Ditigal Day Project: Emily Bence
A Glimpse At The Use of Technology In Daily Life
6:45 AM
By 6:45 in the morning technology has already influenced the way I experience life. The alarm on my phone begins to play songs from the playlist I imported onto my device the night before. I slowly roll over in bed and press the snooze button. A few minutes later this same technology not only reminds me that I actually need to wake up, but also of my events for the day programmed into my calendar. As I begin to get ready for the day, I go over to my iPod speaker and turn on Pandora. While I am eating my breakfast I scroll through notifications on Facebook, look through Twitter and Instagram, and respond to any Snap chats, text messages, or emails I might have missed while I was sleeping. Up to this point in the day, my phone, IPod and Internet have been my main focus.
8:00 AM
After grabbing my backpack and telling my mom goodbye, I rush through the door to get to my car. I search my purse for my keys and press the unlock button. I realize it is starting to get chilly outside and that pretty soon I am going to need to start remote starting my car to warm it up before I get in. On the fifteen minute drive to school, I have the radio playing on my favorite station in the background. My phone alerts me to a text message from my mom. At the red light I see that I need to pick up my little sister from band practice after school. When I arrive in the parking lot, I notice all the kids on their phones sitting in their cars waiting for the first bell to ring. As I walk into the commons I turn off my volume and silence my phone so that all the notifications I will get during the day will not distract others. My technology up to this point in my day still has all my attention.
8:30 AM
Only fifteen minutes into my first period class, AP Spanish, and all the students are already typing away on their laptops trying to finish writing the essay due before fall break. Some of us become distracted by our notification bar and check our emails and calendars once again. Half way through the class period my teacher tells us to collect our belongings and walk down to the foreign language lab. Here we are instructed to log onto the computers and access a website where we are to listen to a recorded voice through the headphones and have a three minute recorded conversation with this fictional person. I always dislike having to use this technology because it feels so uncomfortable to hear thirty people talking to their computers. After submitting my speaking file through email to my teacher I head on to my next class period. Still to this point in my day, I have yet to put down technology.
10:45 AM
Once again the bell rings, and I walk down to my study hall in the ALC. After attendance is taken I walk out to the forum to complete some homework. I check my phone for any notifications I may have gotten during Spanish then text my mom back that I got her message earlier and will in fact pick up my sister later. I quickly browse over my Facebook and Twitter knowing I have work that needs to be done. After I have this business taken care of, I open up my laptop and continue writing my AP Spanish essay. I realize that the majority of my school work is now based off my laptop. I remember back in elementary school when it used to be a special day to get to go to the computer lab. Now, everyone carries around a laptop and phone like it is nothing. Technology is the new norm of my life.
11:52 AM
After fighting the mass of people trying to make their way to the cafeteria, I set my backpack down at the lunch table and get into line. I grab a milk and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. As I approach the end of the line, I gather my ID card so it can be scanned and the money can be electronically taken out of my account. I get back to my table and someone mentions a funny video she saw on YouTube last night, and of course we have to look it up. I check my social media sites once again to make sure nothing new is going on that I don't know about then send out two snap chats to my friends of pictures of the school food. Seeing that I have five minutes left of lunch, I log onto powerparent to check if my AP Calculus teacher has put in the grade for our most recent test. She hasn't. I become a little upset that I have had to wait so long to know how I did. Technology has made me into an impatient person who wants everything immediately and at the ease of my fingertips.
12:45 PM
I'm sitting in accounting waiting for my teacher to get our agenda for the day together so quickly check my phone and respond to a text from a friend. A few seconds later the teacher tells us to log onto the computer and access our accounting website. She makes a quick comment that we will learn how to do the math by paper but for now we will do it online since in the "real world" they only use the computer. Almost every profession now a days involves technology. Files have been transferred to be almost all online. Writing things down on paper takes too much time and is "inconvenient". The way people view life today is so much different than even ten years ago due to all the advancement of technology.
