Final Post: Our Relationship With Technology

Our relationship with technology isn't an easy one to understand or pinpoint with just a few words. The internet and everything around it have brought us all closer, but at the same time very far apart with its many genres and subgenres of this vast expanse of innovation. Everything on the internet has become controversial at some point, whether that be on a larger and more global scale, or on tinier scales through smaller parts of the internet. But this all shows that the internet has and will never be a place for pure unity. 

Technology as a whole has produced a lot of good through our lives, bringing fresh innovation, new and improved ideas, socializing to a new level of ease of access, and so much more. But alongside it is the unwanted and prevalent side effects that are so prominent everywhere you look. 

If we take a closer look at some areas of technology, we can see in some areas like cars and automobiles that the emissions from these pieces of technology effectively produce harmful waste toxins into the environment and a massive scale, but when trying to test out pure electric cars, it creates a ton of new problems that aren't easily solved. These can be shown through the process of battery productions that utilize significant mineral inputs to make and when used up, the hazardous materials seep into the ground, the cars becoming expensive bricks at the hit of specific weather or conditions, and much more.

This definitely isn't the only bad part about recent technology, but there's also plenty of good that has come from our innovations that have changed the world for the better in so many areas of life and ease of access for us. Through things like the internet, we have been gifted with the ability to communicate through so many avenues that being kept in the dark about anything is practically gone through the amount of news sources, people talking about stuff online, chat places, apps, and so much more. The amount of further ideation that has taken place through the access to the internet can be seen in everyday life usually just by turning your head. We've made advancements in games, communication, language barriers, traveling, land barriers, and so many other things from minute details to huge entities of change that have spawned the ability to interact with the world in so many other ways.

Sadly, not all good things can last. With these new and improved ways of communication through the
internet has brought a lot of new terms to light that have become prevalent, like cyberbullying, online harassment, revenge porn, ghosting, micro cheating, and much more. These have sadly become common practice for most individuals who use the internet, and all of this and more has become so oversaturated in anywhere you look on the internet. 

There's a saying that social media killed romance, and it really is a true statement when you look at how people act to each other, understanding that they usually have a way to get away with things easily on the internet, which puts an awful precedent on everyone in relationships. These things and more can be seen anywhere you look and on whatever apps you use, prompting a lot of people to shy away from social media to not have to worry or deal with what more chronically online people deal with and worry about.

In my experience with social media, it's become a great tool to utilize for basically every occasion, brining a great ease of access right to me whenever I need it and heightening my ability to communicate with everyone around me, and especially my friends and family who are in other states or live farther away. My girlfriend and I are very secure in our relationship, so we don't have to worry about this looming threat brought on by social media that things could and are going wrong at every turn, and not to trust your partner. 

Social media might bring a lot of good but can also bring a lot of bad to every part of everyone's lives as a whole but shouldn't be purely set apart by all the bad it can bring. It's able to bring my friends and I closer together through things like humor, communication, sending each other stuff, games, calling, and many more other features that wouldn't be available without it. While I'm definitely not addicted to any of it, it's really easy to get lost in all of it if you're not careful with how you spend your time, which happens to me a lot on accident. I keep myself informed, but not overly shoving my nose into every little thing and making that my personality, rather preferring to spend my time with the people around me and having a good time without relying on staring at my phone to do it.

Overall, social media, the internet, technology, and so many more areas of innovation have spurred on an era of both good and bad in their own rights, but that's just how it is with basically anything that happens in the world. You shouldn't overlook the good and only focus on the bad as most news sources have you do and try to direct you to. Focus on everything as a whole and discard the normality of worrying over nothing and only writing specific things of technology off as bad because some people say so. It's brought a lot of good and a lot of bad throughout the years of ideation and will continue to throughout our lives, and we can only hope it goes up from here.