Blog 8 : "I'm afraid I can't do that Dave"

*takes a sip of coffee*
*cracks knuckles*
Alright you nerds, let's get to it. Technology: the point of no return or the helpful tool to controlling the universe? This may be a drastic question but there's no point in denying that technology has had a great impact on our lives. Some of us embrace it, logging in everyday to check the facebook news (its not looking so good at the moment, I'll tell you that) or others take the opposite approach and forcefully cut it out of their lives. For me, I think I'm somewhere off to the side, probably wandering around because I'm that lost. You see, when I was a kid, it turned out I was kind of a nerd. I listened exclusively to Disney songs (Year 3000 was my jam) and I had no idea who the celebrities were at that time (Brad Pitt was just a guy that I couldn't pick out of a lineup if it came to it). Needless to say, I didn't care about or understand technology. Like, for example, what was this MP3 I kept hearing about? It plays music? What futuristic nonsense is this? Pff.  However, after a couple of clueless, embarrassing years spent in middle school (I assume this is an agreed upon description of everyone's middle school years), I finally received my first iPhone when I was a freshman in high school and that's when things changed. I became hip with texting lingo ("LOL", "ROTFL", and were some personal favorites. In fact, I just recently learned smh means shaking my head. Mind blown) and with taking photos using those built in filters. This was the pre-snapchat years, y'all, I was breaking new ground.

So, yeah, technology and I started to get to know each other a little bit. Eventually, however, I figured out I could download the Facebook app on it and, boy, did things go downhill from there. Let's just say I got so addicted to it, that it would be the first thing I saw every morning when I woke up. I would spend almost an hour on it if I was avoiding homework. I think at that point, it became a problem and I realized that I was receiving not so good grades being returned to me.  I deleted the app from my phone - two years after I made the decision to delete it - and stopped checking in on my laptop, so that now, I only go on once or twice a week. I don't even use twitter or instagram even though I have accounts for both of them. Yet, that's not to say I've cut back from all sources of technology. I mean, wow, my laptop is always with me no matter where I go because almost 90% of my homework is internet based. I mean, even this assignment couldn't be completed without a phone or a computer. In fact, a study commissioned by the Federal Communication Commission's Broadband Task Force found that in 2009, that 70% of teachers assign homework requiring access to broadband (its a bandwidth data transmission) and that 65% of students used the internet at home to complete homework. While this study was conducted almost a decade ago the conclusions of the research can still be seen today. We're not all on our phones and laptops because we love social media that much. We actually have work to be done. So, thanks, homework, you ruined the internet for me because now I'm constantly stressed when I turn on my computer.