Final Blog Post- My Relationship with Technology

It should be no surprise to anyone reading this that as a 20-year-old college student, technology and social media are heavily involved in my everyday life. I would say my relationship with it so far has had many ups and downs. As we all know, there are many positives and negatives to the world of social media. Throughout this class, we have talked extensively about how much all forms of media and technology have an effect on the government, news, politics, and the world. In this blog, I want to take a break from addressing the media's effect on the world and take a deep dive into my personal relationship with technology. 

Before writing this blog post, I decided to watch multiple videos and read tons of articles describing other people's experiences and feelings in the age of social media. The first video I watched was the 1964 World's Fair in New York — called FUTURAMA Video. This video however slightly accurate, made me laugh. I think it is interesting how people from back then really glamorized technology and a world of internet advances. Although I can't imagine my life now without it, I don't think it is fair to say it always has a positive effect. This is especially captured in the second short film I watched titled Tears For Fears. It shows a darker side to our generation of internet-obsessed individuals, which is very important to talk about.  

So how would I describe my relationship with technology, and is it healthy? As I said before throughout my life I have had some ups and downs with technology. I first got an iPhone when I was in the 4th grade. At the time, of course, I was super excited and thought nothing of it. Now looking back on it, I had absolutely no idea of the dangers awaiting me. I immediately downloaded Instagram as the first app on my phone, and it wasn't long before I already was having problems. My first mistake was putting the town I lived in in my bio. I will never forget my mom sitting me down and telling me a friend of hers saw it and texted her to warn her I was putting my personal information out there. So I quickly removed that and learned my lesson. However, I still think now that I was way too young to be online, and at the time it was not healthy for me. 

Growing up in a generation where everyone was online is quite strange. From a young age, my main form of communication between my friends and me was through some sort of social media. I actually really regret this now that I am older. I was never pushed enough to go outside and make friends the "old-fashioned way" as some call it. Also, I was vulnerable to the effects of social media influencers and beauty standards while trying to grow into my own young girl at the same time. This was most definitely an unhealthy effect technology had on my life at the time. However, the older I got the more I realized social media and the online world weren't as important as I once thought it was. 

Although I am older and much wiser now, I still would say my relationship with technology could definitely be improved. I still unfortunately make the mistake at times of clicking on fake messages or DM's or even clicking "accept all cookies" without having a clue what I'm accepting. This has led me to get my account hacked once, and a fake Instagram page made of me another. But overall, nowadays I think I have a decent balance with technology. 

One way I keep a healthy balance with technology is in my relationship. I have been in a relationship for the past four years since I was 16 years old. From the start, we decided we didn't want the extent of our relationship to be defined by technology. Throughout the day, sure we will text here and there and send a few snapchats, but compared to most we really don't. However, at the end of every day, we will call each other for about an hour or so and catch up. We also like to keep our relationship mostly private. Of course, we have posted each other throughout all this time, but we don't feel the need to post about every date we go on or every fun memory we make. I truly feel like these traits in controlling our use of technology between us has really helped our relationship thus far. I would definitely say this is my healthiest relationship with technology. 

Another way I feel technology and social media have a positive impact on me is by being able to connect with people from across the world. One of my best friends I met through club volleyball a couple years back, unfortunately, lives in Arizona now. However, with the use of technology, I am still able to easily talk to her every single day. I also can easily keep up with my friends and family back home while I am here at HPU. I also am grateful for the instant access I have to virtually any facts and information I could ever need. Technology has also allowed me to meet new people some I never would have met without it. I definitely think technology has had many positive and healthy benefits to my everyday life.

Overall, like I said, I can't imagine my life without technology. This is mostly because I have never gone without it. However, I am grateful to be born in a generation where we are fortunate to have access to so many things and people so quickly. After writing this, I have brought some parts of my technological relationship that need some work to my attention. Like limiting what information I give out, and being more careful about what I click on. But I have also realized how in some ways  I do really good managing my screen time and limiting the control it has on my life. While I have definitely grown tremendously from the 4th grader who was obsessed with her online status, I still hope to continue to grow and live a life using as little technology as possible and never let it control me. 

Blog #10- EOTO 2 Reflection

After listening to my classmate's EOTO presentations, I can say I have learned a lot. Many of these topics I have never even heard of before, and many I have, but didn't know what they meant. The topic that stood out to me the most was gatekeeping presented by Olivia Porzio. As she also mentioned, I have heard this term being thrown around a lot in recent years, however, I have limited knowledge of its meaning. 

