Blog Post #13: My Roller Coaster of a Relationship with Technology

Introduction

When I think about my overall relationship with technology, it takes me awhile to formulate an accurate opinion on the kind of impact that it has made in my life. Some people may be able to answer the question of "what is your relationship with technology?" in less than 10 seconds, but I am not one of those people. 

The world of technology is so enormous and it has been an every day component of my life since I was elementary school. From using technology to look up information for a school project to using social media or publishing content, the web has been a consistent need for me especially as someone who is aspiring to working in an industry that is moving towards being fully digital (more on that later) which makes my relationship a lot more unique than the relationship that my fellow peers may have with technology. 

Everyone essentially has an unpublished book that is about the overall connection that every one has with technology is. Their experiences are divided into chapters and depending on what has happened, some chapters may be filled with more action and aggression than others. I have never been one to compare my life experiences with others, however there is an exception about that when it comes to technology. I have used the world of technology to learn and educate myself on how I can make my experiences online as safe, secure, entertaining, and beneficial for me as possible. However, I would be lying if I said this mindset comes easy, because it doesn't. In this blog post, I will go fully in-depth into how my experiences with technology so far has been quite the roller coaster, with its fair share of ups and downs and discuss my final verdict on whether I think I have had a more positive or negative experience with it. I will be sharing a series of personal experiences to help myself formulate that final verdict and relate it to the various foundations and topics we discussed and learned during the course of Media Law and Literacy this semester. 

My Early Experiences with Technology

I was born in 2001, so I was not handed an iPad at the age of two, but I did get exposed to the rise of technology at a fairly young age. I vividly remember being eight years old and watching YouTube videos and playing Poptropica on my desktop computer every day I would come home from school. Those were fun days, but looking back on it, I may have spent more time on those platforms than I probably should have at that age. Don't get me wrong, I still would go outside to hang out with friends on the playground and shoot some hoops, but when you watch one YouTube video, you want to watch another and then another. When you complete one Poptropica level, you want to complete the next one, and then the next one after that. It's addicting, but that's how everything on the internet is, especially social media! 

I remember desperately wanting social media when I started middle school because I feel like all of my fellow classmates had an Instagram or Twitter account and I felt left out. My parents would keep forbidding me to have one and every time their excuse would be that "you are still too young Wendell and you don't need to showcase your personal life to everyone out there because you never know who's looking at your information." My 12 year old self was rolling my eyes, but now my 20 year old self thoroughly understands what they were saying. Eventually, I got an Instagram towards the end of eighth grade and I just remember my life changing drastically after that. Literally, the first day I got Instagram, I posted about six pictures that day alone of random things like my bedroom, my basketball game that I had just played in and how I was ready for the school year to end and summer to come. One of my earliest and grandest memories of my early days of using social media was when I uploaded a video of a rap I wrote. I pretended like I had the platform and following of Drake and even went to the basketball court in my neighborhood where I had someone film it for me like it was a music video. My 13 year old self took it seriously, but apparently everyone that was following me on social media took it more as I was trying to be funny on purpose when I really wasn't. I genuinely thought my rapping was good and wanted to see what kind of praise I could get from my followers. People began start to rapidly sharing my rap video on social media but not because it was good, but because they thought it was funny. Thankfully, I have not had that many negative experiences on social media, but that was certainly one where I felt like social media was just messing with my brain and overall presence. There's nothing worse than when others misinterpret a message or post you create and put out online for everyone to see. 

We see so many people in today's society get "canceled" for a message that was interpreted in a different way than the one who posted thought it would be read as. There were a couple of solid pros that did come out of posting that rap video though. For starters, I began to gain a larger reputation at my school and other schools in my area which allowed me to break my barrier or shyness that I had struggled with a lot during my childhood. Even if half of those people were making fun of my rap video, it allowed me to interact with numerous forms of different personalities which made me realize just how diverse our society is and how it is essential to adapt to different people in a variety of ways. 

Secondly, after the video was posted, I came to understand that I do not need to be posting every little thing I do on social media and more importantly I need to follow the mindset of "think before you post." Sure enough, I was able to follow that mindset after that and it paid off immensely. I began to find myself spending less time on social media which allowed me to spend more time interacting with my friends and family on a more consistent basis. Having the chance to have any face to face interaction is always so beneficial because it's almost like you're being taken into a time machine because nowadays it's often rare to be in a conversation where someone doesn't pull out their phone within 10 minutes of the conversation. 

