abercrombie clothes, hiding behind nothing but the glow of a laptop or in the corner talking to someone on their cell phones which just happens to match what they are