As this week has gone on I’ve thought a lot about how big of an impact technology has on my life. You see, technology makes everything so much more convenient and life a little bit easier in the process, but what people don’t pay attention to is the negative affects it has on you as a person. I believe that people know this fact, but simply choose to ignore it because technology makes them happy. It’s hard to deny someone something that makes them happy even if that happiness has a negative affect on them. Like really ask yourself if you spend your time wisely or if it’s just spent looking at the next post on instagram or what someone is doing on there snapchat story. I wont lie I do the same things sometimes, but maybe this is the time to be doing something different and exciting instead of worrying about all the other things going on in social media or new technology being made.

An interesting article we had to read this week called “Tom Standage on the forgotten history of social media” talks about the same idea I bring up about the impact technology and social media has had on us. Standage says social media has become a centralized, vertical, one-way, broadcast manner and if you think about it it’s true. Everything we do now has been centralized around one thing which is social media and technology. This theme also plays out in the Black Mirror episode we watched too. Whats interesting about this black mirror episode is that it brings you into this world where people have to essentially earn money by riding bikes. Like imagine spending everyday of your life riding a bike just to help out in society. In the episode we meet Bingham who is just this guy living day by day having no joy in him and no happiness. Then comes this girl named Abi who just changes his whole world making him feel like theres something else out there for him. This makes him spend any minute he can spare trying to get her to like him and when he finally does the only thing he wants to do is make her dream come true. Abi’s dream of being singer makes Bingham give away all the money he worked for so she could full-fill this goal. Unfortunately the judges grading her think her voice is just average and offers her an alternative of going into the adult film industry. She ultimately ends up accepting this, not because she wants to, but because the crowd watching on and the judges peer pressure her into this.

This same affect happens on social media even if you don’t notice it. What I mean is that a lot of us do things not because we want to, but because everyone else is doing it. Now you’re probably like I’ve never done this before I make my own decisions, but I don’t it’s being done intentionally. I think its just how social media and technology has grown and how it’s affect on everyone creates peer pressure without anyone knowing it. The question now is will this continue to be a problem or will it change at some point?

This link is to a news article about how Millions of U.S. parents may have to quit their jobs to help their kids with remote learning.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/distance-learning-4-million-parents-could-quit-jobs/