My Relationship with Technology

When the discussion of technology starts there are two ways it can go. People talk about the positives or negatives of whatever technology piece they are debating. These discussions about the positives and negatives could probably go on forever because there is so much technology and it is constantly changing. Technology is everywhere and it affects everyone’s lives. 

Everyone has their own experience growing up with technology. My personal experience I think

was different in some ways but also the same in other ways. I think my younger self had a healthy relationship with technology. When growing up I always had technology around me like a Playstation and a Wii but I never really overused them. Growing up I lived in a rural area but was close to my friends so I would go play with them outside instead of sitting inside. I think I was lucky for this because I had a childhood that I would want my kids to have where they are always outside playing games with other kids. I did play videogames but it never got to the point of affecting me negatively or developing into an addiction. Addictions to video game can be bad and causes people to not want to interact with others or can cause physical harm from not being healthy. For me this was never a problem because I always had a lifestyle where videogames were only used when I had nothing going on and just wanted to relax. 

My relationship with technology now is very different than it was when I was younger. Technology has gotten so popular that it is a part of everything I do. I feel the role has flipped from when I was younger to now. In college, I am on technology for everything. For example, when I do schoolwork, when I tutor, use my phone, or play videogames all of these involve me using technology. So now I feel like when I work out or go out with friends I escape from technology. When I was younger, I get on technology to relax or escape from doing what I was doing. 

There are some positives to technology being everywhere. Since technology is everywhere I get to stay connected to my family and friends since I go to college eight hours away from them. If I was not able to stay connected to them, then I do not know if would have went to college at High Point University because it would have really hard for me.

 Another positive is online learning. I have a hard time learning with my accounting classes that are for upper classmen. With the ability to look up YouTube videos I can be taught by someone else that may teach it in another way.  These two positive points really help me with college, and I do not know if I would be able to do it with them. 

Even though the positives are helpful there are some negatives to technology. The first negative I have with technology is the increase in screen time I have with it. Increasing screen time can negatively affect people because this can cause social anxiety and depression. Even though I do not have these things I have seen other people I know have a lot of screen time and get anxiety when they cannot be on their phone. Another problem people have is self-image. People who scroll or post constantly on social media can develop self-image issues to the point where they need other people’s approval. Even though I do not have these negative affects myself I am still conscious of them because I do not want to develop them.  

Technology can be a blessing or a curse. People need to become aware of what can happen if they get too involved with technology. The world today has too many people that are caught up in technology. The video called Mad World Remix of Moby Video

 does a good job of painting a picture of our world and how people are getting to caught up in technology. It does a good job also showing how the negatives of technology are very easy to see when taking a step back and seeing the world. The part of the video that hit me the most was that there was always so much going on in the background that was easy to miss if just looking at the people with the phones. I feel like that depicts how the world is today. People are always looking at the person taking a picture or taking pictures themselves but are not seeing what is going on. 

Talking about the positives and negatives could be an endless discussion but the effect of technology is important to understand. Technology has helped a lot of people, from modern medicine to helping me see my family when I miss them. People need to stop to see the negatives that can come out of overuse of technology if they get consumed by it. 

AI in Today World

When thinking about automation today it is amazing to see the progress that it has made from when it started. That being said, the progress that it has made can be scary to think about. AI has made such an improvement that it can come up with ideas and things that people have not even thought about. Another thing that worries a lot of people when they think about automation is how many jobs that it is going to take away and has already taken away. Lastly, it is scary to think about the amount of information that companies get from people. All of these reasons are major causes that make people scared of AI.  

AI has come so far, it is amazing to see it play games that people play. An example of this is from the video called In The Age of AI. It talks about how AI beat the professional Go player, Lee Segol. In the video, it talks about how AI made a move no one in thousands of years have thought about. It is scary to think that AI can think of things that not even the best player in the world would think of. 

Lee Segol losing to AI is something that comes to my mind when thinking about how AI is doing things better than humans. The result of this is people losing their jobs because of technology. Why would companies hire people to do a job when AI does it better? We can see this in the middle class a lot because in the video it talks about how a factory worker said at one point there was around 7,500 worker at the factory and now there is 700. That is outrageous to think about. This has a lot of impact on people in the middle class because now almost 7,000 people lost their jobs and now can not afford everyday life. 

The last thing about AI that scares me is the information that it collects on people. In the video, it talks

about how AI can make predictions on what people are going to do when they go on Google. For example, it makes a prediction what they are going to search up based on what they have done in the past. That is crazy for me to think about. The reason is that AI must already have so much information about me to make that prediction so it makes me wonder how much do these companies know about me. 

AI is going to do amazing things for people, but at what cost. The world may have been better off back  before the use of AI. It would allow people to get their jobs back that they lost. It would make it harder for companies to use the information that they collect on us. As a society, we need to decide if it is better to use AI and lose the things that come with it, or is it better to just go without it. 

Smith-Mundt Act

When thinking about how many different cites there are where people get information, it is amazing to see how much they can learn from theses cites. There are news cites, social media apps, and even television channels that give information to millions of people everyday. The reason this is important is because people need to be aware if all the information is true. The world we live in passes along a lot of disinformation and propaganda that can affect the way we learn new information. 

The way the American Government tried to stop propaganda about America in other countries was with the Smith-Mundt Act, also called the US Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948. The main purpose of this act was "the creation of an information service to disseminate abroad information about the United States, its people, and policies." This means that America was going to spread information about itself to other countries to get rid of the propaganda about the country. This act was created in 1948 and was first introduced by congressman Karl Mundt in 1945. 

This may not have been the case. An article from NBC News talks about how The Smith Mundt act was being challenged because it was just spreading propaganda. There were many programs being funded by the United States based on the Smith Mundt Act. There are two sides to these programs. Some people were angry that taxes were going to these programs and believed it was propaganda while others believed they held good and accurate news. 

The Smith Mundt act has changed over the years a couple times. The latest change that has the most effect on the people today is called the Smith Mundt Modernization Act of 2013. This change to the act allowed the people of the United States to hear and be apart of the programs and broadcasts that they were not allowed to be apart of before. Many people did not like this because they said it was allowing propaganda into the United States and did not want to be apart of it. While others liked to see what these programs had to say so they could make their own opinions about the programs. This was seen up above when I talking about how people had two different reactions to this act.  Every time they change the act, there are always going to be people who like it and there are going to be people who do not like it. 

When looking at all the information it is hard to see if the Smith Mundt Act is actually doing what it was meant to be used for. When looking at the definition of the act it was stated that it was in place "to promote the better understanding of the United States among the people of the world and to strengthen cooperative international relations." seeing this definition it is easy to look back up and see how the United States has been mistreating this act. The reason is because it was meant to help people better understand the United States but instead it was used for propaganda and to mislead people.