Blog Post #12: Final Blog Post - How I can achieve Personal Balance with my daily Tech Usage

Over the course of the semester as I have taken this class, I recall how often I spend using technology and what I have been doing with my devices. Before taking this class, I knew that I had to exercise certain restraints when it comes to using technology, but now that I have been a legal adult for more than a year now, I know that it is important for me to be more responsible on my end to make sure I am careful with the amount of time I spend on a daily basis using my devices.

The 1964-65 NY World's Fair "Futurama" Exhibit

"Mad World" Music Video

The videos we watched in class spoke volumes to how much technology has become integrated in our lives, with each video highlighting the positives and the negatives. The World's Fair "Futurama" video did highlight many forms of technology that we discussed in class that exist today, despite some innovations mentioned in the video having been established in our modern lives. I was surprised to see how many advances we have created over the course of a few decades. However, "Mad World" highlighted the negative effects of technology, as we are engrossed in our devices to the point that negative images of how our bodies should look, who we should follow, and how we should present ourselves online, chip away at our self-esteem and mental health. Personally, I have faced times where I know I need to put my devices down and take a break, but there is such an ease of access to devices that makes it hard to put our phones down for even one minute. We have gotten used to having various devices in our homes that make it hard to cut them off, even for a shorter period of time. It takes a lot of willpower to shut off our devices and take a deep breath, and as we use our devices, we become oblivious to our outside environment.

I did not use a lot of technology in my life regularly until I got to middle school, in my early teenage years. The school provided laptops for students to take home and use to complete homework, and many students, myself included, would use our laptops to play games as well as using homework. Around this time, I developed my love for video games and familiarized myself with the characters I have grown to love as I became more versed in the different genres and intellectual properties (IPs) that companies were introducing. The first traditional video game console I grew up with was the Nintendo Wii, and that really sparked my love for gaming and my desire to go into the games industry. As I got older, I was granted more access to technology, having received my Chromebook when I was around 16 or 17 years old. I use my Chromebook mainly to complete assignments for class and for recreational time, such as watching YouTube videos or streaming services. I received my first phone, the one that I am still using until I decide to upgrade to a newer model, during COVID-19 as a primary way for our parents to keep in contact with us at home when they had to go back to work in person. After my parents got my siblings their own phones, they let me keep the old one that my siblings and I shared. Over time, I have noticed how my use of tech has grown and how much of a valuable asset my devices have been to me. That is not to say that I am not distracted by my phone from time to time.

Because I received my phone later into my life compared to some of my peers, I feel like I have not grown as attached to it, but at times, it has been a distraction. Sometimes, I know that I need to get to bed, but I want to watch one more video or read one more article. The more I keep doing this, the more it becomes a bad habit, an ensnaring cycle of the same problem. I need to think about how all of this screen staring will affect my eyes later on into my life. Because of my total tech usage on a daily basis, I feel like my eyes tend to be more irritated than others when it comes to using devices, which goes to show how much extended tech usage can harm the body. There are resources relating to eyestrain and habits to implement to reduce fatigue and irritation of the eye. In training myself to know when I am spending too much time on my phone, I can start making strategies to better balance my relationship with technology every day.

Blue Light Blocking Glasses for better device usage

Because of how I have used my technology recently, I want to do better to balance or limit the amount of time I spend on my devices daily. Of course, because of the world we live in, it is (almost) completely impossible to cut yourself off from technology, but there are some habits I can start to put into practice to make sure I am taking care of myself. There are plenty of articles online that discuss different solutions that I can start incorporating into my life to help give myself a break from devices even for a little while. For starters, I can limit how much I use my phone at night. If I absolutely need to check my phone, setting up a schedule to use "Night Mode" and "Blue Shade" will aid me in protecting my eyes during later hours of the night. Reading physical books from genres I enjoy will enable me to distance myself from a screen for longer periods of time. Taking frequent breaks to stretch my body and clear my head is a good way to refresh my mentality as I am completing my work, which is something I can incorporate even while sitting at my desk. Even something as simple as making origami models or frequent blinking when using screens gives me a few minutes to re-center myself mentally. The writers at Polygon published a special issue with some articles discussing the interesting ways to intersect video games and improved health as a whole. The articles discuss select topics from over-training to themed workouts, all to help "gamers" and "non-gamers" alike focus on improving their health. One article discusses how our desk setup - although specifically related to gaming, it can be applied to different scenarios - may not be the right fit for us and what we can do to change it.

