Final Blog Post

 Technology Good or Bad?

In modern society, technology has become a part of everyone's life, no matter where you go or what you do you are interacting with technology in some shape or form. Technology has helped the world but is also hurt it, without technology we wouldn't be able to have the vaccines we have and could still be dying from the black plague today. It helps us get around with cars, helps us keep our food safe for a long period of time with refrigerators, and heat them back up with microwaves. 

This technology has also hurt a lot of America, people have become addicted to social media and don't interact in real life as they did before. Between 2009-2017 depression and suicide rates have skyrocketed and went up 70% from social media for kids between 12-21. This is all because of the way we use social media, today social media is to show the best of people's lives and to make everyone like you live a better life than they do. People's happiness depends on how many likes they get and not getting enough could ruin their day, there's instant gratification that comes with it and now everyone just expects to derive happiness from social media. 

Suicide and depression rates

I recently watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix that really shined a light on how evil social media companies are and how they want to make the people using them get addicted. These companies use colorful images and the need to have other people like you. they make it so every time you haven't used your phone in a while the app will send you a text to make sure you're pulled back into it. The movie takes employees from these companies that make the social media and the employees talk about how they feel like the villains and that a lot of the bad things came from their creation. They also have algorithms that will read what posts you look at and make the next post to pull you in and get you stuck down another rabbit hole. These companies make a report about you and can dictate what emotion you feel that day or if your an introvert or extrovert. These algorithms know more about their clients than the clients know about themselves. 

For myself, I believe that social media is actually hurting me but I can't really stop. Social media feels like the only way you can connect with people today. I have a 1,750-day streak with one of my friends on Snapchat and I feel like I have to keep it going which makes me feel addicted and stuck. Due to Covid last summer I feel like I have become addicted to my phone and spend at least 4-5 hours a day using it, I also get super stressed when my phone dies or I forget it somewhere because I could be missing something or someone might need me while it is off. 

In conclusion, I believe that technology and social media have become very important to society and are generally a good thing but only in moderation. People should know they have a life outside of social media and the internet and watching a sunrise in real life is better than watching it online.