Civics Potpourri

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Technology: Friend and Foe

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  • Civics Potpourri
    Civics Potpourri
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The advancement of technologically has heavily influenced how society now functions. With a push of a button, we can take pictures, record videos, look for information, play music, watch movies, and so much more - regardless of where we are. It is not uncommon to watch situations unfold in real-time as people live stream video. Advancement in technology is rapidly changing how citizens view life and is replacing more than just antiquated equipment – personal interaction and patience appears to be fading fast.

Most everything we do today is instantaneous and removes social interactions. We can shop, order food, conduct banking, attend meetings, and talk to each other on messenger platforms. Not long ago the phrase “there’s an app for that,” stated you no longer had to physically do something; just down load an app and the digital world will do it for you. You don’t want to talk to someone, send a text message or email. You don’t want to get dressed to watch a meeting, just go to the website and watch from there.

I remember as a boy going to the grocery store and the cashier would ring the items by hand – no fancy laser scanners or handheld devises. If you wanted to take pictures, you brought a camera along, and taking videos were rare. Television was different. We watched the nightly news and read newspapers. We went to the library and dug through books for information, and if you wanted something you went out and got it.

Technology is not necessarily a bad thing, but how it is utilized by people is what makes it unhealthy. There are psychological and emotional damages from the constant bombardment of negative images, videos, half-told stories and false information. The gratification of instant responses and rapid services also have lingering effects. Anyone with an internet connection and social media account can become a medical expert, political scientist, lawyer, financial guru, and whatever else they choose to be.

TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have transcended from connecting with friends and family to erroneous information concocted by groups and individuals spreading subjective personal thoughts and feelings and not objective well sourced information.

Another article is needed to cover how misinformation can inadvertently be placed into credible sites, and untangling fact from fiction becomes an arduous task. People are always quick to say “Google it,” or “Wikipedia said,” but are not aware of the issues with both sites. Google is a great place to find information, but most people will not venture beyond two pages of what they are researching. Wikipedia is great to gather ideas, but the sources used are often subjective and not credible due to the polarization of the authors personal thoughts and feelings on the subject. Some resources are credible, but the reader must discern whether or not the author is biased in opinion.

The most detrimental of those distributing poor information are individuals in respected positions and holding graduate degrees. Sharing social media videos of a social influencer is juvenile and detrimental on various levels. To use a position for spreading personal partisan beliefs is unconscionable; pandering to an unsuspecting audience on a platform representing the organization they trust is appalling.

We have the worlds information at our finger tips, but it is too often used poorly. People recording videos instead of helping or calling emergency services. Cyber bullying and quiet stalking. Playing games, watching nonsense videos, and sharing every meme and half-told story without checking if it is true further destroys trust in information being received.

I am often guilty of wasting time on the cell phone, it is nice to escape the monotonous activities of day-to-day life. To tune out for a moment while playing a game or taking a stroll down memory lane by visiting google maps and exploring fond memories of a far away place you once lived. It is helpful when I have upcoming major assignments and I am sitting waiting for my son to get out of school to conduct research. It is also nice that twenty different pieces of equipment are no longer needed to get my work done.

As technology continues to advance, people, especially parents, must regulate their time and the time of their children on devises. I still read to my son, take him to the library, and we go outside and explore so we can discuss the why and how things are the way they are. Yet, as the world of technology continues to evolve, we cannot allow children to become technologically illiterate. The digital world is their now, and will be their future. Everyday I feel as if I am staving off my inevitable obsolescence, a living product in need of constant upgrading and downloads to keep up with the evolution of time as we move into the future.

We should continue to regulate what a child is exposed to online, and keep a healthy balance of structured learning. I have witnessed people from my own generation (Gen X) fighting to keep what once worked relevant, but there is a time to realize those things no longer work. Students today are not interested in boring PowerPoint presentations or dull lectures. Although it may appear they live in a box of strange social thinking, they resist confinement to regimental routine. They are visual and hands on in their view of the world. Youth are stimulated daily with audio and visual representation of the world around them and are more advanced in their way of thinking than given credit for by adults.

Technology has opened a Pandoras Box, but we need to teach ourselves and our youth how to harness this new gift. As humans we found positive ways to use the wheel, fire, and other great inventions. We cannot become desensitized to the world around us due to the bombardment of negative digital influences. I am just as guilty as anyone else by allowing the digital world to be in charge and rule how I spend my day. We must learn to find balance in our interactions with technology and take power from technology and place that power into our hands as we place the devise back into our pocket.