So what exactly is the term gatekeeping? According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, "the activity of trying to control who gets particular resources, power, or opportunities, and who does not." When I see gatekeeping being used today, it is almost always on social media. Many examples come to mind, for example, someone commenting on someone's Instagram picture asking "Where did u get your shirt?" The poster then proceeds to respond with something like "I don't know" or "can't remember" just because they don't want to reveal that information to the public and keep it to themselves. Now I know what you are thinking, that is so dumb to hide where you got your shirt so no one copies you. You are right it is, but sadly a very popular thing to do nowadays about many different topics. 

On a more serious note, gatekeeping can also be used to withhold much more serious information than clothing or social media drama. Gatekeeping has also been seen heavily in today's news and media. Examples of gatekeepers in the media are editors, producers, reporters, directors etc. They establish something like a hierarchy that will be used to determine what is relevant for the audience or not. These decisions depend on the underlying social, cultural, ethical, and political happenings at the moment. This creates biases in the media and also restricts information the viewers can see, and sometimes can even lead to false information. Gatekeeping can also be seen within the government. There are a multitude of things that the government decides to withhold from the public at all times. They choose what information they want us to know and how they will say it so that we interpret it in a certain way. 

As you can see, gatekeeping for the most part really has no positives. Gatekeeping can be extremely toxic to the public. Gatekeeping remains very toxic, exclusionary, and hurtful to many. It can be very harmful to someone’s mental health. While yes, sometimes it is minor, it can get very serious and very harmful quickly. The toxic effects of gatekeeping mainly are caused due to the exclusion feeling it causes. 

Overall, I really don't see the point of gatekeeping. Yes, I understand in terms of the government not everything necessarily can be shared with the public, however, choosing not to share information just because is so childish. Gatekeeping can be a slippery slope into online bullying, harassment, and mental health problems for individuals. I think it is important to be aware of gatekeeping so it is easier to identify it happening. 

Blog #9- Age of AI

Let's start from the beginning, what even is artificial intelligence? Artificial intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. Specific applications of AI include expert systems, natural language processing, speech recognition, and machine vision. The first discoveries into the world of AI came all the way back in the 1940s, however, it was in recent years that artificial intelligence has been extremely prominent in our lives. 

After watching the documentary, what stood out to me the most was when they said "around 50 percent of jobs are threatened by artificial intelligence in the next 50 years." This line was very concerning to me in many ways. As I watched, I thought about all the everyday people with families who soon may have no job. It is crazy to think about how in such a short time AI has come so far and become so normal in our lives. One example that immediately comes to mind when I think of AI is Chat GTP. It is almost impossible for someone to not know what that is at this point. I could go on for days about different forms of AI and what they do for us, but I want to look into some of the advantages and disadvantages of it now. 

There are many advantages to the new world of artificial intelligence. One of the biggest benefits is AI's ability to do very detail oriated task relitivly easily. An example of this is in the medical field, AI recently has been proven to be just as good if not better than doctors at diginosing certain types of cancer very early. Another advantage is that AI is great at data heavy task. According to Tech Target, "AI is widely used in data-heavy industries, including banking and securities, pharma and insurance, to reduce the time it takes to analyze big data sets. Financial services, for example, routinely use AI to process loan applications and detect fraud." Finally, artificial intelligence delivers consistent results. Although AI is made to mimic the human brain, AI has significantly less of a chance of human error.

Although, there can be many advantages to AI, there also are a significant amount of disadvantages as well. As I stated earlier, AI takes jobs away from humans. This is probably the biggest disadvantage for me. Yes, in some ways AI may be able to do some jobs better, but AI doesn't have a life and family to provide for. Also, artificial intelligence is very expensive to make. Finally, people are becoming too reliant on AI to do work for them. I think this particularly applies to students. So many students lately use Chat GTP or other AI sites to complete their homework and test for them. This create a very lazy generation and not to mention helps absolutely no one learn. Oh and lets not forget how most AI completely breaches your personal security to be able to complete it's task.

Overall, I definitely think AI is a groundbreaking discovery that can be used for a lot of good in the world. However, I wouldn't say I am completely on board. When I really think about it, and especially after watching this film, AI is quite scary as well. By no means do I think AI should be able to take jobs away from people. I think artificial intelligence should only be used as a tool to help people complete their jobs faster and easier. If used correctly, and for the right reasons, AI can help the world really evolve and improve for the good. But only if in the right hands.