Final Blog: My Relationship with Technology

I would describe my relationship with technology as both healthy and unhealthy. Healthy in the sense that I can stay connected to friends and family, gain knowledge, or escape from reality during times of stress. It can be described as unhealthy because I abuse it sometimes as in too much screen time, it can be incredibly unhealthy physically and mentally, and it is one of the foremost distracting things out there nowadays. 

Using technology, for me, is mainly about staying connected with people. It brings me great happiness to keep in touch with my close friends and family. I didn’t get to this point in my life alone and keeping tabs on the people who helped me get here is the least I can do for them. Reaching out to them and conversing hopefully lets them know that I continue to think about them as we continue to live our own lives. Technology allows me to do that. Life would be a lot gloomier without technology, especially the technology used for communication. 

One of my favorite ways to stay connected with people is through X-BOX. I don’t only get to talk to whomever I’m with, but I also get to play games with them and have a bit of fun. This is one of the ways my brothers and I stay close, we grew up playing video games and sports together and now that we’re all older and separated, playing video games is a great way for us to remind us of our roots and enjoy being with each other. Another way I stay connected is through Instagram. One of my favorite things to do on it is exchange memes and videos with my friends and family. The memes or videos are more likely than not funny, sometimes I add in something motivational or straight-up sad. 

Continuously gaining knowledge is another reason I love technology. There is no shortage of information out there, it just comes down to how reliable the source is. Surfing the internet, watching television, or scrolling through social media are great ways to continue to learn about anything and everything. I’d say I get most of my information from Instagram. While I don’t believe everything I see on there, it just inquires me to investigate that topic, person, or thing even further. 

Like anyone else, I can get very stressed sometimes, and the use of technology can help me get my mind off whatever is going on. The escapism that it provides is something I wouldn’t want to give up. But there does come a point where it can get obsessive, but I feel most of the time I am responsible with it. Watching television or scrolling on Instagram are the two best ways for me to escape. I feel it is vital for people to, occasionally, escape reality and “float in the clouds” for a bit and just relax. 

As I said, there comes a point where I feel like I’m abusing the escapist feeling that technology provides. There have been times when I’d sit on the couch or my bed for hours either watching television or scrolling on my phone. I lose all track of time and end up getting mad at myself for doing nothing productive for those few hours. This is something everyone should be working on because it’s quite addicting to stare at a screen and as a result, causes us to become reliant on our technology to function daily. 

The continuous use of technology can cause physical and mental harm. I’ve just recently gotten an X-ray of my spine and have noticed that the cervical (top) part of my spine is pretty much straight and beginning to curve forward. Meanwhile, it’s supposed to be curved a bit backward. The main culprit of this is staring at screens. Down the road, this problem can get worse and cause serious neck pain. This is only one problem, health-wise, technology can cause. 

Being a student with consistent work to be done for classes, it can be extremely hard to start or complete work with as many technological distractions as there are now. Between the phones, televisions, gaming consoles, etc., it’s like we have more motivation to either stop what we’re doing and have some fun or don’t do our work at all and procrastinate. I’d say procrastination is an even bigger problem nowadays than it has ever been. I’ve been a victim of procrastination and it’s not fun at all having to cram to finish work. This is yet another sign that points to us having to be more and more responsible with our use of technology. 

I’d say that I’m giving technology way too much time in my life. Just this past week (Sunday-Thursday) I’ve had a total screen time of 17 hours and 42 minutes, with an average of 3.5 hours a day. My most used app is Instagram, coming in at around 7 hours of those 17. Some days it does feel like I did fine with not using too much technology, but most days I feel as if I wasted a couple hours. The wasted time is not solely because of my use of technology, another factor of that is the fact that I don’t do much outside of school, like go to parties and such, technology is just a magnet and evidently a great way to kill time. 

With the information I gather from technology, I think it comes from a mix of reliable and very much unreliable sources. The unreliable ones are most likely out there to mislead and cause outrage. But as far as the reliable ones, I do feel as if I can learn from them and use the information I read about to snowball into true knowledge by doing my own research. As a society, I believe there are too many of us that believe whatever we see, especially those who have only just heard about something. Unfortunately, we can’t truly do anything about it because there are always going to be those who mislead and those who are easily misled. 

My friends and family, I think they’re like me in the sense that they can sometimes feel like technology can steal time from them, but then some days feel like their day is more positive because of it. Although I can’t live in their shoes to see how they truly feel about technology, one thing I know almost all of them would say is that it’s a great way to stay connected to others and the world around them. 

When you search my name, the first thing you see is something called “Elite Prospects” and it consists of all my statistics that had when I played ice hockey growing up. That is not something I really care about popping up when people search me, the only thing it does is it tells people I played hockey. The next thing that pops up is my LinkedIn profile. Now that is something I’d want everyone who’s interested in me to see. Both my Facebook and Instagram profiles also pop up a little further down. I don’t have much to see on either, in fact, they can benefit if I post on them a bit more. 

As far as the image my digital presence paints, it’s nothing special, but more importantly, it’s nothing bad. The only thing I would change is how I use Facebook and Instagram. I don’t have many posts and I think if I post a bit more, I can show people more of who I am and what I’m about. 

Overall, technology and I have a classic love-hate relationship. I love what it provides and how it makes me feel at times. But sometimes I hate the way it makes me feel and I wish it would get wiped from existence.

EOTO 2: What I Learned About Influencers

One of the presentations that stood out to me the most was about online influencers. Online influencers are now a part of our daily lives and I feel like they are severely toxic to our society. The presentation talked about how these online influencers sometimes have a positive effect on young people. But from my understanding, they are overly misinformative and cause people to think that life can one day be all sunshine and rainbows. 

