Technology, the Human Relationship with It

 Blog #11

Technology, the Human Relationship with It

The Perfect Balance

Everyone knows that technology can provide countless benefits to our daily lives, but
does this mean that it is always beneficial to us? No. While yes, anyone can learn anything at a click of a button, with the swiftness of a Google Search, or reading an important text, there are many negative effects of today's technology consumption. These negative effects mostly surround psychological effects, physical health effects, and in children growing up in such a high technological era. 

Psychological Effects

Such a rapid increase of technology presence in our daily tasks has created an increase of isolation and depression and anxiety in today's society. Young adults that classify themselves as frequently using social media are three times more likely to report feelings of social isolation than those that do not use it frequently. This is a "tool" that is supposed to bring people closer together and create a thriving online community, however, it actually just leads to feeling like you are missing out on experiences and that other people have it better than you, even though nothing on social media shows the full story. Social media has also had mixed effects on feelings of depression and anxiety. Those that have a truly supportive community on these platforms have been able to show reduced levels of depression and anxiety, however, without that truly supportive relationship, the opposite tends to occur. 

Physical Health Effects

Using technology at the levels many of us do in today's world can have major physical health effects as well. Some of these including eyestrain, not effectively using the 20-20-20 Rule, poor posture, sleep problems, and a reduction in physical activity. Our eyes were not developed to be spending the majority of hours in our day staring at blue lit screens and not experiencing outdoors or sunlight and looking at naturally occurring objects/light. Use of the 20-20-20 Rule can help to minimize the effects of eyestrain. This means for every 20 minutes of screen time, a person should spend 20 seconds looking at something that is not a screen, at least 20 feet away from where they are. 

Our posture suffers when we sit at a desk all day every day staring at a computer, but it suffers even more
from texting. When we text, we develop "text neck" from the angle we have to look down at in order to effectively see our phone screens. This has deeply negative effects on our posture and the way we carry ourselves. Bringing blue light back, blue light has highly negative effects on our ability to sleep at night. It interferes with our circadian rhythms and does not allow our bodies to effectively follow the ability to "rise and fall" with the sun. Being on screens and sitting down all day every day also leads to negative effects on our levels of physical activity. A reduction in physical activity below recommended standards can be detrimental to our health, leading to obesity, cardiovascular disease, and premature death. 

Is it All that Bad?

Sure, I have just talked endlessly about the detriments of technological use, but that doesn't mean it's all bad. I think society just has not acknowledged the idea of "everything is good in moderation" in relation to the use of technology in our lives. Social media is great, as someone who is about to go to England for a year to earn a Master's Degree, I will be using social media to see what is going on in the lives of my friends, but I am not going to be living through social media. There were days in the beginning of my HPU career that my friends would make plans to go somewhere, such as the Greensboro Arboretum, for the sole purpose of taking pictures to post on their Instagrams. This is something I found extremely embarrassing and I walked around with one of my other friends experiencing the nature and beauty around  me in this wonderful location. 

My Personal Technology Philosophy 

Technology helps me in a multitude of ways daily, I mean I wouldn't be able to make
this blog post without it. However, life cannot run off of it. Being outdoors, interacting with people in person, and looking around you at something that is not a screen is essential to living a happy and healthy life. I run every single day, are there times I would rather sit and scroll through social media than run at least one mile? Sure, but does that mean I give in? No, because I know I need to put the phone down, get outside, and get moving. I don't look at social media, see what people are posting, and think I am missing out on life, I think about how happy I am for my friends to be having experiences they want to share with the world. 

Screen time. My iPhone tells me every single week what my week's average screen time was. This is something I take very seriously. I try to keep my average within the three-hour range. While is this probably still a bit higher than I wish I committed myself to, this is still a far better average than many of my peers. Average screen time of 12 plus among my age group seems to be quite frequent, which I find terrifying. 

I seek to use technology as a tool and utilize it as needed rather than rely on it for day-to-day tasks. Especially when it comes to being around others, I do my best to live in the moment and not use technology. I want to take my time with others to connect with them in person. I try to ensure my online footprint is a scrapbook of my favorite moments, I also make sure that the things I post will not diminish my future as a professional. 

The Spiral of Silence-Is it Ruining Democracy?

 Blog #10

The Spiral of Silence-Is it Ruining Democracy?

Spiral of Silence?

The spiral of silence is a concept of the unintentional silencing of differing opinions. This means that
when people believe or know that those around them will not agree with their opinion. This effect can be amplified when it comes to political opinions, if someone that holds one political ideology is surrounded by a group with a different political ideology, they will tend to stay quite, in other words, they buy into the spiral of silence.

This Effects Democracy?

Of course this effects democracy. For democracies to not only to thrive, but also to simply survive, citizens must share their view points with one another in order to merge and share public opinion. When people share differing opinions it forces the other to think more deeply and critically about their own opinions. Regardless of whether or not this changes either party's opinion, they have now been forced to think more critically about why they have the opinion or ideology they do, and they had to defend it. 

The social demand to conform is one of the heaviest societal weights. This stems directly from the fear of rejection. However, without dissent of opinion, the marketplace of ideas in which democracy lives on, ceases to exist. Without various ideas being shared, there is no marketplace for these ideas, without the marketplace, people lose the ability to learn from differing viewpoints which forces out the ability to effectively engage with the democratic system. 

Increase in the Spiral of Silence

Everyone talks about the pros and cons to social media and its effects on today's society. This will discuss negatives. Sure, social media has made younger people more engaged with political issues on their social media accounts and has made news more accessible to younger generations that do not watch the news via television or streaming, but this does not make it automatically beneficial. Social media is just another space in which people succumb to the notion of the spiral of silence. Whatever opinion is more widespread on a social media platform first will become the prevailing opinion that is shared. Many will log onto one of their social media accounts such as Instagram, go to the "story" feature and see the same graphic about a certain news topic posted over, and over, and over, and over, and so forth, again, and agin, and again. When a person sees something like that, if they do not agree with the opinion shared, they will not speak out. This is just another channel for the spiral of silence to grow in our society.

Breaking the Spiral

Stop self-censorship. This is easier said than done, however, the spiral cannot be broken without a
reduction in self-censorship. When an individual stands up for what they believe in when it opposes the consensus in whatever forum this takes place in, it helps others that agree with them to feel safe to speak their own minds as well. In addition to simply speaking up, making this easier to do would be to encourage our society to change its perception on when people speak out on their opinions.