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/

What really stood out to me this week about class was the idea that technology has this hold over us that we don’t recognize as much as we should. This has made us oblivious to things around us creating this delusion that we can only survive if we have this technology at all times. Our phones are a prime example of that statement. Peoples liveliness are on their phones in a sense, meaning that all their secrets and all of there information is compressed onto one single device. It makes you really wonder about the affects of this on a psychological level. In the article “Foucault and social media: life in a virtual panopticon” it brings up this very point of technology and the affects of social media. In another reading called “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” the author Nicholas Carr goes over how reading on the internet has in turn affected his reading and concentration and he believes this true for many other people too. Whats good about these articles is that they both can relate back to the Netflix episode Black Mirror: The Entire History of You. This episode shows the audience a world where you can go back and look at past memories, but you soon see mid way through the episode how bad of an impact it can have on you and the people around you. It shows the dangerous of some technologies and how it can either benefit you or destroy you. Humans want to keep keep finding ways to advance with technology.

It’s the idea that by progressing with technology, it will help evolve us more and make us better in the future. What if that wasn’t the case. What if the these advancements in technology have actually been making it harder for everyone in society to evolve together? Creating this division between people, making it so only certain people can evolve with new technology. For millennials this will most likely be an easy task, but for the older generation of people its fair to say it’s tough on them. Being a millennial myself, growing up with this type of technology has made it easy to keep progressing as time goes on. Navigating this new world of technology for the older generation can be seen as difficult and possibly be seen affecting day to day activities.

Back to the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr establishes that the internet is changing the way he thinks and how he goes about other activities. As for the millennials, they don’t even realize this because they grew up learning and reading on computer unlike the older generations. So the point that Carr makes is that it’s not problem for younger people, but a problem for older people who didn’t grow up with this technology. This has made his views and other peoples views change on the subject of technology. The same thing is shown in the Netflix episode when the one girl tells everyone at dinner that she doesn’t have her chip anymore to replay memories, she then explains how much better she feels not having having that technology anymore. This changes her view on the the product all together and it eventually leads the main character to take his own chip out to get rid of the pain he kept living over and over. These articles and episodes really open your mind and make you really think about your own view on technology. So with that being said think about your own view on technology do you agree or disagree?

Weekly News

This article is about president Trump going to Kenosha, Wisconsin where the shooting of an unarmed black man was killed by law enforcement and subsequent demonstrations that have turned deadly.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/01/politics/donald-trump-kenosha-wisconsin-visit/index.html

Hey everyone, my name is Collin. I am a business major with concentration in marketing and am really excited to take this class. I am from Sodus New York, which is in the Rochester area. I’m a transfer from Elmira College. Lastly I play soccer for the team here at Alfred University.