Now, have I been a victim of someone who takes out their phone to send a text or check social media when I am hanging out with friends or family? Of course. However, I have found that with special people in my life, if I am sincerely engaged into the conversation we are having and I can sense that they are heavily engaged as well, then neither of us will take out our phones and it's perhaps one of the most glorious things you can ask for in life nowadays. It is said that we are now in a timeframe where a 30 minute conversation without the usage of phones/laptops should be cherished, but that's sadly the way our world is now, however that could always change. Face to face interaction is still the best way to go when it comes to which form of communication to choose in a conversation in today's society. Studies list tons of benefits as to why face to face communication is essential which includes things like it helps you develop stronger connections with people and allows you to gain a more proficient non-verbal understanding by being able to accurately study and depict one's body language. 

I am thankful that I do not have those photos or videos that were on my feed when I first started using social media so I can't cringe at myself anymore, but as I learned this semester in class, nothing is ever fully deleted once its already been on the internet. It doesn't matter if the post existed for five seconds or five years, once it's posted, it remains in your personal online profile data forever. I do sometimes wish I could look back on those old posts just to see what was the purpose of each post. That is something I often tend to do nowadays before I post anything on social media. I think about what's the purpose of posting it, what will I get out of it and more importantly what will others get out of it? The proper purpose of social media is meant to connect, inspire, educate, and entertain others. Key word: OTHERS. If you are using social media to solely benefit yourself, then why are you on platforms that have features like followers, likes, and comments? That doesn't make sense to me, so whenever I see someone else on social media post something completely irrelevant and idiotic, I begin to question their level of judgement. I see it a lot on comments on Bleacher Report's Instagram as well as various accounts on Twitter. I will see the dumbest takes on topics like sports, politics, and entertainment, and I am just in awe on how an actual person posted that comment. However, I will then take a look at their bio and either understand why they made a nonsense remark or be more confused as to why they did what they did. Yes, you can be someone who feels the need to use social media so you can express your opinions through a screen, but any remarks made online are fair game for anybody else to see. My high school self was wise enough to recognize the cons of posting something on social media every single day just for the sake that I would look active online. I actually knew I was doing a good job when my friends started telling me "hey Wendell, you barely post anything anymore." My response would be "yep, I am doing that intentionally." I consider myself to be a curious person, so seeing what everyone else is doing in terms of how active they are on social media is pretty interesting to me and I like keeping my private life to myself because at the end of the day what are my followers and others online going to get out of me posting a bunch of pictures with my family? More access to private information about me? I think not. Lots of my posts in high school would revolve around my experiences playing basketball, posting pictures with teammates, and some pictures of my most memorable experiences from school. I remember all the trends that came out when I was in high school like "post a picture if you're an artist or an athlete or something like that. Personally, I never partook in it because I just did not feel the need to hop on the bandwagon. I felt almost as though it was a trap for me to jump into what everyone else was doing just so I could feel like I was apart of the team, but to me that was just not worth it. As my high school years went by, I started posting less and less. I think there was even a time where I told myself that there's a strong possibility I might go a whole year without posting anything on Instagram. That streak broke for a good reason though, I got into HPU! 

