I do believe that my relationship with technology is healthy, and that’s good since I am majoring in Game Design so I am going to be surrounded by tech for most of my life. However, I do believe that without technology my life would be a lot less fun, with fewer things to do, see, or learn, and more isolated from my friends and family. The main reason why I think that is because I spend several hours every day on my computer playing video games while watching videos on YouTube in the background. Now, as I mentioned earlier, we can use technology to learn pretty much anything, but I have seen so many articles that are just flat out lacking the science to back up their claims. This is misleading for some people who are not careful. What I think about these misleading articles is just “Why”? What do people hope to gain by putting false information out into the world?
My family, for the most part, uses technology for primarily educational/recreational purposes, or because their job requires it. They order food/supplies and household goods as well. I would say that on occasion there are nights that we all just spend on our devices, not talking to each other, but that is rare. For my friends, now that is more difficult to answer, but based on some context clues, I do think that technology is dominating a significant part of their life. For example, social media is a big element of their lives. They are constantly talking about things they post or see. It dominates our conversations.
With respect to my online footprint, it is hard to say how much of a trail I have left. On one hand, I don’t use social media like Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, TikTok, or Facebook, but on the other, I use the internet (YouTube) and play video games. I think that my footprint is fairly small since I am not constantly posting photos, or making short videos about myself. Even when I Googled myself I couldn’t find anything about myself. I did learn that there are a lot of people named Nathan Harvey though. I think the internet is one of, if not the greatest achievement in human history. There is so much knowledge behind one screen. Instead of looking through thousands of pages from a book that is likely outdated, you only have to look through one. What makes the internet so dangerous is how we choose to use it. We choose to use it in many ways. We can learn about our world, be entertained, make our lives easier, and connect with and help people. We can also opt to use it to mislead and make fun of people, cause physical harm, and destroy relationships. Technology in and of itself is not bad or good. It's just a tool. However, it can be used for good or bad, depending on its user. We get to decide for ourselves how we are going to use it.
