The Digital Uprising

The Technological Uprising

 Technology is a complex topic. On one hand, it has lead to mass amounts of innovation, and changed the way that we interact with the world. We can know information and current news in seconds, and can interact with family and millions of others across the world. On the other hand, its changed the way we interact with the world, and how the world interacts with us. Technology has, in a roundabout way, allowed people to see more into our lives. Whether this be hacking, surveillance, or posting our deepest secrets on our own volition. 

  When somebody asks if I have a healthy relationship with technology, I ask them what that looks like. If we're being honest, almost everybody in a first world country uses technology every minute, if not second. Even when we drive cars now, they're considered technology. This relationship with technology, where we use it to our benefit every day, is healthy. Without it, our society would collapse as we know it. No more credit cards, electricity, or communicating with loved
ones. Technology and the internet is the single best thing to happen to our society, because it has advanced our minds and our potential. Sadly, we can not longer live without it. We are dependent on technology. The unhealthy aspect comes from when we abuse that relationship, to the point where it pulls us away from our real life goals and ambitions. This mostly comes not from technology itself, but from the internet. 

    The internet, has created an open universe in our computer with unlimited possibilities. Because it is still so new, entrepreneurs have been finding ways to make money off of the world wide web. Even with the metaverse opening up in its infancy, and people buying "virtual property", the potential marketplace on the internet has barely been scratched. One of the current ways people make money on the internet is social media apps. The whole goal of Instagram is to suck people in for hours at a time, in an endless loop of wanting to live these exotic lives that they see influencers post. Ironically, this very action of staring at the phone is the reason they'll never achieve those goals. Its this same idea ideology for every social media app- mindlessly scrolling for hours and hours.

    While I do have all of the mainstream social media apps, I like to think that I haven't gained a dependency on them. Or at least to the point where it's limiting my ability to do other things. This is an issue in society, where we are becoming lazier and lazier to the point where we want everything done for us or done over the internet. Gen Z is too scared to even call to order a pizza, so they made apps where you can just order it from your phone via an app. Admittedly, I have done this too, out of pure convenience. I think that any amount of time is too much time spent on social media, because it provides nothing for the user except unfulfilled wishes. At least with Netflix or something, you get entertainment value. 

    The other aspect of the open world of the internet is the information. Despite what is being spread on social media sites, there are no true neutral "fact-checkers" on the internet. 

    A lot of the time, the internet is used as a propaganda tool, in order to manipulate the public into thinking one way or another. Much like my other posts, I will bring up the events that took place during the 2021 election. Because the social media platform owners were in support of one political party, they deemed anything against that party "false", and therefore stopping the freedom of speech and manipulating the public into subconsciously believing that one party is more truthful than another. The internet is still so young in the grand scheme of things, so it's difficult to navigate the lies and deceit of everyday users (especially when the government is taking part).

    That being said, the internet is still paramount in all of our lives, and what we post will have a lasting impact. For those people who had their posts or opinions deemed "incorrect", they will be known as liars if someone goes and looks onto their account. While nothing like this has happened to me, I still think that ones digital footprint is something to be weary of. Especially now that we are all applying to graduate school and internships, we have to watch what we say and post on our personal accounts. The first thing potential employers will look at when they see our application nowadays is to do a google search and look on our social media accounts. 

    Thankfully, when I googled myself (side note, google absolutely censors and chooses the content that it shows you), the only things that came up where my social media accounts, some robotics stuff I did in high school, and my IMDb page for some reason. I've always been taught to be careful about what I post on the internet, so I have nothing to be afraid of. All of my social media accounts are inoffensive and just show a glimpse into my daily life. I have a pretty small internet presence, because someone else named Noah Stillman died, so their obituary and life story is the first thing that always comes up. If somebody is looking for me, they will find my High Point Honors page or my Robotics championship information- so I'm pretty happy about that.

    Nonetheless, the internet knows everything. If somebody really wanted to find dirt on my, I'm sure that they could. I know that there are a lot of people who have a lot more to worry about if somebody looks them up on the internet. The internet is the most powerful tool at our disposal, but we have to be cautious with the power, because we still do not know the true potential. As a famous man once said: "With great power comes great responsibility."