2:54 PM
Finally after a long day of school, the bell rings to dismiss us. As soon as I get out of the building I turn my volume on my phone back up to loud and off of silent. I quickly get out to my car so I don't get caught in all the traffic of the underclassmen. Driving out of the parking lot, my ears are pulled in fifty different directions from all the different music blaring in student's cars. I turn on my radio in my car and as soon as I hear a song I do not like I change my channel to a different preset station. When I get home, I ditch my backpack by the couch, grab a snack and head upstairs to watch the recorded episode of Grey's Anatomy I missed last night. I fast forward through all the commercials because it would be too much a waste of time to watch them. I almost become annoyed while watching my show because my phone will not stop going off. A few times I have to rewind because my focus was on my phone and not on the plot of the episode. Technology has turned me into the clichéd teenager who is distracted and irritable.
4:30 PM
After I have finished the episode to my favorite show, I walk downstairs to retrieve my backpack so I can work on homework. I pull out my laptop to work on it. Realizing it is almost dead I plug it in. My phone is on ten percent so I begin to charge it too while I am not using it. I sit by the wall because my laptop cord is really short and continue working on my Spanish essay. After I finish it, I make a sticky note to remember to send it to the wifi printer when I get to school so I can print it off during a passing period. I also go to my notepad and cross off this one assignment. I still have five hundred other things to do, but ,hey, I have one thing done. With out my lap top organizing all my assignments, I am not quite sure how I would get everything done on time. I rely on technology for my day to day living.
6:26 PM
My mom texts me that dinner is done and ready so I grab my phone from the charger and head downstairs. My mom, my sister and I pray then begin eating. A few minutes later my dad walks in the house talking on the phone to a guy from his work. After his conversation he sits down and eats with us. During our dinner together, my sister asks if we have heard that a good family friend has gotten a new dog. We had not so she pulls up a picture on her phone from Facebook. When I see how cute he is I put a reminder on my phone to comment on the picture on Facebook later. After we all finish eating, we start to clean up. It is my night to do the dishes so as my family files out of the kitchen, I turn on the radio on my phone. It is almost as if I can not stand being in a silent room. Technology has taught me to crave the mainstream teachings and fear the silence of my own thoughts.
9:08 PM
After I take a shower, I head to my room and begin to play Pandora off of my IPod. I find my laptop and put it back in my backpack to use tomorrow morning just like I had today. At 9:30 my reminder goes off to do my daily devotion and to set my alarm for the next morning. Once I go into my clock app and set my alarm on my phone, I get on the internet to find my devotion website. On the website there is a place I can click that will read to me that day's Bible reading. I guess "reading the old fashioned way" is outdated. After finishing this, I go over to my IPod and turn the volume down to a low rumble with only every other word being audible. I walk back to my bed turn off the lights and go to sleep. My speakers are on a timer to turn off after an hour. I don't even sleep in silence. My day has been constricted by the empty bounds technology has put in place.
Overall
After completing this assignment, my eyes have been opened to the impact that technology has on my life. There was not a twenty minute interval that I was not interacting with my phone, my laptop, my TV or my radio. I think I began to really see the impact this has on my life during Mrs. Young's digital day presentation. It was almost freaky to find out all the things that were available on internet for random people to see about me. It really makes me wonder how much information applications I use know about me. In the "Are You Being Tracked" article it brought up the question as to how much of our lives are actually being followed. The technology is available for anyone to find out anything about anyone with one click. That is scary. From this project, I also realized how much my phone and laptop almost control my mind. Before when I read "Is the Web Driving Us Mad?" I thought that the authors were majorly exaggerating, but now after looking at my life from an outward perspective I definitely see how they came to this conclusion. When I am using technology I become a lot more impatient and almost paranoid. I caught myself checking my phone every ten minutes just to see if something had happened. Yes, technology is great for accomplishing some activities and can make life a lot easier, but I know that I have allowed technology to become too important in life. After completing this project I definitely want to try to cut back on the amount I use my phone and Facebook and come back to reality .