Final Presentation

 Relationship with Technology

By: Meagan Flynn

April 30, 2021

Growing up, as I was born in 1999, I did not have a lot of technology other than TV and radio. There were landline house phones, flip phones for cell phones, and old, thick computers. I grew up being a kid while playing outside, coloring, drawing, and always talking to other kids in my neighborhood. As I grew up, I had my Nintendo DS, tiny iPod MP3 player, and CD's to play in the car. When I was 7 years old, my mom had a blackberry as her cellphone, which I would play icebreakers on her phone whenever I was bored. At 10 years old, I went to school in Boston, MA which was 45 minutes from my hometown. My mom couldn't get in touch with me on the bus, so she got me a small lime green flip phone from AT&T. I was so excited to have my first phone to communicate with the older friends who had flip phones at this time, too. When I was 11 years old, I received my mom's old 3rd generation iPhone as my first iPhone. This is when technology really took over. I was unaware of what it would become.

As the years went on, it's 2021 and I don't know what we or I would do without any technology these days. As I grew older, a new iPhone generation and iOS update would come out and we would jump at the new technology without looking at the price. It overtakes our minds because we don't know how to live without it as it helps us more and more everyday with daily tasks, our health, buying things for us, and listening to our own conversations. I am guilty of leaving a digital footprint, but aren't we all? Just logging online can give so much information about yourself. I use all types of social media. For example, I have snapchat, instagram, Facebook, twitter, and more. I try not to expose more of myself than I need to, but it's hard when the online presence is how we communicate and meet others these days. When my friends share things, so do I. It is a chain that keeps on going and growing. There are things about my online presence that could be edited, but I am very aware of what I say and post on social media and the internet in general. It all depends on your knowledge of the internet and how you want to protect your own image. 

With the short video of Futurama in New York, it reminded me of Elon Musk with Tesla and Spaceship Earth at Epcot in Disney World. Yes, technology shapes the way that the future is today, but there is much more to life than technology that we should focus on. Technology should not shape who we are. We can get the wonders of technology and the dark-side all in one, but it just depends on what we see and how it can affect us and our future. To take balance, we need to see what is really important in life and before we post, see if it will affect us in our future. I have struggled with this personally and if it's not worth it and going to hurt us physically and mentally, then we should rethink any of it especially when it's online forever.