Digital Addiction
Technology is a tool at the core of our daily lives and can be used for good or evil with dramatic effects; recently, our society has become more reliant on the digital world which has many implications; discussed here. There are many depictions in films and books showing dystopian worlds where technology has advanced beyond our control and begins to be dangerous or controlling our lives. However many authors prefer to dwell on the negative implications, since these make more engaging stories. Black Mirror, for example, depicts an unsettling yet exaggerated view of this world, showing how society has changed its structure to depend more on technology, as well as how we have changed ourselves and our actions to interact with it. It shows how we are now addicted to and heavily reliant on it. In fact, it goes so far as to demonstrate the human races dependency on it, leaving us unable to think, work or function without the use of technology.
One of the main reasons we introduce so much technology into our lives is because it makes life seemingly easier. We no longer have to write down or remember every task, or check our calendar every morning. We don’t even have to manually turn the lights on when we get home or put the heating on when it gets cold.
It allows us to do without planning and make last minute decisions, with an Uber at the tap of your screen or food and shopping delivered just by asking ‘Alexa’. We can spend more time doing the things we enjoy instead of wasting time on repetitive or boring tasks — ranging from making a cup of tea to starting your car.
There are now dozens of apps and websites that you need to keep track of — many of which I find myself frequently checking for no specific reason; despite the fact that the applications will notify me of relevant information, I still seem to check just incase. Before I go to bed now, I have to plug in my phone, laptop, Fitbit, Kindle &c .— just a few years ago, I would have never dreamt of having so many devices. Now, since I like technology and customising things, I’m adamant that I spend more time configuring certain devices than I save by using them. For me, it’s the configuring and setting up of new devices for my needs that really keeps me interested as well as being able to experience new things that are made “just because”, however, many people would argue that some new technology is unnecessary — for example before the Nest smart thermostat was introduced, no one complained about their old thermostats not meeting their needs sufficiently.
Most people would agree that their addiction to technology is bad and hindering their lives, however there are a few rare advantages to the addiction that technology brings. For example, Fitbit or Pokèmon Go may even have encouraged people to get more exercise than they would have previously had, this shows that competition & accessibility are key motivators in getting people to do anything — and the internet is creating tools to help both.
David Foster Wallace had it right when he discussed the addiction and vanity that would arise with the advent of video & picture messaging. He describes how people begin to put in extra effort to their appearance when video calling with their friends; that they become too scared to leave the house at risk of damaging their perceived image.
Even though we can talk to more people around the world, the actual time that we all physically spend together is decreasing and social isolation is becoming more commonplace. To make you feel more comfortable frequenting them, social networks are designed to promote similar views to your own. This may restrict the range of opinions you encounter on a daily basis. Since the internet has the illusion of free speech and anyone can submit what they like, it gives you the false impression that, over the period of a day, you would encounter an eclectic range of views. However, your viewing habits are limiting themselves, with related videos becoming more and more specific to your views. It’s possible to see what views and interests Facebook thinks you have which can probably help you understand why you’re seeing such specific targeted adverts sometimes. This also gives you the impression that a disproportionate quantity of people support your views and are interested in what you are. This is very good for building an online community however this also means people are susceptible to becoming less open minded and more hesitant to engage in proper open discussions, they instead resort to online bullying and arguments.
There are hundreds of tools helping us to claim back the time we have lost to technology, for example sleep tracking and blue light filters to help us sleep better. Not to mention the countless productivity apps nowadays, allowing you to outsource storage in your brain to your phone or computer. I’m always curious how well people would cope if they had to revert to an old fashioned pen and paper. Apps like these have increased our reliance on technology and our addiction to it. People now are often multitasking — working and texting or watching a film while playing a game. This reduces the quality of our attention on our activities and therefore the quality of the work we do or the enjoyment we get out of it. We are now consuming much more data every minute than we will ever be able to fully process and this is distracting us from our actual lives and what really matters.
Living in a digital world has many implications, both positive and negative. It has helped and will continue to develop our world by helping us engage with more people and activities by creating a truly global society. However, there are some instances where the addiction to technology can be distracting and obsessive, hindering our development as a social society. I think overall, technology has brought a positive change, since we are advancing, but we must learn to limit and control the influence that it can have over us and ensure that we do not stray too far from our physical lives and selves.
Reflection on Studying the Digital Society
Throughout this course I have learnt more about how people interact and experience the internet and social media. This module has encouraged discussion on topics that I am passionate about, with a wider variety of people, all of whom have different opinions to my own and this has opened my eyes to new points of view.
This course has encouraged me to question the ethics and benefits of developing technologies. Since the range of students on this course are from a variety of academic backgrounds, they do not all have the same views towards technology that me and my other peers do. The conversations that we had in our seminars about the uprise of self driving cars was very interesting. Particularly because people expressed very different viewpoints, for example someone mentioned they could be dangerous if not programmed correctly for detecting cyclists and predicting their movements. This is a fair point and could be an issue however as I have been exposed to different media than her, I was more open to the idea of driverless cars since I think that they could be more safe than human cars considering the difference in reaction times between humans and computers. I think that this challenged me to open up my mind to more ideas and to see more viewpoints.
I also discussed topics that I am more familiar with, such as the Internet of Things, for example explaining to someone the benefits of having a connected doorbell. Having to justify this concept beyond the simple answer of “why not” was a challenge for me since I think about these topics from a developer perspective rather than a consumer perspective.
During the weeks when we were discussing our own social media usage, I came to the realisation that I use my mobile phone more frequently than I would ideally like to. This blog post shows what changes I made in my life but in summary, I removed or unfollowed people who I rarely interacted with on all my social media sites in the hope of reducing the unnecessary time I spent on these apps and websites. I feel as though this has been achieved with a few sites for example Snapchat (which I now use infrequently). However, my use of Facebook is in more frequent shorter bursts, often only realising there are no new posts and that I just wasted more of my time. This habit however, subsided after a while and I found myself more productive — and actually spending time writing this post — which has increased my longer-term happiness instead of getting instant gratification. Recently, I have been trying to spend less time on the remaining apps and websites that I do use however this has proved quite difficult.
I believe that the cutting down of my connections on all the websites was highly valuable and helped me reconsider who I actively enjoy talking to and determining what benefits me and what doesn’t. I will continue to reconsider my networks in the future and since I now know the way that these actions have positively impacted my life, I am more motivated in future to uphold this change and continue living in this way.
