My Relationship With Technology

 TECHNOLOGY and IMPACT 

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Examining My Relationship with Technology I have a love-and-hate relationship with my phone and with the different applications and search engines lodged in there including YouTube, Google, WhatsApp, Mapping apps, Amazon, etc…. Don't get me wrong! I do appreciate that we live in a century in which you can easily communicate with people who are far away, and this can be done instantly. As a foreigner who still has family ties in other countries and other continents and a mother to a college student, I am very grateful for the technological advances that we enjoy in this century. 

However, I also quickly realized the many conflicting effects that instant communication can have on relationships and on the way we use our time. In terms of communication, the rapidity with which we have access to people through WhatsApp and instant messaging seems to put me constantly on the edge. This is good when I have something positive to communicate but it can be bad “Answer back”, takes away the ability to “sleep on” an issue and maybe see that issue from a different perspective. In terms of time usage, it seems that communication apps, shopping apps, and entertainment apps are robbing me of creative ways to use my time. Somehow, I now spend so much time on my phone that I forget how to do other things. And I see the same pattern with my children. And even activities we used to do independently now somehow necessities a quick internet search. This “assault” on free time, I feel, is detrimental to true growth since growth occurs in quiet silent times when we seemingly are “bored”. It is in that “boredom” that we listen to ourselves and dive into unknown territories of hobbies, literature, music, or study. The constant access to technology in the form of the handheld phone with all the accessories therein takes that silent, quick, and boring time away which could be used to listen to oneself. 

As I get older and older, I am starting to realize that the true priceless commodity that we have is time. A day, an hour, a minute, a second. When time is stolen from productivity or useless scrolling or a screen, then it is truly used right. This is why we value our vacation time or our time with family and friends. As a society, we spend valuable resources on mental health both in our children and our adult population, and yet for the sake of efficiency and productivity, we constantly encourage the use of methods of communication and entertainment that are linked to poor levels of mental health. The advantages of technology are undeniable. For example, lately, I discovered the advantages of stretching on my aging body. And thanks to YouTube videos I can incorporate stretching routines in my daily workout routine without spending a dime. We use technology to have quick access to knowledge. I use it a lot for health tips, such as homeopathy, to recipes for my family, as well as shopping for my teenagers who can never be satisfied. 

The problem is that like any new technology, it tends to extend its dominion into areas where it should not. This is where parents, teachers, and educators must protect those areas of human development from the intrusion of technology. This protection could be simply from cyber attacks, viruses etc… But protecting oneself from technology also means knowing how to put it down, how to develop methods to help with technology detox, or how not to become overly addicted to it. Simple techniques include establishing limits (such as no technology in the bathroom, or no technology on the dinner table), having no technology days (such as turning off the phone on Sundays), and specific time for technology usage and non usage. We have an expression, “You can have too much of a good thing”. This might be the case with the current use of technology in our society.