Final Blog#12: Society and My personal Relationship with Technology

The 64-65 New York World’s fair FutuRama video, gives insight on how technology can help people in every aspect of life. Each part of the ride has shown how advanced technology can improve and make life more efficient. In a way, it was scary because so much of the stuff in the ride happened in real life, the exact same way shown in the ride. 

As the world continued to grow, technology did as well. Technology has developed many things in life such as social media, communication, faster agriculture and more tests on science. Specifically social media is one of the most successful forms of technology in the world. 

There are many apps that are very popular among millions of people like TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Social media is very entertaining but can be addictive but that is not the only relationship that it has with society. It can alter one’s mind to believe that untamable beauty standards can affect an individual’s way of thinking. It can be very harmful with the youth because they do not have a strong understanding of how social media can be dangerous to themselves. 

Social media can affect one’s view about their body image. According to the National Library of Medicine, “In the present study, the prevalence of BDD in adolescents in Jammu is found to be 29.45%. Greater frequency of social media usage, i.e., greater than four hours a day, social media practices like taking more selfies, excess use of beauty filters, and sharing of pictures on a regular basis” (Kajuria et al).

It is called body dysmorphic disorder, which is when an Individual's mind makes them believe that their body is bigger than what it actually is. Also, it makes them perceive themselves as unattractive. It can have very drastic effects on someone’s mental health and using your smartphones for an excessive amount of time can make it worse.

3rd Grade

I am very passionate about this effect on people because I was once that young child who was going through an identity crisis. It was because of my unlimited amount of access to social media leaving me vulnerable to harm. My personal relationship with social media is interesting as I reflect on this prompt.

I was always quiet when I was young, I was basically mute. I was in 3rd grade at the time. I did have any friends or want to communicate with others, sometimes even my own family. I remember when I got my first phone, it was like my best friend because of its ability to make me feel relaxed and accepted by the people on social media. I fell in love with my phone as it allowed me not to feel weird or judged for being quiet because I did not know how to communicate with people but did not know how.  

6th Grade

Social media helped me become more social and open up to new experiences. It helped me learn that I love art and music, specifically a genre called K-pop. Also, that I love video games helping me decide my career in the future and challenge myself with puzzles. This led me to finding my two best friends and still best friends now because we all liked the same things. So, it was easy for us to become friends. Social media helped me break out of my shell as when I was in 6th grade. 

However, when I got older, even when I had friends and found new interests. I started to hate social media because I saw pictures of people who were perfect and skinny like models. I was the complete opposite, and I despised that and began to compare myself to others. I wanted to be perfect like the girls on social media. There were trends on social media platforms that really affected me such as the "glow up trend" and "Light Skin vs Dark Skins trend".

12th Grade

I cried and began to hate myself because I was a bigger sized girl. It was not until I got therapy and started to take a break from social media where I realized I was much happier. I do not mind social media now and it does not affect me like how I am now.

I set my own pace when I used it and because of this discipline, it helped me become top of my class in high school which was a big accomplishment for me. As I was never really good at school back in 3rd grade, well at least did what I had to do to get by. Social media has helped me a lot as an individual by helping me create my own identity. Social media promotes Individualism but be cautious on what you consume because it can hurt you. I learned that social media can be helpful, but it is okay to take breaks.

A current event is that I found my old Musically account, this was the only thing I found when I searched my name to check my digital footprint. My digital footprint is good as most of my accounts are private, but I would say this one is embarrassing so I got it deleted recently.