Blog Post #2 Medicine and Social Media in My Life

Techno-science has shaped my life in the form of medicine and social media. Medicine has allowed humans (like me) to beat natural selection in many ways: vaccinations for killer diseases, medication, life-saving (or ending) surgeries, etc. However, it also shaped my life because of its limitations. When my dad was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, I began wondering if every ache and pain I had was somehow MS, too. He has medication to control his symptoms and keep the MS from getting worse, but there is no cure. As an 8 year old, and even now as an 18 year old, this limitation of medicine scared me a lot. I would definitely say medicine (and semantic contagion) has given me hypochondria. I worry about getting sick way more than i should, and when I get a cold, I think i'm dying. I always think the worst, which I'm sure Lewontin would say is due to my environment of growing up with a parent with a 'disease' and MS being identified as a disease, and Pinker would blame my genes and probably my dad. This semantic contagion is aided by social media, which I believe to also be a product of techno-science. Social media allows people to connect, share pictures and stories, and romanticize mental illnesses. Have you noticed that everyone on Twitter seems to have anxiety all of a sudden? I have. My sister actually does have social anxiety and, not to say that people who get 150,000 retweets when they tweet about their "anxiety" don't actually have it, but she would never advertise that she has an 'illness'. "But those tweets are so relatable, I must have social anxiety, too"--no that's the semantic contagion and social media talking. Social media has made it seem like its cool to have mental disorders, or at least pretend that you do. I think Carl Elliot would agree with me on this. Social media is a huge part of our culture today and it also adds more pressure. When we can look at pictures of people living the perfect life, with the perfectly culturally acceptable body, house, job, etc. whenever we want, we feel extra pressure to be like them. The pressure of trying to appear perfect on social media, when in real life you are struggling can lead to real mental health issues. I get nervous every time I go to post something on a social media because what if someone judges me for it, or what if I didn't use the right filter? When our lives and culture are so dependent on appearances, its hard for me to be confident, and is why I barely post anything on social media. Techno-science affects our culture, and in turn, affects us.
I also believe I owe it to techno-science that I can even go to college. If I didn't have a cell phone to talk to my mom on whenever I need to, I don't think I could have left home. Without the technology and science of cell phones, cell towers, calling, and texting, I probably wouldn't be here today making my dream of learning as much as I can come true. So, I can see both positive and negative affects on my life due to what techno-science is and isn't capable of.