Final Blog - My Relationship with Technology

I believe my relationship with technology is as impactful as it is with other people, but not in the same way. I remember how I was one of the last people in my high school class to get a smartphone while other people had one since middle school! I also recall me and my brother wanting to create a Facebook account around 2013, a time when social media was rapidly being integrated into society. However, my parents chose to make us wait until we were adults to see if we were dedicated or just caught up in a trend.

Looking back, I believe my parents made the right call in making us wait because of massive data breaches in 2019 and 2021. I have seen several of my peers in high school and college consistently post on Instagram and Snapchat. While there is nothing wrong with posting, especially with a news account like Pubity or an art account, it slowly builds your online footprint over time, which others can look up.

I have a Snapchat account with a Snapscore of 575 and an Instagram account with 40 followers and one post. Additionally, I rarely post anything, and I share my name with an American actor. The only way I can find one of my social media accounts is by looking up my LinkedIn account, where I am usually the fifth or sixth result. 

Social media allows people to connect with peers and other like-minded people on the internet, but it also has some negative side effects. Some include an increased risk for depression and anxiety the longer social media is used, enabling our fight or flight instinct by being on the lookout for notifications, and trying to look perfect to others.

Technology used to get in the way of me and my brother's schoolwork back in elementary school. So much so that our parents had to prevent both of us from using any technology until the weekends. I will admit I was worse at this than my brother, especially because I have focused on games like Temple Run, Angry Birds, and DragonVale more than going out and socializing. So much so that my mom was worried about me and my future.

At first, I did not understand why she was so concerned about me, but after seeing more iPad kids as I grew up, she was right to worry. Not much was known about these devices when I was growing up, but researchers refer to these devices as "electronic cocaine and digital heroin".

Even though I went through the same phase as some of these iPad kids, I never took my devices outside of my house. I was also focused on playing my games, contrary to some of these kids who were given these devices to calm them down. This has nothing to do with the technology itself, but it is concerning to see how careless some people can be.

Speaking of which, clout chasing is another unintended consequence I thought of. There have been countless examples I have seen while I was growing up like someone disrespecting a graveyard and a "prank" costing someone their life. While looking up other examples, there are recent examples of someone driving a "free candy" van and an intentional hit-and-run incident.

Technology and social media are not all bad, despite these noticeable side effects. They have helped to improve society from the development of the first smartphone to other communication technologies like the emoticon and email. Social media allows users to keep in touch with their friends and connect with new people. It is how my brother and my family keep in touch with their friends, whether it is through Facebook or Snapchat.

All these technologies and the Internet make blogs like this, our texts and Facetime calls, our emails, and our social media accounts possible. The Internet is not pulling people away from public spaces, but it may be the opposite. The Internet and technology hampered my social life when I was young, but I turned out okay by the time I graduated high school.

Technology is more of an amplifier than the sole reason we do stupid things. If we learn to be mindful of what we post and start to control our screen time, these technologies will serve to benefit us instead of trapping our attention for hours. At the same time, we need to be mindful of the depression, anxiety, and addiction these technologies can cause and frequently check for data breaches. Technology is our future, so we must use it well!

Blog #11 - A Glance at Net Neutrality

 I recalled hearing about net neutrality in the past, but it was something from an animation I watched when I was a kid, so I did not know what it was. However, I learned from one of my peers that it prevents Internet Service Providers from throttling Internet traffic, prioritizing some programs, and blocking access to others. 

A group of these providers include Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, or T-Mobile when we get a data plan for our smartphones, so this is an issue beyond our computers and laptops.

I also learned that net neutrality was around before the Internet! Telegrams and telephones were also affected by net neutrality, preventing companies from prioritizing some calls over others. I wonder how throttling or blocking calls could work, considering it was a while before emails and the internet came along. Would these companies not be sued if they tried this?

I discovered the FCC after some searching, which is a government agency that aims to regulate national and international communications along radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the US. They were created in the Communications Act of 1934 and would become involved with internet service providers once internet connections were introduced in the US.

Over time, the total amount of internet service providers would significantly decrease in 2007, leading to a lack of options for internet service providers. Alongside internet speeds being throttled, AT&T banned customers from setting up Wi-Fi routers in the early 2000s. Around the same time, Comcast was preventing users from setting up VPNs. Another provider by the name of Madison River blocked Vonage, a service used to make calls across the internet in 2005. 

Due to worries about internet service providers threatening to throttle speeds, Barack Obama pledged support for net neutrality during his 2008 campaign, stating that the servers and networks we get our information from being "gatekeepers and charging different rates destroys one of the best things about the internet-which is that there is incredible equality there."

Under the Obama Administration, the FCC introduced the Open Internet Order in 2010, preventing Internet service providers from blocking websites or imposing limits on consumers. Because internet service providers could not impose limits, they had no way to reduce streaming data, costing them more money. Verizon would file a lawsuit weeks after the FCC adopted these rules, leading to their rules being struck down on January 14, 2014.

Despite this, the FCC released another Open Internet Order in 2015, preventing blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. Once again, internet service providers petitioned to strike down this order, but a federal court upheld this decision on June 14, 2016, allowing this rule to be applied to wired and wireless networks.

Upholding this decision was a victory for Obama's presidency, but he was close to finishing his second term. Because of this, he could not participate in the 2016 election, which was between Clinton and Trump. Safe to say, we all know who won, since he has not left the media since he was elected.

Because Trump was a Republican, he was destined to change some things since Obama left, and change things he did! He appointed Ajit Pai to be the chairman of the FCC, leading to the Restoring Internet Freedom Order being issued in 2017. The order undid the Open Internet Order, allowing internet service providers to block and throttle their internet traffic again.

After learning all of this, I believe net neutrality is a good thing for the country. I do not know the negatives too well, but both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney emphasized equal opportunity during their campaigns for the 2012 election. If internet service providers can make a website's internet speed faster if they pay and can block or slow others, is that equal opportunity? I do not believe it is, and we should give it another try. If we do not, we will end up with something like this: