I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I am very glad that I never got invested in social media. After hearing all the stories about how you're never truly anonymous online and that once something is on the internet, it's there forever, I knew I didn't even want to get wrapped up in that. I feel like I've dodged a big bullet.
For me growing up, I didn't really feel like I needed to have a social presence. I was an outcast at my school and didn't have many friends, and I was introverted to boot. This led to me not really feeling like it was necessary or even a good idea to force myself out there. On top of that, I'm really into video games, so I didn't really need other technology to occupy my time. I didn't have my own phone until I was about 16, and the couple of years before that, I shared a flip phone with my twin brother. Even when I got my own phone, I mostly only used it to talk, text, and play music. Since then, I've gotten some games on my phone, and I watch YouTube on it, but I don't use social media. And I didn't get my own computer for a while, either. One year for my birthday, my dad asked me if I would rather get a laptop or a new video game console, and I easily chose the video game console.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I have a laptop and a smartphone now, but I definitely think it was good to not have them when I was young and immature. I never had to deal with the temptation, and I don't even feel the desire to get into it now. That being said, I do have an online presence. I have a YouTube channel with a few hundred videos and about 140 subscribers, and I comment on videos I watch sometimes. I have a Facebook account, but I only ever use it to post "Happy Birthday" to family and friends I know in real life. I also have a Discord account, which is a new social media site designed for people who play video games to get together, talk about games, and play online. It honestly functions more like Skype than a social media site, anyway. And still, I only have a handful of friends who are all people I am already friends with in real life.
One thing I am involved in, however, is politics. My dad is into politics, and I took a lot after him, so I listen to a lot of political podcasts and stay on top of current events. That's part of the reason why I have no interest in getting into social media now; I see articles like the one from the Atlantic that's serving as one of this post's prompts. I see how corrupt social media companies like Facebook and Twitter are, and I want nothing to do with it. From less overtly political stuff like selling user data to third parties to overtly political stuff like censoring voices on one political side over the other, they've done enough to forfeit any hope of my trust. I like the way Alexis Madrigal writes his first sentence in the article: "After all the scandals and hubbub and congressional testimony and mea culpas in Facebook's nearly 15 years of existence, one would think that its users would have a pretty firm grasp on how the business works."
I think that Sonia, from the first prompt, is very wise for her age. She was 14 when she decided to opt out of social media, and she cites similar concerns to mine as her reasons. Granted, I took a different path to get there; I didn't have my parents posting pictures and information about me without my permission, but I still completely understand her plight. Like I said, I feel like I dodged a bullet not having gotten into this stuff.
I honestly don't think that humans' relationship with technology is healthy. I think that technology is a very powerful thing, and that people are being less and less responsible with it. Some people don't understand the details of what is good and what is bad about technology, and others are corrupt and use the ignorance of others to their advantage. Some people don't even think to ask their children's permission before posting pictures of them online, and others do their best to make sure the public doesn't know the risks they are taking. One or two generations go by, and suddenly we have a generation born into technology that is so reliant on it that they and society as a whole are unable to function without it.
I know that technology isn't a necessity. It isn't all bad either; it's super convenient and helps us learn things we would otherwise know nothing about. Technology has very great pros, but it also has very great cons. The goal is to limit the cons as much as possible while taking the most advantage of the pros as we can. It's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it's necessary to have a social media presence to get a good job and to succeed in the world, but I intend on making myself a counterexample. I want to constantly learn and better myself, and part of that is learning to avoid these traps. I am fortunate enough to not have already gotten myself into this slippery slope, and I would be doing a disservice to myself if I squandered that fortune. It's the same way I feel about drinking and smoking; I see all the negative stories about it, and I don't already have an addiction to it, so why would I start? But I digress.
During our second Each One Teach One, one student talked about Total Information Awareness (TIA). This concept has become very relevant to today's world. The beginning of TIA was a government program that the citizens didn't approve. There was backlash, and Congress shut it down (rightfully so, in my opinion). But now, tech companies are the ones doing it, and the citizens have "consented" to it. They accepted the Terms and Services, almost universally not having read them, and many people have no idea it's even happening. If they did, they definitely wouldn't have actually consented.
I found an article from The Daily Wire, talking about how the Chinese government is pushing to implement a global tracking system on its people so they can monitor them. They say it's to monitor potential exposure to the coronavirus, but pardon me if I don't believe it will end there. In America, a free country, the government has overstepped it's bounds under the guise of "protection from the coronavirus," so why would I believe a Communist government would limit this control to the pandemic?
To go off on a bit of a tangent, I would like to talk about my experience with the lockdowns. When the U.S. first locked down, I assumed it would be for only one month, maybe two at the most. In retrospect, I was completely naive. Of course the government was going to extend these measures. Once they got a little bit of the taste of the blood in the water (the blood in this analogy being top-down power), of course they weren't going to willingly give it up. Why would they? They are making any and every excuse they can to keep a hold of this power, and they don't care how corrupt it is. We in the United States are supposed to be a free country under a Constitution that states specifically enumerated powers, with all other authority being delegated to local government. Even with the Constitution backing us up, we still have to fight tooth and nail to maintain our freedom. What do you think is going to happen in a country like China, where the citizens have absolutely no power and the government is overt in their authoritarianism?
These are the two articles we used as prompts:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/facebook-users-still-dont-know-how-facebook-works/580546/
https://www.fastcompany.com/90315706/kids-parents-social-media-sharing
Here is the article from The Daily Wire:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/chinese-president-xi-jinping-pushes-for-global-tracking-system-using-qr-codes
I like how this picture illustrates my comparison of social media to drinking and smoking:
(The warning label on the side is kinda chilling, actually.)
