My thoughts on technology

Portfolio #5
Technology Use

It's hard to gauge how exactly how critical technology is in my life. Right now I'm thinking it probably effects 90% of my life, at least. I think back to my early childhood, and laugh at the outdated electronics I grew up using. I remember using those really big floppy disks, to play computer games on my fathers old computer, or the very first GameBoy that was roughly the size of a brick. I keep thinking back and I never had a time in my life where I wasn't using continuously developing electronics, or other technologies. My generation is a slave to technology, and from an early age we learn to master all the technologies we incorporate into our daily routines.
I found Danah Boyd's article on the class divisions between Facebook and Myspace to be extremely interesting, and disturbing. I first joined Facebook my Sophomore year in high school. I did not want to join at first, and thought that because all my friends were doing it, then it must be something that everybody is doing, and I didn't want to be a part of any clique. However, I ended up joining Facebook and would use it daily from there until this summer. I think about how people spoke of the differences between Facebook and Myspace at my high school, and they were mostly based around trends. Myspace was known as an alternative thing, it was mostly for musicians, artists and alternative style kids (emos, goths, punks, etc.). Facebook was seen as something new and good because it could make you ultra-social, all of a sudden you could know everyones business at any point in time. I think that there are class struggles behind these divisions I saw in high school as well, and the Boyd article helped reveal that to me.
I recently deleted my Facebook, due to the following reasons. First I did not like the idea that by having a Facebook I was pretty much creating an online, photo-journal of my life, for everyone to see. I think it's creepy and dangerous to have information about you saved onto an internet database for the rest of your life. Second, I think that life is a lot more interesting when you allow your relationships to be tested by time and distance. Facebook allows you to be with your friends whenever and wherever you are, which can be beneficial, no doubt. However, It takes away the mystery and magic that existed within the relationships you had with certain people.
Technology is exponentially growing in our country, and every new generation that comes will be expected to have a greater and greater reliance on technology. American culture is all about faster and more efficient, and technology is the only that both of those increase. This greatly effects our sense of time, technology has caused us to be able to find the most minimal ways to measure time. As long as these extremely small units of time exist, we will be measured up against them, constantly trying to shave off a nano second at every corner.