Tied to change or tied to my fellow man?

Does anybody remember the “Zune”, Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s “Ipod Nano 1st  generation”? I do because I had the misfortune of being given one for christmas.   I think my parents were more happy than I was at the time to receive it.  It was clunky and ugly also the battery over charged and died after a few charges.  Just one of those glitches that comes with new technology.

But since then who knew technology would come so far?  Today we have wearable technology with fitness trackers, blue tooth in shoes, applications that start our cars. I could go on and on.  So what’s going to be next?  Will employers require employees to have some sort of blue tooth chip placed under their skin to keep track of their activities?  In some parts of the world, like Mexico, where there is a huge divide between rich and poor, the wealthy are implanting GPS tracking devices under their skin in case of kidnapping (https://fieldlogix.com/news/can-under-the-skin-gps-tracking-devices-protect-you-if-kidnapped/).

Also it used to be that people would spend hours looking for their tv remote control and now they can bring their television with them on a plane, train, boat or car it doesn’t matter, if they can get  a signal they can get their tv. My parents camp in the summer on the weekend in the bush and they have two satellite receivers.  Their cellphones work there so they can even order movies.  With current emerging technologies our lives have really changed. And with social media being so easily available even in the bush we are never disconnected from one another.  Even if I’m out of the house I’m still within their reach of contact. Lucky me.

So what is my life going to look like in ten years or so?  Will I have instead of messager on my phone, holographic messaging? Will I physically have to talk with another human for work or will all my work be done at home in isolation?  Will conversation be reduced to click throughs and likes? I think if this becomes the case then mankind might begin to lose their humanity even more than they already have.  But it is the world that we are living in.

I for one am going to try to hang on to my humanity towards my fellow man while still staying technologically curious.  I hope anyone that is reading this blog commits to the same goal.

Growing up plugged in.

About twenty years ago my uncle changed my life forever my introducing me to my first game console. It was an old Nintendo console that he had kicking around his house. He thought my brother and I would enjoy the system. Little did he know that this began a life long addiction for me of playing video games except now I do my gaming online.

There is a huge pool of gamers online where social interaction is part of the community. It is like a web of never ending media plug in. You see we’re not just gaming but we are also on facebook, Youtube, Twitter, etc. We are forever in communication with more than one person at a time. And we are constantly looking for new ways to connect.

I have to admit that my friends and I laugh at my parents because they still get their information through the television. What they see on the news is something I learnt about twenty minutes earlier. They actually go stand in line to buy what ever they need instead of buying it online like I do.Much of their time is wasted standing in line. This would drive me crazy.I like things arrive faster at the door.

By using online shopping, Discord, Facebook, Youtube, Steam “valve”. I feel like I am using my time more wisely and effectively. As a matter of fact I’m not alone as by evidence of the following link. https://www.opstart.ca/13-stats-facts-online-shopping-canada/ . It seems like most people are starting to think like me.

How many people still do all of their shopping in stores instead of online shopping on sites as Amazon?

 

The danger of sharing too much information online.

There are many risks but there are also many benefits to social media platforms. Many of us know someone who’s experienced a false sense of connection to either someone or something that is unrealistic. However today that false sense of connection is even greater with the amount of people you are able to connect with so easily in the privacy of your own home. It is too easy to lose your sense of empathy for another human being because of the lack of human interaction.  For example on Facebook the more a person likes you’re pictures or videos you have uploaded the more that person feels closer to the up loader of those posts.

Social media can affect us in  two different ways. It will either  increase or decrease productivity depending on which type of social media site you are currently using.

Some things that social media sites can do to mitigate risk would be to make privacy and security one of  the bigger tools to focus on.  Instead they focus on photo filters or updating the way their site looks and runs.  A good example is facebook. They are always updating their style and font size or even how you see friends that come online or are already online. Companies should be working more on user friendly ways of using their tools without the user’s information being compromised. Great examples of this risk are being seen right now in our media with alleged unauthorized use of peoples facebook data to influence their opinions.

It’s probably very difficult to separate a person and professional persona on a social medium. One would most likely have to use your professional media persona strictly for professional use only. There would be no personal pictures or personal opinions that would give a hint to you are privately. On your personal site you would keep your privacy settings to private and keep your circle of family and friends very small.

It has been my experience with high school friends who have later come to regret certain post and photos that they posted online. Who they were then to who they are now.

 

 

The Pitfalls of being educated in Ontario in the 2000’s and why social media is so hard for me.

I am a 22 year old male with no learning disabilities yet I find reading and writing to be difficult to this day and I think it is because I was educated in the early 2000’s. I don’t seem to have the same reading and writing level as my parents.

Being taught in Ontario at age five made social media hard for me because of the amount of students that got put into one classroom at one time. Trying to be taught by one teacher while there is thirty other students the same age as me. That only gave my  teacher enough time to teach the whole class the lesson for the day, and usually I would need extra help to understand the lesson. With the amount of students in the class they made it hard to even hear what the teacher was  trying to say and usually I would be stumped on what to do until I got home and had to ask my parents on how to do the work.  Also another part to this classroom dilemma, the boys would always out number the girls in the class. That would never help because the boys were always louder  than the girls ever were. Which it always made it really hard to concentrate and do my school work or even during a test. Keep in mind at this time the Ontario government said class sizes would be no bigger than twenty four students. This Ontario government report said class sizes were 20 students or less https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2006/09/2000-more-teachers-helping-to-reduce-class-sizes-and-improve-education.html . This was not what I had experienced because my class sizes were always larger than 30 kids.

 

Social Media

So what does my education have to do with social media? Social media was encouraged during most of my years in school. I found the teachers relied on the computers and tablets and less on the textbooks. As a result most of my peers write in hyphenated words, or sometimes in acronyms and not one of us has the ability to write a text or message without the help of auto correct. And now I have to ask myself what is going to happen to the population in ten or fifteen years if none of us can spell. Language does evolve but what good is it if none of us understand each other when trying to communicate on social media. I think that in the next few years or so that there will be a lot of confusion. Let’s just hope none of us are writing a doctors prescription or writing any treaties.

Hopefully this course will help improve my communication skills and maybe I will feel more confident when I go for my next job interview. Am I the only one that has had this experience or are there others out there?