(Speech, Journal Entries)

“You’re Probably Using Your Phone To Read This”

We say certain things are good for us.

But how good can they be?

The famous saying goes something like, “too much of something is never good for you?”

But when do you figure that out?

It is 2022

The last two years have single-handedly shown us what we needed to see in the past 10 years.

What’s to say that that statement could be configured in another way?

It comes down to each individual.

We each have the defined right to live life and maneuver in any way we see fit.

So what’s to say one can be “addicted” but shying away from the normal way we use addict in a negative aspect.

For many individuals, their life has gone “remote.” 

In that scenario, how can one be addicted to something that is their life?

What do we say to the millennials today?

What do we say to the established corporations?

One would be foolish to cancel the technological innovations that shaped society the way it is today.

One of the first lessons we learn but is often overlooked, is “don’t believe everything you see, take everything with a grain of salt.”

This applies to everything you see on the internet while browsing through social media, anything in the “remote” world.

“Inside His Mind”

April 23, 2020- I lost track of how many days it’s been since everything shut down but man I don’t like it at all. All my school work is done and now I’m just forced to sit in the house all damn day with not a clue in the world of what I can do to possibly make the time go by any faster. You know that feeling you get when you consume something too much to the point you no longer feel the need for it? That’s how I felt with a multitude of things, things I once felt I could not live without, things like my PlayStation, my phone, my Monitor to play video games, etc. We just did not have that human-object connection like 2 years ago, it was all just slowly fading away… It’s just so crazy to me that if one of my bros were to tell me a month ago the school was going to close because of a pandemic, I would’ve said, “Man they’re crazy, they just love having their extra vacation days.”  “This online school stuff ain’t it, I have not learned anything since school has closed” I found myself constantly repeating that to myself throughout the dull days. It seemed like everybody had a blast being at home all the time because everything we did was online. All you needed was a phone. You were just at an advantage if you had a tablet and a computer. This is coming from a kid who aspires to be a mechanical engineer when I grow up so I’m automatically going to be dealing with the newest technology. But I’ve just always had this notion that the world has been changing ever since we became so tech-savvy. It has its benefits more than the many I’m already thinking of in my head. On the other hand, in my opinion, when we talk about today it feels like once we learned how to adapt to today’s era that is heavily tech-influenced, we forgot what it’s like to interact in real life. Technology birthed the debut of social media and that has been a different ball game ever since. I don’t necessarily have a direct problem with social media but it just all ties back into “too much of something isn’t good for you” Social media allows us the freedom of expression which is one of our rights, but at the same time it has the same capability of spreading a false reality that one, more specifically children and teens have not yet experienced. Depending on the viewer, it may steer them in the wrong way to feel as if they compete with one,  it’s where the jealousy and animosity stem from among our peers. It almost makes me wonder if this is what the future of social media influence entails, and if so, we may be in for a rude awakening. 

November 8, 2021-

A lot has changed since I last wrote in this journal. The reason I even went scavenging to find this journal is because of a discovery I’ve made. I was WRONG. We all have pride, don’t we? To be honest, I’ve never appreciated technology more than ever. Maybe it was because I did not allow myself to personally dive into the many opportunities that technology brings for us all. The rate at which we get a new gadget to society seems almost never-ending because of its large impact on advancing society considering what most of our parents grew up with, some of our parents born in other countries so it is a completely different way of life over there. I think one of the common things I used to overlook is that while the majority of the people are satisfied with the way everyday living has become for them as a result of the pandemic, it’s up to us to decide which way we want to approach it. Some kids prefer to do their studies online, and some people now have the opportunity to work from home. This is vital to them because it gives them more leisure and flexibility in their schedules. Technology takes the pressure off of many because it’s a new type of learning experience. An interactive learning experience, and one that is easy to adapt to. It’s no wonder that an entire nation was able to go fully remote in just a matter of a few weeks. I think it’s because we’ve always had this capability but never an opportunity like the pandemic for those skills to be implemented. Nonetheless, my personal preference is still life before technology because it just feels more authentic to me, that’s my “old soul” talking. I am no longer oblivious as to how much of a factor the whole aspect of the digital scene has been on me and many of my peers all of our lives.