another essay i wrote for school about technology and social media and echochambers n shit

hi another essay i wrote but i was to late and the school locked the website before i could submit it </3

despite the way its written, dont take this all too seriously. i just have a lot of passion for the subject and wanted to apply it to my school work !

:3

First, I interviewed my uncle because he is the most interesting when it comes to electronics, gadgets and technology. This is what he had to say:
    "We are already cyborgs. We are already wired into an external knowledge and global communications network, and although it's not the mirrorshades cyberpunk world of _Neuromancer_, (ref: William F. Gibson and Bruce Sterling) jacking our wetware into an immersive global shared reality construct, we already are living in Version 1.0 "Technology" is a broad term, but today is shorthand for an information centered view of the world. This is a powerful drug (ref: "Feed your Head", Jefferson Airplane, White Rabbit) and seems to be highly addictive. Other technologies, medical, military, civil engineering, etc. progress at inherently slower paces - everything easy has already been done - but information technology is in its first blush of youth, and our specicies is in love with it. Benefits: 1) nearly (and always improving) complete global data base of things that can be captured to a screen and a speaker. Liabilities: 1) because we humans are so easily captivated by this medium, we're easily addicted, and so are desensitized to the often less instantly gratifying real world around us, things that cannot be captured to screen and speaker. Benefits: 2) we can communicate with anyone at any time (if access is permitted), so we're never really alone any more. Liabilities: 2) we're expected to be available (to varying extents) to anyone at any time, so we're never really alone any more. Liabilities: 3) the speed of communication cheapens its quality to the extent that it tends towards patterns like unfiltered speech, but without visual or subtle emotional cues. In many Internet based group settings, this suppressed filtering combined with some anonimity leads to mob-behavior responces that would tend to be damped out in real world interactions.   (Ref: Jan6, hate group formation) Influencing societies, past? and future: Simulation Theory: beginning at 1:59 :

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arWAjkU0KCI Also highly recommended: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36GT2zI8lVA"

    My mom feels like technology will likely be abused by those who have more money and power and ultimately the wars of our future will be over the technology or using that technology both; but my mom also feels like currently there is some good being done by using the technology and there will be many people who try to counteract the bad with the good.  Some of the good things she noted were that even getting to do school online has been practical during the pandemic. A lot of the workforce can now work remotely which is better for the environment.  My mom pointed me to this reference on the internet...
The Good and the Bad: What is Technology Doing for Our Kids? - Innovation & Tech Today (innotechtoday.com)

    Although I have many thoughts that i too would like to share. Technology is a wonderful thing, but it has side effects. Many technological advances have been fantastic, making lives easier and more accessible; but there is a dark side to everything.

    Companies control everything, and they store all your information. Have you ever seen an ad for a product you were just talking about? Or maybe you were only thinking about it? This is because companies are able to track your searches and sometimes even your microphone, and there's no real way out of it. Facebook is incredibly guilty of this. It doesn't stop at ads though.

    Algorithms, Almost every social media site has them. The goal of social media is to keep you as locked in as possible, and they're really good at it! You've probably had an experience before where you open Instagram or twitter and just scroll for hours upon end, its addicting. It feels good at the time, but it leaves you feeling unmotivated and empty, maybe even upset. That infinite feed is catered directly to you based on what you like and comment on, and there's even been evidence of sites tracking how long a post was viewed for, which sounds all fine and dandy, but this can be problematic.

    These extreme algorithms are dangerous. They generate feeds of everything you like, only sprinkling in outside viewpoints when its extreme enough to push you further into the echo chamber. Users become stuck in black and white ways thinking with seemingly no escape. This can be very harmful, especially when this starts to effect real life.

    The notorious "Cancel Culture". Cancel culture is the culture surrounding "cancelling", or boycotting companies and public figures when they do something deemed problematic by a community. As a concept, it sounds fine, and it can work well! But this has side effects. While cancelling a company or public figure when they say or do something harmful is good, it becomes an issue when this is taken into real life relationships.

    with the pandemic and current climate of the world, social media has taken over the lives of many teens; growing up in an environment where they are constantly watching people be kicked out of social groups and bombarded by hate mobs for honest mistakes and misunderstandings is bound to have some dangerous effects. Many teenagers take this extreme point of view to heart, and as a result, many teens are outcasted from social groups, and in more extreme cases, are bullied or harassed for things that could easily be resolved with some communication. Teenagers are bound to make mistakes, and they are the ones most impacted by peer pressure. This attitude of harassing and isolating anyone for anything doesn't help people learn from their mistakes, it makes them scared to make mistakes at all, and that's not how people learn. Its important to teens to grow up in an environments that lets them make mistakes and lets them learn from it; when people are subjected to such scary consequences, they don't end up learning why the mistakes they make are actually bad, they end up learning that mistakes in general are bad.

    Technology is an amazing tool when used correctly, but its also easy to misuse and abuse. The internet can be a scary place, and a great example of the side effects technology can have. Many schools have internet safety classes, but they tend to be outdated and based mostly on the internet from a decade ago, some even using MySpace and forums as their main example of social media! But the internet is not the same place as it was a few years ago. Its important to remind students of the dangers of algorithms, infinite scrolling, and echo chambers; Its vital that we draw a line between internet culture and real life, and I don't just mean in terms of internet slang. Today's teens are tomorrows future, and having a future based on moral superiority and fear of failure could result in some unfortunate outcomes.

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2019/09/23/the-7-most-dangerous-technology-trends-in-2020-everyone-should-know-about/?sh=56a333847780

https://shdigimark.com/targeted-ads-on-social-media/

https://builtin.com/ux-design/infinite-scroll

https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2020/06/study-reveals-how-social-media-algorithms-create-echo-chambers.html

https://www.newportacademy.com/resources/mental-health/teenage-cancel-culture/