Technology: Good or Bad?

Technology has been incorporated into all of our daily lives. I myself reach for my phone as soon as I wake up and close my laptop right before I fall asleep.  Even in the school setting, it’s almost impossible to go to post-secondary school without a laptop or tablet. So how do we justify using our devices throughout our day? I read an article about how technology influences our lives and found that most of the categories connected to myself and the people around me.

Photo by Alexandra_Koch on Pixabay

There are many positive aspects to technology. We use it for school, work, communication, personal wellness, and entertainment. I use technology mostly for school and entertainment. When I’m pursuing my studies, I use Microsoft Word to type out my papers and assignments, and use my laptop to scroll through our school website to check in with my classes. I also have three online classes this year, two of them requiring Zoom meetings to attend class. Sometimes I find it difficult to keep up with my daily tasks, so I use apps to help me stay organized. The one app that helps me stay on track is Me+. Me+ is an app that helps you schedule your day and reminds you when you should be completing your tasks. I downloaded the app in my senior year to help me balance school, work, and my extra-curricular activities. Now, I mostly use it to organize what homework I have and how long I should be spending on it.

Even though technology can be used for wellness and entertainment, it can also be a huge distraction, especially when trying to study for classes or when facing deadlines. I find myself getting distracted by TikTok and Snapchat. Mindlessly scrolling for hours lowers attention spans and has people becoming addicted to scrolling. I asked many of my friends and neighbors if they watched movies or television shows anymore and most of them said that they can’t pay attention to one thing long enough and they’ll often scroll on their phone while watching a show. It’s especially noticeable in children nowadays. They get into preschool and elementary school and are more distracted and reluctant to learn if there isn’t a screen involved.

I often find myself struggling to balance my social and professional lives through technology. It’s so easy to have multiple tabs open, and go from writing an essay due the next day to putting on a YouTube video or movie. How I try to balance it is through planning my next day the night before. In my Me+ app, I’ll write out all the tasks that need to be done and give them time intervals. Then, when I’m working on them, if I reach a milestone (like finishing a paragraph in an essay) I’ll take a small break to play one of my mini-games on my phone or scroll through one of my social media’s for a few minutes, before going back to being productive. As technology advances, people’s attention spans get shorter, and more people become addicted. I’ve started to combat my own addiction by taking these small breaks in between productivity in order to actually get work done without procrastinating. I’ll even do something productive when I go between apps. If I want to switch from TikTok to Snapchat, I’ll tidy my room first, then if I want to play one of my games, I’ll clean my bathroom, and the cycle continues until I’ve achieved all my tasks for the day. Technology can be good and bad, it’s just up to us to decide how we’ll let it influence us.