It's crazy because when I got into HPU I realized that my time spent on social media began to drastically increase. Even before I was officially accepted, I found myself spending major time watching college application videos on YouTube, reading other people's college experiences on Twitter, and looking up facts about colleges that I was interested in attending online. So it's not like I was just looking up irrelevant topics on the internet, but still two hours is two hours no matter if you're looking up how to properly format your college essay or if you're looking up how to make a delicious grilled cheese. Especially once I knew I was going to HPU, I spent a bunch of time trying to prepare myself for college and life down in North Carolina by looking up college tips & tricks online. In addition to that, I created a Facebook account for the first time ever in 2019 so I could join the Class of 2023 Facebook page. Originally I told myself that I was not going to make a Facebook, but this was one scenario where I realized that joining a group page with my future classmates on social media would be beneficial for me. My thought process was that if I could connect with a few High Point students before I began my four years there, it would make me less nervous. I remember the first day I joined the Facebook page, I was just scrolling and scrolling and reading everybody's post to get to know my future classmates. For the longest time I have been the kind of person where once I am hooked on something, it will take me awhile to stop. I am experiencing that now by writing this blog post! Eventually I started reaching out to people who shared similar interests of me on various social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat and soon enough I began forming connections with people that were going to HPU with me. It was amazing being able to already create new relationships with people that weren't from my high school. Not to take anything way from my fellow classmates in high school, but I had been going to school with the majority of them since middle school and some since elementary school, so it just felt good to a different change of scenery and get to enter the next chapter of my life. That's a big reason why I was always set on going to a school away from my home state. I wanted the opportunity to REALLY begin a new chapter and just start fresh where nobody knew who I was. I have always embraced the challenge of being in new environments, meeting new people, and formulating new relationships. I think its fun and the experience of reaching out to people that I saw on social media helped me out tremendously. That is certainly one of my favorite early experiences of using social media. Sure, it saw me get back to using Snapchat, Instagram, and other platforms a lot more than I previously used them, but it was for the best and even though they were all online friends, there was a solid handful that I would wind up meeting in person once I got to college and got to hang out with them face to face. It's actually something I would highly recommend to anyone who's a senior in high school that's getting ready to go to college. Reach out to your future classmates and introduce yourselves. My 17 year old self was gradually growing with confidence, but still felt more safe and secure to just introduce myself through a screen just so I could initiate things without having to worry about the terror of face to face interaction. Being able to formulate some super cool friendships that started on social media introduced me to a positive side of the internet that I had never known before. 15 years ago, it would be unheard of being able to communicate with your future classmates in college before you all even stepped foot on campus for the first day of classes, but because our world is so digital today, we have that luxury of being able to connect with others as soon as we get that acceptance letter. I still do not think enough people have soaked that in and realize how grateful they should be for that privilege, but perhaps that will change someday. I just know for myself, that I was very grateful for it and it made my transition to college a lot more relaxed.

My Current Experiences with Technology

Today, I am using technology more than I ever have before in my life. Why? Because of my career aspirations. My ultimate goal after college is to be a play-by-play broadcaster for a major sports network/team and part of getting in the sports media industry is selling yourself online with a large presence. It's how you get noticed and honestly what makes you stand out from the rest of your competition. Now with that being said, I am not finding myself spend time on social media sites like Snapchat or Facebook anymore. I have posted maybe one post on Facebook within the past year and really only post Snapchat stories if I have something related to my sports announcing journey that I want to share with as many people as I possibly can. As a matter of fact, if you were to look at my social media platforms now, you would probably notice a trend. That trend is: Everything I post is sports related. Shocker right?! Not really. I announce High Point University sporting events on ESPN+ and on select occasions to ESPN3, so every time it's a gameday, I will post on my social media pages letting my followers know that I will be on the air and they should tune in. This all correlates to following one of the most important components of the sports media business and that is creating your brand online. I have every right to advertise myself being on a platform that was created by the worldwide leader of sports. ESPN+ was created in 2018 as a way to further enhance the way sports can be consumed. ESPN+ allows for sports fans to get access to exclusive content like live sporting events, feature stories, and more. The Walt Disney Company reported that ESPN+ had a rough estimate of 17.1 million U.S. subscribers at the end of its fourth fiscal year in 2021. My experiences of putting my sports media work out there for people to see has paid off in a variety of ways. Take my podcast The Sports Student for example. I started it in 2018 so I could get some professional experience of covering sports. Using the world of technology I was able to partner with a podcast host and get it released on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud and other major podcast streaming platforms. Shortly after, I would see the number of downloads and listeners per episode increase. A good chunk of them were my friends and family, but we talked so much about being able to track people online in class this semester, let me tell you how I was able to track people online with my own podcast! My podcast host keeps track of advanced stats of my podcast, more than just the number of downloads I am getting per episode. I am able to see from which locations are my listeners downloading from and at what time of the day as well. The crazy thing is that they have no idea, but in my case it benefits me immensely. Not because I am keeping track of these stats in a creepy way, but because part of developing a brand comes with studying what my followers are thinking and how active and supportive they are of the content that I am producing on a daily basis. I noticed that after I released over 50 episodes, I was beginning to receive downloads from random people in other countries from all around the world. Brazil, Germany, and even Uzbekistan!!! Now in 2021, I have received downloads from 17 different countries outside the U.S. and who knows how much that number will continue to increase within the next year or so. My usage of technology when it comes to managing stats and content for my own podcast has been so informative and entertaining for myself and it seems like I am finding mind boggling stats every week. 

