Final Blog Post: The Dark Side of Modern Technology and Social Media

Technology has had the biggest impact in my life, as well as the world. While I believe technology has had a greater positive than negative effect in my life I do recognize the negative effect it has and can have on society. For me, technologies such as my phone have helped me communicate with friends and family, especially being a freshman in college. 

The video about the dark side of technology that we watched in class while depicted technology in a overdramatic way made me reflect on my usage of technology and how it affects my relationships with people. The video showcased how the advancement in technology and social media has isolated us as a society. This take made me reflect on my overconsumption of social media and how it has taken a toll on my relationships with people and and the way I communicate. The thing that stuck out most to me in the video was the way the video portrays us as mindless zombies who blindly live life through their phone, which I think highlights the unhealthy obsession we do have with our technology. Theres a point in the video where the main character is jumping up on tables and pulling on peoples clothes, trying everything to get the attention of anyone that budges but every single person is too consumed on their phone. Personally, I don't think I could live without a phone or a laptop. My overconsumption fully relates to my phone being my main source of communication and access, with social media and messaging apps making it easier for me to connect with any one at any time with the click of a couple buttons while apps such a safari and google allow me to obtain and keep track of all my information. 

The convenience of having everything I need in the same place makes it so addicting. In a study about smartphone addiction, it was found that more than half of the students that participated in the study showed some type of smartphone addiction, whether small or severe. When searching up my screen time, I was shocked to see how much time I do spend on my phone, with the average American spending around 4-5 hours a day  I found I averaged around 9/10 hours a day. 

Specifically social media has caused a breakage in our emotional connection with each other. The video does a really good job at depicting this idea, specifically in the part of the video where a huge group of people is laughing and humiliating a girl to the point where she jumps of a building and everyone around her is recording her death and then just go on with their lives as if it never happened. In 2012, a video was posted to YouTube titled "My story: Struggling, bullying, suicide, self harm". This video details 15 year old Amanda Todd telling her story about being blackmailed with revenge porn and the mental health struggles she faced due to bullying on and offline by peers, a month later Todd would take her own life. While posting this video in hoping of some sort of support she lacked before ,she was mocked and bullied horrendously in the comments which ultimately led to her taking her own life. Cyberbullying and the negative effects of social media are some of the leading causes of suicide in young adults.  Social sites have allowed for people to say anything anonymously such has mean or rude posts and comments. Many unhealthy habits in young adults such as mental disorders and eating disorders can stem from the content consumed online. There are a few scenes in the video that portray this, one being where a girl is going in and out of a selfie appearing as two different people. I took this scene two ways, the first being the appearance we put online vs. in real life. 

In society, it's so easy to glamorize our lives and people spend hours editing and depicting what social media will see. The second way was how social media has changed the way we perceive ourselves on and offline. Celebrities and Influencers have set a standard of behavior and beauty, that is mentally unachievable. Apps such as FaceTune, FaceApp and Retouch all include beauty filters allowing you to edit and touch up any picture and hide any imperfections. Another scene that reenforces this is where people are bowing down and worshipping a women that we see is surrounded by plastic surgery. With young girls being consistently shown many types of unrealistic body and appearance types it is destroying the authenticity of individuality. 

As we learned in class, the idea of being media literate is being able to analyze and recognize media consumed and determine its accuracy. Preparing and educating early on about how to be media literate not just though things such as news but also social media can combat these unhealthy obsessions and unrealistic standards we see today. Being a young adult who consumes this media daily, I struggle to determine what is real and what is fake all the time. Being media literate in todays world of social media can help society navigate fact from fiction and return it to the fun and engaging platform to share your authenticity.