The Good, The Bad, The Technology
A Look at the Pluses and Minuses of Tech in Our Lives
Well, my dear readers, it has been over 2 years since our pandemic adventure began. An entire 24+months has passed since we saw the first public stay-at-home orders issued here in America, the first ones that had been issued in the memory of anyone living.
What a time it has been. In addition to the pandemic we watched racial tensions boil over, an election was held, election results were contested, and there was a riot at the Capitol. It has been a pretty wild couple of years.
And in the midst of that, there was one thing that was a constant companion for all of us from Kindergartners all the way up to centenarians: Technology. Much has been made of the negative impact of technology on our society over the past decades.
Whatever concerns people have had most assuredly escalated over the past year. But technology also proved to be something of saving grace.
It allowed us to be connected with one another while staying at home. It allowed school to continue when we were unsure of how safe it was to be around one another. It allowed me to continue working with my clients when we couldn’t meet in person.
I thought we would look at some of the positive impacts of technology in our world and some of the less positive impacts of technology.
Technological Negatives
Distraction
If you have ever owned or regularly used a smartphone, it is not a secret that it is a distraction. That perfectly glowing rectangle of information and entertainment right in our pocket can very easily consume us.
How often have you been on a bus or a plane, or maybe out to dinner, and you look around only to find that everyone around you is consumed by their phone?
Couples are out to dinner, each staring into their own screen. Families are sitting at a table at Applebee’s, each kid has a tablet and the parents are, again, gazing longingly at the screen of their phones.
These devices are engineered to hijack the pleasure centers of our brains and suck us in to be even more distracted. I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else. I love playing Call of Duty Mobile, I love cruising through Instagram and TikTok, and I love reading blog posts on Feedly.
All of this happens on my phone. And it distracts me from what I need to be doing. We live in the age of distraction and we willingly carry around the instrument of our own demise.
FOMO
FOMO is a fun acronym that stands for Fear of Missing Out. This is a distinctly modern phenomenon that has largely arisen in the age of social media.
We scroll through our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram feeds. We watch our friend’s stories on Snapchat or check out the latest TikToks from our favorite content creators and suddenly we feel as though our life isn’t good enough.
We see these perfectly scripted images and videos and an image is created. An image that tells us that this person has it all together and we don’t. That they go on vacation every other weekend to gorgeous ski slopes or perfect white sand beaches.
And we are stuck at home, eyeballs deep in diapers and chicken nuggets (or maybe that last part is just me). But here’s the secret, those people you envy? They aren’t living the life they are posting on social media either.
They are spending hours creating the perfect image and video to ensure maximum follower engagement so that they can perhaps go viral and/or become famous.
It is all fake. It is primarily an image created to make the creator feel better about themselves and to make the rest of us feel like we are missing out on something that is life-changing and awesome.
Just know, as you scroll through social media, that the images you see there are more often than not created to be as perfect as possible, NOT as real as possible.
Sleep
Americans are bad sleepers. A rather large number of us don’t get the proper amount of sleep each night and an increasing number of people are experiencing sleep disorders each year.
In an effort to be very clear, there are a HOST of reasons for this. Everything from medical conditions to obesity to work schedules to stress levels can impact our sleep.
That being said, it is a well-documented fact that technology use has a direct impact on sleep quality. One way this occurs is that our computers, phones, tablets, and TVs all emit a specific type of blue light that mimics UV rays when our eyes see it.
This mimicry causes our brains to think that the sun is still up while we are watching late-night TV. That may not sound like a huge deal but if our brains think the sun is up, they won’t produce melatonin, without that we will have a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep.
Every major medical organization out there recommends not utilizing screens for at least 2 hours before bed. Very few of us actually heed these recommendations.
Technological Positives
Connection
We have all learned over the past year how technology has created new opportunities for connection. While these methods of connection will never replace face-to-face interactions, we have all seen how we can maintain relationships with the use of technology.
Platforms such as Zoom allowed us to enjoy holidays, happy hours, recitals, and much more with those who otherwise would have missed them. And as much as social media can create a sense of FOMO, it also allowed my aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends all across the country to welcome my new son.
It has allowed those same people to watch my twin sons grow and develop over the past 6 years. It has allowed me to do the same with a whole host of people who have crossed paths with me over the course of my life.
If we take the time to correctly manage technology, it can enhance the connections we have with those around us.
Access to Knowledge
I was talking to a coworker today and she was telling me about how much she loved looking things up in an encyclopedia when she was a kid. She talked about how she would choose a volume to look something up for school and get lost reading the other entries.
As she talked it occurred to me that my children will very likely never have that experience. This is due to how technology creates unprecedented access to information. For those of us with smartphones, we can look up anything we want, any time we want!
And while information overload is certainly a reality, the ability to Google information has proved invaluable to my family and me countless times. It also allows us access to individuals with specific kinds of information.
For example, for a number of years now my health insurance company has offered telehealth visits for minor health concerns. I have used that so many times with my kids when I’m trying to figure out if I need to go to Urgent Care or not. Extremely helpful!
The access to knowledge and information we have today because of technology is a tremendous blessing.
Personal Development
Access to information is one thing, utilizing it is another. Technology not only gives us access to information, but it also gives us access to programs that help us apply that information.
There are endless apps that can help us work out, meditate, learn new skills, track our food intake, develop our faith, and more. We can read books and magazines and academic journals all from the palm of our hand.
I can complete my continuing education credits for my license online now or get certified in a specific therapeutic model. We can even go to college or grad school online.
The ability to develop ourselves has never been greater. There have never been more opportunities to be better versions of ourselves. So, while technology brings plenty of negatives, it can also be a platform we can use to better ourselves.
Originally published at https://www.graceanddepravity.com.