Libsyn is the podcast host that I use for my podcast The Sports Student
and keeps track of advanced metrics such as number of downloads, 
where my listeners are downloading my podcast from, and more

In addition, I started a sports announcing page on Instagram this past year as a way to further breakdown the content I was uploading on social media. I wanted to have a way to be able to personalize my brand further and really connect with people that were interested in following my sports announcing journey. In theory, no one is going to follow my sports announcing page if they aren't interested in seeing what I have been up to. Creating that account was honestly one of the best decisions I have ever made. I was able to elaborate on my content even further. On my account I post my calls from games I announce, game notes, podcast interviews, and more. I normally do a really good job of blocking out noise and judgement from others, but before I had my sports announcing page, I would find myself questioning whether my followers really cared or were getting annoyed of me uploading something related to my sports media career every day. Especially since most main Instagram accounts that people have aren't presented as a business type account, although Instagram did incorporate a new feature into their platform a few years back that allows you to customize your account and make it a business professional account if you wish to do so. However, once I created my sports announcing page, I never had that doubt in my mind again. I still post a bunch of sports announcing content on my main Instagram because that's the real me. Not to take anything away from the people that like posting photos of them at parties or "cute" selfies of themselves, but I am a firm believer that your social media account is meant to showcase the real you in a profound and diplomatic manner. Your friends follow you because they want to see the real you. I can't even tell you how many times I see someone I know post a picture that just does not resemble who they are AT ALL. It's crazy how many times I have seen it. Too many times to count, that's all I have to say. Anyways, I have noticed with my sports announcing page especially that I have been able to attract more people to follow it since I created it. I told myself that I will never follow anyone on that page first. If someone wants to follow my page, I will let them find it and hit that follow button. I do not even follow anyone back on that account unless they are one of my broadcast partners or if they're a HPU athlete. I have been grateful to see the support from HPU athletes and coaches on my sports announcing page and even my main page. A BIG reason as to why I wanted to enter the sports media industry and why I enjoy working in it so much right now is because I have the ability to make people happy. To me there really is just nothing better than that. Sports is meant to be an escape from the real world and that's exactly the kind of message that I am actively trying to convey through my sports announcing page. I want people to look at and almost feel like they just got onto a ride at an amusement park, a ride that is filled with joyous wonders of laughter and entertainment. 

How Technology has Positively Impacted my Life

I began touching on this briefly in my last section of my current experiences of technology with my sports announcing page, but technology really has impacted my life in a number of ways. What fascinates me the most are the opportunities that are presented online. I think back to all the opportunities that I have gotten with sports announcing so far and honestly 95% of them have come through the help of technology. ESPN+ is a streaming service online, YouTube is deemed as a social media platform and the Apple podcast app allows for millions and millions of people to have access to my podcast. I started an interview series on my podcast this past summer where I brought on various professionals in the sports media industry to come and talk about their experiences working in the industry as well as to share any tips & tricks they may have for anyone aspiring to enter the industry. As you can imagine, any interview series that involves booking guests on your podcast is NOT easy. The process was long. The first step was actually finding out who I wanted to ask to come onto the podcast. I had a few names in mind but they were BIG names in the industry so it wasn’t a guarantee that I would be able to convince them to come on my show, but for a few of them I did. LinkedIn was my best friend this past summer. I used it to search and connect with various people in the sports media industry and began sending out a series of messages to people introducing myself and asking if they would be interested in coming onto the podcast. More than 75% of them said yes and more than 90% of them at least responded. A lot of the ones who said yes even admitted that they looked me up online on social media, viewed my LinkedIn and were extremely impressed with my accolades. Literally what they saw online about me played a huge factor into determining whether they wanted to join my podcast. Keep in mind that I wasn’t offering them any money to come onto my podcast, these people were helping me out through the kindness of their heart, but they only did it after they did a little “background check” on me online. Had my online search been filled with a bunch of photos of me holding alcohol or making controversial remarks on Twitter then there's no way those people would have agreed to come on my podcast as a guest. It was also my first season of my interview series so I really couldn't show the people I reached out to any previous interviews I had ever done on my podcast, so I banked on showcasing my previous episodes of my podcast as well as some of my sports announcing highlights from HPU games. I am proud that the first thing you see when you search my name online is my LinkedIn profile because I really feel like I have a very well formatted LinkedIn page with lots and lots of content that accurately depicts who I am as an aspiring sports media professional, but more importantly as a human being. I am an energetic sports lover that is passionate about broadcasting, reporting, and storytelling in every fashion I possibly can. If you search my name up, you'll also find links to my sports announcing page on Instagram, my Twitter page, and my recently created website. While I have a Twitter account, I mainly use it as a professional account to upload highlights from my games and let my followers know when I will be on the call for another sporting event. I learned from a lot of the people I spoke to on podcast as well as some of my other mentors in the sports media industry that Twitter truly is the premier platform for the world of sports media. It gives you content at a rapid pace, allows you to share your thoughts and opinions within reason, and most importantly allows you to connect with others and check to see who is and who is not a credible source. Sure, I sent out tons of messages asking people if they would like to come on my podcast, but just like how they looked at my social media pages, I looked at there's just to make sure they were a real human being and a credible source to have on my podcast. This past summer was really when I was able to fully comprehend that what’s online about you is super important and it got ingrained in my mind even more once we had lectures about it in class this semester. 

