My Experience With Digital World Essay Example

As an individual, I had not fully acknowledged the impact that digital technology had on me and the people around me. It was until one day when I forgot my phone in my dorm room that I was able to analyze exactly how digital technology has a significant influence. Prior to that particular day, I was like everyone else. I would use my phone to check my social media, check my class schedules, interact with my friends, get information on when and where parties would be around the campus. Basically, the access to this digital technology made me feel alive; it made me feel like I existed. With no phone, and considering the fact that my laptop was also at the repair shot means that I had zero connection. It was as if I was wiped out from the face of the earth. I felt lost, alone and left out. On that day, I was cut out from digital technology. It dawned on me that the aspect of digital technology had two sides, the positive and the negative, however, the negative aspect of digital technology outweighs the positive side.

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During my lectures, I noticed that once a lecturer presented the students with a question, most of us went straight ahead to find the information on the internet by googling. This amazed me as I had never noticed this behavior before, mainly because before, just like everyone else I was focused on finding the answer on the internet. I realized that the majority of my classmates had a habit of continually seeking help from technology to find answers. This was both a negative and positive side of digital technology. Firstly, considering the positive side, digital technology is an important aspect of education and knowledge considering the fact that it provides unlimited access to useful information. Secondly, on the negative side, digital technology led to diminishing intelligence. This could be seen where my classmates did not bother to think at all; instead, they fully relied on the internet to answer questions. In my opinion, this could be a major problem in the future generation and people will be no longer interested in education, I mean why go to school to learn something that you could easily find on the internet. Other than diminished intelligence, digital technology is a distraction (Richtel 1-11.). I also noticed that a majority of the girls in class were on their phones, maybe texting or checking out their social media. This distraction is seen in Celling your soul film whereby one of the says, "I don't know why I felt the need to know what everyone else was doing" (Celling your Soul). This refers to the fact that he spends most of his time on social media just to know what people are doing.

I realized that there was so much more than I could learn in order to understand the impact of digital technology. I, therefore, decided to do my own research by involving my classmates just to know about their perspective on digital technology. To begin my research, after my lecture, I decided to approach a group of 3 girls. Just like I had expected, only two of them paid attention to what I was asking. The other one was busy on her phones. So I asked them why they felt the need to be constantly checking their phones. One of the girls, a blonde, said that she just like having many friends on social media to talk to. I pointed out that social media friends were not actually real friends. She went ahead to say that it did not matter, to her they were like real friends even though she knew that they did not necessarily care about her. This made me realize just that digital technology through social media was the main source of superficial relationships and that people were actually okay with it. The second girl pointed out that she mainly uses social media to track down people that she met but was unable to get their contacts. This did not make any sense to me so I went ahead to ask her why she wouldn't get the contacts when she met the individual. According to her, it's easier to approach someone using social media considering the fact that she is a shy person and lacks the confidence to ask people for their contacts. In my understanding, she utilized technology to fix a mixed connection situation. As I was in a hurry to get to my dorm room to get my phone, I decided to get the opinion from the last girl quickly. What she shared with me surprised me. She began by asking me not to judge her, which I said I wouldn't. She began by saying that she was currently seeing a therapist due to her social media addiction. It broke my heart to see the damage that digital technology could cause. So I went ahead to know exactly how she knew of her addiction and what influenced it. "Sometimes, I would go online, and I would see how many attention all the other girls were receiving, and this made me sad, and I felt ugly." She said. "So I decided to fake a lifestyle and pretend to be someone else" She added. According to her, for some time, she felt content by the amount of attention she was receiving; however, this habit took over her, and she just could not stop as she had anxiety. "It kinda gave me weird anxiety about being on the internet all the time" (Celling your Soul). Basically, digital technology made her have social media-induced envy which led to her being a catfish (Barrie-Dee, Christopher, and Steven 182.). As much as I wanted to continue the conversation, I had to part ways with them as I was dying to get my phone back. As I said goodbye to them, I thought deeply of how many others out there could be experiencing the same problem. This made sense to me just like in the film, where one of the students says," it's very much an addiction," referring to the use of social media (Celling your Soul).

When I got to my dorm room, the first thing I did was look for my phone, and as soon as I found it, I checked for notifications and new messages. The excitement that I had while scrolling through my notifications made me realize that I was also affected by digital technology. Well, but I was just a normal student, and the only exciting things on my phone were an invite to a party and an internship acceptance. I had zero notifications on my social media, and this made me wonder if I was not cool enough or interesting. At this point, it was evident that social media as a whole could diminish one's self-esteem and confidence. However looking on the bright side, the fact that no one invited me to this party but instead they used digital technology only meant that it was an important entity meant to connect people in different places at different times. Other than that the response about my internship application brought into light the fact that digital technology highly contributed to instantaneous and global connections in a way that I could make a request to another person or firm in another are and still manage to get the attention that I deserve (Kline et, all.). This was just but yet another positive side of digital technology on me as a student and the society as a whole.

This day was such an eye-opening day for me as I got to have an experience of digital technology from a different perspective. I got to be on the other side of the table where I had been cut out off from the use of technology for a whole day. I believe that if anyone explained to me what I had just experienced, I would not believe them. I would probably think that they were just being biased, either supporting or being against digital technology. This particular day is a day that I would never forget. In fact, I think that it was a good learning experience that made me learn more than just the impact of technology. I learned that the best way that one could criticize a certain entity is by being on the other side of the table in order to experience that entity or opinion from a different perspective and viewpoint.

Conclusion

To conclude this, I think that whether digital technology has a positive or negative impact on me depends on how I choose to make use of it. At the end of the day, I am still in control. It will only affect me negatively if I allow it to either by being addicted or focusing all my attention to it. I would recommend that each and every person get acquainted with the knowledge on the effects of technology. This would enable them to discover ways to use it effectively without being affected. In my opinion, I still think technology is an important aspect of our lives.

Works Cited

Barrie-Dee, Christopher, and Steven Morris. "Technology and its discontents." The Age of Perversion: Desire and Technology in Psychoanalysis and Culture 32 (2016): 182.

Celling your Soul. "Celling Your Soul (Trailer)." YouTube, commentary by Raphael Rabe, 10 Mar. 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZZju5-VjFU

Kline, Stephen, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Greig De Peuter. Digital play: The interaction of technology, culture, and marketing. McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 2003.

Richtel, Matt. "Growing up digital, wired for distraction." The New York Times 21 (2010): 1-11.