Social Media and Technology

They offer us many positives, but we have to be careful of the negatives.

These days, I see technology and social media as controversial subjects; they are both powerful tools of good for the world when they help with spreading awareness and making connections, but they can also bring the world down like a sinking ship. TikTok is one of those platforms where it can help small businesses grow, or help a campaign succeed, but according to the media it is also being used to spy on Americans to learn our ways of life. If TikTok is in fact being used as a spy, it seems like they could use it to locate top-secret facilities and learn about top-secret information. They could use it to plan attacks even in the worst-case scenario. TikTok and other platforms are helping us by bringing so many different kinds of people together from all over the world based on mutual interests, but it’s also making the people right next to us seem far away. As a civilization in general I feel that we are actually becoming less civilized by social media, and forgetting our manners and “old fashioned” hospitality… really, we are forgetting the good things about our old ways of life.

For example, I’m old enough to remember what life was like before computers were in our homes and cell phones in our pockets at all times. I feel that people in general were much more polite and thoughtful back then. If you lived in a small community, people always said hi in public, but now we all have our faces in our phones. Even the concept of family life seems to be changing at home; kids used to spend quality time with their parents, but now they just want to play on their electronics. It’s not all the time of course, but it is happening more and more and more. Technology really can help you. The way I see technology as a whole is like a lamp; when you need light you turn it on, but when you don’t, you turn it off. Now I see people leaving their lights on in their houses even when they don’t need them on. People, especially the younger generations, want to turn their devices on even when they know that they should be taking a break.

I will never forget one time that I went out to dinner with my wife, her sister, and her sister’s boyfriend. We saw this group of friends in their twenties or so, who sat down and immediately brought out their cell phones. They were on their phones the entire time! Even when they were eating they barely talked, and it had me in shock. I started thinking, is this our future? One day we don’t even talk when we’re sitting right across from each other, we’ll just be texting. I really hope that won’t come true. Even parents will let their child have their devices so that they can have some time alone, which seems lazy to me. All children, especially those with learning differences, need to be given love, and attention, and direction from their parents, and those are old ways of doing things that we really cannot forget.