Today, more than ever I believe our technology habits have grown exponentially in a negative way that has impacted our physical and mental health specifically in regards to social media. According to an article from PBS “ Suicides are on the rise among young Americans of all races, part of a grim national trend that has contributed to lower life expectancy overall.” Adolescents have become more and more entangled on social media and within technology use without regulation that I fear we may have become dependent on it and it has toll on our health more than we realize.
My Digital Footprint
In preparation for this post I did google search on myself to get a glimpse of what potential employers would see. At first glance my digital footprint is somewhat small, when searching my name all that came up was my Linked In profile and a couple of pictures of me in the images, and a link to my bio for my job on campus. Then I tried typing in my full name and what came up was Florida Information Directory which was a website that contained a lot of my personal information including my name, age, date of birth, address, race, voting profile, and relatives. This was an eye opening sight, I thought that had a relatively small footprint online but it turns out that anyone at anytime can access extensive information about me and anyone connected to me. What really bothered me about my online presence was the display of my political party affiliation because in todays political climate it is very likely that I could be judged for my stance on politics especially when trying to find a job. It could be hard to make a good first impression if a company is weary of how my political views could affect the way I conduct business.
My Relationship With Technology
I’d be lying if I said that I have a completely healthy relationship with technology. I try my best to self regulate me use but sometimes it is an automatic response just to pick up my phone and start scrolling. I think the worst habit I have with using technology is going on my phone right before bed. This study states that going on a electronic device before bed can significantly hinder your quality of sleep. I will admit that I technology takes up a lot of time in my life not just from social media but also from school, because of the pandemic a lot of my schooling has go digital with turning in assignments, taking test and quizzes, as well as using study apps such as Quizlet. We are all do used to continually using technology so I believe at this point its just an accepted part of the society we live in.
Regulating Our Technology Use
Even thought at times it might seem we are bound to technology it is not all bad. According to The Pew study, 31% of teens say that social media use has a "mostly positive" impact on their lives, while only 24% say "mostly negative." The other 45% said that social media's effect was neither positive nor negative. I believe that the use of technology doesn’t have to negatively affect every aspect of our life we just need to know how to regulate it. Now there is no one single way to keep a healthy relationship with technology but the main idea is to find balance, you can set timers when doing school work on computers and screen times on most smart phones to offset your daily technology use. Another think to look out for is how technology makes you feel physically and mentally, if you start getting chronic headaches or your eyes start to feel tired after continuously looking at a screen its probably time to take a break. If you also start comparing yourself or start to get FOMO (fear of missing out) from people you see on social media you might want to rethink how you spend your extra time online.
Bottom line, is that it is easy to get caught up in the digital world but it is important to set healthy boundaries to make sure that doesn’t negatively impact our physical and mental well-being. It is also an important takeaway that we make sure what we put up online is the best reflection of ourselves to avoid any premature judgements that others can make about us. Lastly, technology was created to make our lives better not worst so remember to make technology work for us and not make us work for technology.
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