My interview with Ashley ShahAhmadi was the most 
viewed episode of season of my interview series 
as it garnered over 1K views on YouTube and more than 
3,000 downloads from various podcast streaming platforms

I was able to book a total of 21 guests during season one of my interview series, 4 of which currently cover the NBA, 2 cover the NHL, 2 cover the NFL, and then the rest are scattered across different jobs in the sports media industry whether they are working for a local sports station of they are currently a college student studying sports media with aspirations to enter the industry full-time after college. I was able to bring JJ Redick on as my season one finale guest and interview Nashville Predators Reporter Kara Hammer and Charlotte Hornets Sideline Reporter Ashley ShahAhmadi as well. Originally, I was going to just upload audio podcasts with my interviews, but I realized that I wanted to “expand” my relationship with technology by using it more for a beneficial purpose and in this case it was to start uploading video podcasts on YouTube. Uploading video podcasts meant a whole lot more work for me when it came to editing and uploading the podcast but it paid off immensely for myself because I noticed that I was getting active viewers and likes on YouTube. My interview with Ashley ShahAhmadi now has over 1,000 views on YouTube and I have had people who I don’t even know subscribe to my channel, follow me on social media and give compliments on my podcast which I am so grateful for. YouTube often gets a bad rep as a social media platform because of the hate that can easily be associated with especially if someone releases a controversial video, but I have had a very positive experience with YouTube as a whole. Having video podcasts makes my content more engaging, interactive, and accessible. My interviews are able to shine a lot more than they would have if I just uploaded audio podcasts. Now that’s not to take anything away from audio podcasts because I love them and that’s how I released over the first 100 episodes of my podcasts, but as I stated earlier, we live in a digital world today and there’s a lot of individuals out in our society who are visual. They want to see the content in front of their own eyes and my podcast has been able to deliver that and it is content that I have been able to put into my reels that has helped me land a series of internship/job offers. I use LinkedIn every single day to either share my sports broadcasting moments or connect with others and see what they are doing in their professional life. Recently, I was looking for an internship for 2022, and LinkedIn was my first resource to look for those opportunities. I found a bunch of postings with local T.V. stations close to where I'm from and near HPU, but I also found really top tier job postings as well with companies like ESPN, FOX Sports, CBS Sports, and more. I vividly remember one Sunday afternoon in October where I went on a haul of looking at internships and applying for them. I found other great sites with more sports related internship postings and applied for any that pertained of interest to me and I felt could be beneficial to my future career of working in sports. I winded up getting tons of responses back and interviews set up which all helped me lead to myself getting dozens of internship offers for 2022 that now has allowed me to have options when it comes to deciding of which offer I am going to accept. I have discussed numerous ways technology has positively impacted my life, but the fact that I am able to use it to help further enhance my overall marketability in my aspiring career is astounding. Without the internet, I would not have been able to discover any of these opportunities. I have heard some folks say that LinkedIn and other career development platforms online are a tad overrated, but I am in complete disagreement with that. LinkedIn especially is such a wonderful platform especially if you are a college student to get familiar with the real world, gain a valuable understanding of the job market, and most importantly hear and share stories that will immensely help inspire and educate others. We think so much of the bad of technology and social media, but we frequently tend to underestimate the crisp clear opportunities that are presented online and how they are so accessible in today's world. Those 15 minutes you spend online looking or internships/jobs could be the ultimate difference of whether you will end up having a yearly salary of over a million dollars or just over a thousand.

