My Committed & Long Term Relationship With Technology

My Committed & Long Term Relationship With Technology

    After sitting down and really pondering the question of whether or not I have a healthy or unhealthy relationship with technology, I have come to the conclusion that my overall relationship is healthy. The idea that pushed me to believe that my relationship with technology is on the healthier side is the fact that my passions and future career goals all revolve around technology and digital media. Being a media production & entrepreneurship major, the work that brings me the most joy and that I am most proud of, all stems from technology. Sometimes I do think I can get carried away with my work and probably spend a little more time using technology than I should, but once I see the final product in front of my eyes, I never regret the countless hours I spend in front of a screen. 

    For example, the video below is an interview that I both filmed and edited using various forms of technology. The shooting process involved four cameras, lighting, and two microphones. The editing process consisted of my laptop, editing software, hard drive, etc. All of this technology-aided me in the production of this piece that I was very fortunate enough to have the experience of creating. It is creating work like this that really makes me appreciate the relationship I have with technology. It allows me to feel so much satisfaction and be able to be proud of my work. Not only is technology beneficial for me to create work that I am proud of, but it allows me to share it with the rest of the world. Technology has also allowed me to learn more and more about the work I am most passionate about and I have learned most of the concepts that I have learned within video production through online research. 

      On the alternative, my relationship with technology is never perfect. The most unhealthy use of technology that I take part in is the social media aspect. Social media has taken over the world and according to BackLinko.com, an approximated 3.96 billion people use social media. Although I am just a small fraction of the users that take part in social media, it really can have the power to take a toll on my daily life and mental health. Often, in high school, I would spend a majority of my day on social media worrying not only about what people thought about me and what I put out into the world but also what other people were doing and if it was more intriguing than what I was doing. It is tough to not compare yourself to someone's online personality, especially when people only put out on the internet the things that they want others to see. Mental health is such an issue surrounding social media that the first thing that comes up when you type in "social media" into google is "social media and mental health". In fact, I didn't even finish typing in "social media", and I got the same result. 

The article below was intriguing as it goes over a lot of the unhealthy aspects of social media. It goes over both the positive and negative sides of social media. There are also suggested mental health issues that stem from social media such as depression, anxiety, FOMO, and so much more. 

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/social-media-and-mental-health.htm

   

    My struggles with mental health surrounding social media have been weakened throughout the years. This is due to the fact that I worked on strengthening the relationship with myself over social media and working hard not to compare myself to others. Social media is a small portion of technology as a whole which is why I believe that my overall personal relationship is healthy with technology. The benefits that technology brings into my life outway the negative effects that come from social media. Especially when it comes to the overall joy and self-satisfaction that comes from the personal works I create through technology.  

As for my family, I believe they all have different ranges of healthy and unhealthy relationships with technology. My mom has the healthiest relationship and rarely ever uses her phone like most people do in this day in age. She recognizes the negative affects of technology going on in the world around her and she refuses to let it do the same for her. My dad has a somewhat healthy relationship with technology. He spends more time on his phone than anyone else in my family but he typically uses it in a beneficial way for his business. He is constantly using technology to get in touch with clients for his charter business and schedule certain days. As much as he relies on technology, he puts it to good use and it really benefits his business. My sister has the least healthy relationship with technology. She is currently in her prime teenage years and is attending her first year of high school. Technology has really impacted her self-esteem at such a young age and has also broken her way of communicating with others, especially in person. I believe that technology is impacting the youth of today's society because they are the most relient on it. 

    As much as technology impacts me and effects me, I can altar it and utilize it to my advantage. My digital footprint has greatly altered for the better since attending High Point University. I have made many professional accounts on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Youtube. My youtube channel has some of my work that I have created while attending HPU as a Media Production & Entrepreneurship major. I make sure that all of my social media platforms aquire content that I would want a future employer to see.