Throughout the past semester, I have spent my Media Law & Literacy class becoming more and more educated about the realities of technology and privacy. This course has helped open my eyes to the scary truth of our world in regards to the lack of privacy on the internet.
Since the invention of the internet and the cell phone, the technology use of humans has begun to increase and even now it shows no signs of declining. The current average cell phone usage is 4.5 hours per day which was a 2.5% increase from last year. This number honestly surprised me because my daily average is 6 hours. People of my generation spend so much time consumed with their phones. This has a negative impact on our physical and mental health. Our phones affect our ability to feel motivation, our self esteem, and our attention span. It is becoming more difficult for people to be productive because our technologies are always at our fingertips begging for us to use them as a distraction. The blue light from our phones is also said to disrupt our sleep patterns and create a lower quality rest. With all the time people spend on their computers and phones, it is no surprise that health issues will arise more and more frequently.
Although we may believe having access to all of this information at once is helpful, it may be doing more harm than good. As people, we are not designed to have access to information and entertainment so easily. It lowers our overall problem solving skills and it makes it more difficult for us to think and adapt quickly. Having a device that solves all our problems seems like a good idea, until we forget how to solve them for ourselves.
Going beyond wether or not technology is healthy for humans, it's time to ask is it safe? Our information is out there for anyone to grasp. The government and all these other big corporations have access to our information and half of the time we don't even realize. Our digital footprint is much bigger than we know. Every bit of information we have ever disclosed on our computers or phones is out there somewhere. Every text, every email, every status update and picture are all still available to people if they really wanted it even since its been deleted. People don't realize that what they put onto the internet exists forever and that information can be bought, sold, and used against you if somebody really wanted to do that.
Your information is public to anyone who wants to find things out about you. If a future job employer were to look me up the first things they would find are my social medias. My instagram and tik tok are completely public which gives them access to see every single one of my posts, wether I want them to or not. Although you may not think about it at the time of a post, these exist forever.
It is very important to be aware of what you are actually agreeing to when you are using different social medias, websites, and search engines. Classes like this should be required for students all across the country so internet safety is known all over the world. Although my generation and those younger will be tech savvy and understand the risks and rewards of using the internet, it is important that we don't lose sight of what our privacy and online safety should really look like. Without this class I would be unaware of so many important communication and privacy flaws within our world. It is so important to be educated and make sure the people around you do the same. As the technology continues to advance it is going to become more and more prevalent in our lives and it is important to know how to protect ourselves when it violates our rights. Although the internet has an endless list of pros and it has absolutely helped our society, it is still important to be aware of the negatives that are being snuck by us.
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