Final Blog Post 

Technology is a world that has been around as long as I can remember. I can slightly remember a time of cable television and landlines. Technology has opened a new world of possibilities that can be inspiring but where there is good there is also bad. Technology has affected our society and way of life in negative aspects as well.  Today in this post I will be discussing relationships with technology. 

With any relationship, you have good and bad. You have to know your boundaries and know what you will accept from that relationship. This is the same with technology. Many people assume just because they grew up with technology that they have a healthy relationship, but that is not the case. Many people have unhealthy social media relationships. We have seen an increase of unhealthy expectations with ourselves, too.You may be asking, “Well, how can that be?” There is so much available to you now. We have all sorts of avenues to be able to make a good relationship with technology. We have timers on our phones that make sure not to overspend time on our phones. We have all sorts of positive social media accounts promoting self-love and mental health, with discussion of healthy boundaries. Yet there are so many issues surrounding social media.

                    Why is that? Let's look into it!

The Negatives

According to many sources, there are many issues that surround technology. Sleep is one of the main things that can be affected due to technology. With this constant stimulation at the touch of our fingertips, it's hard to shut it off. Our phones suck us into whatever occupies our minds. Another issue associated with technology is vision and hearing issues. Constantly looking down at a phone is not only bad for our vision, causing strain. It also affects the neck because of the action of always having our neck down. Also, having our bodies hunched over in weird positions to watch our phone while in our bed does not help the back issues. The last huge effect social media has is on the mental health of people who use it. 

The mental health issues that are seen are vast. The first most common one associated with technology use is anxiety and depression. With the ability to post anything you want, you want to display the best parts of your lives to your followers. That's only the normal thing to do. The bad thing is on the outside looking in on social media, all you are seeing is positive things happening for everyone else. You see people getting married, having babies, getting houses, scoring new jobs, etc. This can make people feel as if they are not as good as the people being displayed online. The thing that is hard to remember is... they are real people on the other side, they have struggles too. 

Another issue that is prominent with social media use is body image. The pictures of people with super clear skin and a flat belly is most likely fake. The use of editing tools has increased issues with body image. Young people are seeing what others are posting and assuming that's what they should look like, too, because that is what everyone sees as "good looking". This can be extremely damaging. Also, going along with body issues is the culture around food and weight loss. There are multiple accounts online that promote unhealthy eating and fasting habits. They do not give information about how damaging certain weight loss actions could be dangerous. 

We also have discussed many issues about how technology can promote avenues for active hate online and false information. Throughout this course, we have discussed so many ways that technology can and will be used against us. Not only does it have the above issues, people use technology to exploit people, sometimes with the help of our own accounts. Nothing, once it becomes online, is private. Our lives are out there if we post it and we need to be cautious of this. 

With all of this you would think that social media has no positives and should be done away with but that is not completely true either. In this world when there is bad, there is also good and vice versa. There are positive ways that technology can be used.

The Positives 

Now that we have discussed the negatives, I believe that it is important to discuss the positives. One of the most prominent positives is the ability to connect easier. We have never been able to communicate with this many people whenever and wherever we want. Most of the time it took days to communicate with people that were not relatively close by. This is a thing of the past, now that we have a constant landline in our pocket. This can also be positives for buisness or networking for a job. You can sell anything, anywhere, pretty much at a click. This makes it easier for smaller businesses to expand. Going along with the business side, is the increase of technology. You can see an increase in remote employment. You also have the ability to research anything you want. This means that you can learn a new skill, expand a skill, find a new hobby and many other things. Social media can also be used for bigger issues, such as advocacy or fundraising. Using technology can increase the reach that a project can go. When posting on social media, you can increase awareness to people all over the world. 

This ability to post whatever can be empowering, giving people a voice who may not have had one before. The medical field also has new technology that decreases healing time and makes procedures less invasive. Through the use of technology, it becomes easier to diagnose, treat, and recover. All of these listed above are just some of the positive ways that technology can be positive for humanity, although there are many more than just this. 