As I reflect on what we learned in class, I know that the tech I use on a daily basis is a valuable resource, but can become a big distraction in my life if I let it. I need to be more willing to change my habits so I can live freely in tandem with how I use my devices. Some of the above solutions I mentioned are things I can start implementing right now. Looking forward, I want to be careful with how I use my devices as well as establishing a much more healthy relationship with the technology I use every day, whether it is how long I use a device and for what I am using my device for.

Blog Post #11: Each One Teach One Review #2 - Five Eyes and the Increasing Importance of Internet Safety

As I go about my day, I rarely think about how my privacy is being violated. we use our phones, tiny supercomputers we carry around in our pockets, but little do we think about how we may be tracked or potentially seen as a threat. After learning more about Five Eyes, I was only a little surprised that some of the world's leading governments have been tracking us to monitor whether or not a citizen is a terrorist. I am surprised that this group was hidden for so long.

Savanna's presentation taught me more about Five Eyes, a secret surveillance organization run by 5 world governments to keep tabs on everything we do. The reasoning of terrorism is always used, but it really does make you, as a citizen, think, how much data does my government have on me. Now that they are out as a group, there is more reason in my mind for people to start taking actions to protect their data. However, not many people knew about this group before some information released. In fact, I really do not know if people around the world still know this group exists.

The start of Five Eyes happened shortly after the conclusion of World War II, as the United States and the United Kingdom continued to maintain country relations after the war. The United States and the United Kingdom created the UKUSA Agreement in 1946 with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand joining shortly after. Each member of the group can theoretically cover a different "region" of the globe, depending on the proximity of the country to one another. In doing so, these countries have access to information of their own citizens, as well as people and countries who are close by. 

Being a part of the organization gives these countries the ability to keep tabs on their citizens and who can be seen as a threat, since other countries collect data and information and share among the group. Other countries have been known to want to have that connection of secrecy with the US and other countries, meaning more countries want the ability to keep tabs on their citizens without being found out. The only line the group does not cross when it comes to spying and keeping tabs is that they do not gather information of other world leaders who are members of the group.

The organization has been around since the 1940s, and I am concerned that I did not know about Five Eyes beforehand. As we were taught in class, as well as what I have seen in the news, a lot of news that is designated "more important" or more "fear-inducing" is brought up into the forefront, when other pieces of news seem to be pushed to the side. Ever since the growth of technology, using the internet has always been a mixed bag. The systems that we use each day are the same systems we allow to track what we do and say, often thanks to cookies we choose to use willingly. The governments have taken advantage of the internet to observe what we like and dislike, and use it to link who we are as people, at a much faster rate than we were a few years ago. I personally feel a bit ashamed that I have not been more careful to keep my interests a bit more secretive when using the internet, but there are steps that we can take to be more cautious online.

As I have mentioned previously, Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, help keep your data safe from being tracked online. VPNs are mainly designed to keep your data encrypted until it reaches its destination, to protect from hackers and scanning systems that try to scan and read data only meant for one person. Some good VPNs to look into include ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and SurfSharkVPN. Most of these VPNs may cost you some, but it is worth it to keep your data and sharing safe in the long run. The video above goes into more detail about what a VPN is and isn't, as well as what it is designed to do. Clearing your browser history would also help to keep yourself safe as, in a way, your browser and search history are "footprints" to who you are, where you have been online, and what your interests are. So being careful and aware of what you search can help you to be much safer online. Also, disabling cookies for sites you don't use or frequently visit can help you to limit how your information. Passwords are a big thing as well, as there are many different ways to keep yourself safe through passwords that are easy to remember, yet hard for others to guess.

After hearing about Five Eyes, it is concerning with how much my government knows about me already, as well as what is gained every time I log in. I want to practice being more safe, but I do fear that based on recent issues of race in our country, I could be put at much more of a risk of racial discrimination in the systems we use today. As I become more aware of how we operate in our systems, I want to be smarter in the things I search, the websites I visit, and the information I share when I go online.