Their so-called "careers" are solely based on social media and they feel it is their job to make their lives look as perfect as possible. Social media influencers do pretty much nothing but somehow still become popular and are encouraged to keep doing what they're doing. It's sickening to see. Imagine asking someone nowadays what they do for a living and they say, "Oh I do social media, I'm an influencer." How sad is that? Like are there no true life goals these people are striving for? It just seems they want to take the "easy road" and see if they can be paid to do nothing but post on social media. 

The influencer market is only continuing to grow. TikTok in and of itself has led to a huge surge in more online influencers. People now think Tik Tok is a way to get their foot in the door and become famous overnight. Meanwhile, the majority of folks land on their pretty little faces and come up with nothing.

Once a person has a big enough following they can get picked up by brands to promote certain products. Again, not many people get there and more and more people see these "influencers" and think that they themselves can do that as well. 

Not all influencers need to have millions of followers to consider themselves impactful. There are 3 smaller categories of influencers, nano-influencers which have between 1K and 10K followers, micro-influencers which have between 10K and 100K followers and macro-influencers which have between 100K and 1M followers. Every one of the influencers that fall underneath these categories (especially the smaller two) wants so badly to be Dwayne Johnson or Selena Gomez, each with over 200M followers. Too bad so sad, go find a real job. 

Eight Values of Free Expression

Free expression is one of the most valuable rights we have in the United States. Having the power to voice our own opinions toward those in high-ranking government positions is huge when it comes to keeping our governmental system as corruption-free as possible. That in and of itself is almost impossible, politicians always have a personal agenda no matter what they say or what party they're in. We as a people, MUST be vigilant and be sure to always keep the politicians who represent us on their toes. 

Having said that, I feel the most important values of expression are to Check on Governmental Power and Protect Dissent. They both serve as shields from Government overreach and give the American people the tools and the freedom to criticize, and judge their elected officials, and make changes if need be. 

Check on Governmental Power value is the one that resonates with me the most personally. I'm a big movie and show watcher, and anything involving government corruption intrigues me. Every time I watch them it makes me wonder how corrupt our government actually is at any given time. The scary thing is we will never truly know unless we're part of it.

It seems like as time goes on, the true motivation for more and more politicians is to get re-elected and stay in power. The Check on Governmental Power value combats that motivation. Additionally, some journalists around the country feel the need to try and get cozy with the government and/or news sources to peddle whatever they say. Vincent Blasi, in his article The Checking Value in First Amendment Theory, mentions that the Checking Value helps people crack down on false stories and get to the truth.

 

I feel as though Protect Dissent is one that occurs the most in the world today. When watching networks like CNN or Fox News, you always see people that are criticizing the government in some way. It's the job of those networks to criticize the government and provide their viewers with as accurate news as possible. The same goes for everyday people as well. Everyone has their own opinions, agreements, and disagreements with the government. 

I, and I'm sure every other U.S. citizen, wants a government in which we have a say and we can change it in a multitude of ways through the first amendment. Especially with the use of the eight values of free expression. Since there are always people questioning the government and showing concern, there are changes that occur due to those people speaking out. The ways that these people speak out can be as harmless as the use of Twitter or in the form of protests, peaceful or in some cases, violent. 

In conclusion, the use of the eight values of expression and the first amendment is crucial for sustaining the free and democratic lifestyle we have grown to love so much. But we must not get too greedy because when we do, we take for granted the lives we have and the politicians can turn their backs on us and follow the money.

The Age of AI

Artificial Intelligence is one of the most interesting and sometimes scary topics to talk about. After watching the "In the Age of AI" documentary, I realized how great and how dangerous AI could potentially be. The documentary dove into all the different aspects of life that AI is being implemented in, like security surveillance, automated jobs, websites, and much more. 

There are a bunch of positive aspects of more and more complex artificial intelligence and machine learning. Some of them include improved accuracy and precision, better decision-making, increased efficiency, and personalization. 

When AI is implemented into certain areas it will learn and recognize patterns and become more and more accurate and precise. AI is also more efficient than humans, there is no such thing as human error in AI. Specifically, in the fields of Finance and Business, AI can analyze huge amounts of data and make the best decision possible for its user. AI can also adapt to its users' personalities and habits, giving users more personalized experiences.

Privacy is something that should be everyone's top priority, and in some cases, AI can intrude and violate our privacies. Take Facebook for example, during times of elections, its AI targets people trying to sway them to vote a particular way. Keep in mind that their AI was being used by those at Facebook, it wasn't just thinking and acting on its own. This just shows a dangerous aspect of AI if used in a poor way. 

Right now all AI is run by people with agendas and agendas change. Those people don't always have the user's interests at heart, they will do what is best for themselves above everyone else. 

Companies like Amazon and Google are coming out with spoken interfaces that we can all interact with and give commands to. These things learn who we are and how we act and keep that information saved in their company's database where it can be seen by those who have access. 

National security is another big aspect that is at stake when it comes to controlling AI. AI can pretty much do anything given the right opportunity. It's not impossible for someone to design AI software to hijack information that is sensitive to national security. 

In the documentary, Taiwanese computer scientist Kai-fu Lee spoke about how there are only two dominators of AI, the United States, and China. He believes that they should work together in the advancement of AI in order to have the best chance to get it right.

Kai-fu Lee

In conclusion, AI can be used for good and for evil, and we must be careful in its advancement because if we are wrong, it has the potential to end us all.