My Personal Tech

(In case you ever wondered what I looked like playing phone games)

Having technology in my life, almost my entire life, has been amazing in some ways. I have been able to meet people I never would have otherwise. I can also contact people that live in different states, which would have been a lot harder through the mail. I have been taught a lot through the use of my social media. Most of my knowledge comes from some sort of technology. I have also had negative experiences with the use of technology. I have had my fair share of moments looking on the other end of a screen at someone's post thinking I am behind in my life. The body issues also were present for me as well. As a young girl that grew up seeing heavily edited pictures made it hard for me to feel like being authentic was ok. This is not healthy. I have experienced all of the physical issues as well. These all are issues that technology exacerbated with its usage. 

I would say when I was younger my usage was more unhealthy than it is now. I think that my time spent using technology is healthy. I used to place a lot of importance on my phone, not being able to seperate from it. Now, as I am older, I can go days without charging my phone and know no difference and to not trust everything that is online, as everything displayed online is not perfect and true. Every picture probably had 100 takes before the one you see posted. All those happy couples you see probably fight too. All those perfect bodies and faces you see probably are feeling insecure about their post too. We have to begin to humanize the people in the photos instead of idolizing them. 

Online footprint 

While writing this, I wanted to take time and discover what my personal online footprint looks like. Since social media plays such a huge part in our lives now, it is important to know what's out there. Upon looking me up, there is nothing ultimately that stands out to me that I would not want posted. The first thing that pops up is my Instagram name, which is private. The only photos or mention of my name are articles from my high school. I do not think that any of these things would deter anyone from me, and I am not disappointed with what is displayed. I really do not have a media presence, which is totally okay! Throughout my life, I have tried to place great importance on being cautious with what I post to social media. I understood the concept that once it is out there, it’s out there. 

My people

(Olga, Hailee, and I) 

Social media has affected people in my life very differently. I know people who have very unhealthy attachments to social media, always refreshing, waiting for the next post to click like on. I also have other friends on the very opposite end of the spectrum, never using social media, believing it is not anything they are missing out on.This goes to show that there can be two different extremes when it comes to technology. If you were to ask my parents, they would say that technology has single-handedly contributed negatively to the world. They do not believe that social media is important and do not understand why our generation places such importance on it. Honestly, I am beginning to understand why they think that. Most of the media my parents use is the news or Facebook, which has honestly been a thorn in my mom's side for a while, with the hackers. I think this dynamic shows how our generation growing up with technology seems to have a hold on us. I would say that everyone in every age group can agree on the fact that it helps communication. Increasing ease with communications means that we can maintain relationships better.

How to use tech healthily 

Before ending this, I wanted to discuss some ways that we can set healthy boundaries with technology. When using technology we have to use it wisely, setting certain times to use technology. When we limit our use of technology, we create more time to have personal interactions that are more meaningful. Another way to help limit our connection to technology is to turn off as many notifications as we can. As soon as we hear a notification, our initial response is to check what it was. This creates a dependency on our phone that is unhealthy. We also need to turn our tech off at night. If our technology is constantly within our reach it is hard to get restful sleep. We hear the buzzing or want to doom scroll. This causes us to lose precious sleep that is needed for many aspects of our health and well-being. We need to let other people know our intentions when we set our boundaries, though. If there are people in your life that you frequently talk to, telling them that you only will respond during certain times is healthy. We need to be able to take time to recharge and have time to take care of ourselves. The ultimate way to set healthy boundaries is knowing your own personal limits and taking care of YOU!

Technology has many different effects on our lives. Some positive and some negative. There is one thing that is for sure, though, technology is not going anywhere. It looks like for many years to come, technology will be an ever-present part and will constantly be evolving. Due to this we need to learn now how to have healthy boundaries with technology. Learning our boundaries and knowing what personally works for you is so important in your own navigation of technology. I hope that throughout this post you learned new boundaries that you can apply to your own technology use.