How Technology has Negatively Impacted my Life

Now while technology has tremendously had a positive effect on my life, I would be lying if I did not admit that it has put a toll of negatives on my overall well-being. For starters, because I am someone that is actively posting sports media related content online whether its sports announcing highlights, podcasts, or whatever, I do at times feel drained or overwhelmed when I am posting all that content. I know that at the end of the day its for my best interest because all the content that I have posted has allowed for me to network with so many awesome faces in the sports media industry, but it is a lot of work and I will find myself feeling tired when posting something else or putting some together that I want to put out online for everyone to see. Part of that just comes with balancing my life and taking a break from social media and technology in general which is something that I have tried to do better with especially this year. Typically, I find myself doing a couple of different activities whenever I am just trying to clear my head and get my mind off everything. Video games and listening to music are normally my go-to options, but they both involve using technology. I enjoy playing board games with friends and family to unwind and love shooting hoops whenever I get the chance to as well. I have noticed that taking break more so from social media and not technology as a whole has worked well for me. I try to limit the number of times I open Instagram to just three times per day. I had started off making it eight times, then gradually decreased the number the better I got of completing that feat. Seeing other people's posts on social media are honestly what really drives me crazy sometimes. If I see a certain post of someone stating their opinion and I disagree with it, I began to question how stupid that person is or how their opinion sucks, which makes me out to be wasting my time thinking about nonsense. I'll also find myself being reminded of a certain person or moment in my life that I try to forget as much as I can, but it's hard because I will see something on social media that reminds me about that person/moment. That is honestly why I have made the decision to begin unfollowing a lot more people on social media simply because I feel like the less people I am following the better. I would prefer to not be continuously exposed to content that is going to make my head spin. I want social media to be an enjoyable and beneficial experience for myself and not feel like I am entering a battlefield filled with an enormous amount of conflict. I found myself struggling mentally earlier this semester and having serious trouble balancing a manageable work and social life. There would be too many days where I would be running around completing all these different tasks on a back to back basis and a lot of required using social media whether it was for getting ready to announce a game, promote a podcast, or conduct research for a class project. I would feel drained and it took having some serious talks with my family of how can I find better ways to balance everything and a big answer and suggestion was limiting my usage of social media and taking more time for myself. Even if that time meant still using technology like playing video games, as long as I was taking a break from the "real world" of social media, then it would help limit my overall stress level and sure enough it did. At the time I am writing this blog, I feel like I am getting much more healthy mentally, but I still have some ways to go. Thankfully, I realized social media is not filled with all the joyous wonders that some may think its filled with and there's no way to make it that way because you as one person don't have control over a LOT of the material that gets shared on social media. However, it is realistic and manageable to find a way to stay away from certain areas of chaos and try and block out the negativity as much as you possibly can. I know I will never be able to block every piece of negativity on social media and technology for that matter, but I can try my best and at the end of the day, that's all I can ask for.

It’s crazy but it’s really true that everything you post online and on social media is fair game to judge. I know a few people that are either my age or close to it that don’t have an Instagram or Snapchat account. I remember when some of them first told me about this around last year I was thinking to myself how crazy they were for not being actively involved in the world of social media like a normal high school/college student would. However, I now understand why. Not everyone wants to document their personal life online to everybody out there. Also, it is very likely that there are hundreds and perhaps thousands of Sonia Bokhari’s out there. Bokhari was elated to finally get social media for the first time at the age of 14 until she discovered that her mother had been documenting pretty much her entire life on her own Facebook account. This caused Bokhari to feel extremely uncomfortable when she got social media because she saw all of these embarrassing and hidden pictures from her early childhood online for everyone to see. Even if it was meant for just her family members to see, it still does not defeat the purpose that photos of her were posted online without her consent. That is why sometimes you need to be careful of who you take pictures with and where because you never know where it will go. I just recently became more photogenic but I still limit myself on who and where I take pictures. Especially if I am the one NOT taking the image on my phone, then I will ask that person that took it if they plan on posting it anywhere if I think it’s something I don’t want people to see online. Thankfully, as I mentioned earlier, I try to limit my fallacies on social media and put myself in a position where I am able to accurately control what’s posted online about me. I definitely feel as though I have done a tremendous job at that as you’re not going to find any explicit images or videos of me online. Especially as an aspiring broadcaster, I am one bad image or video posted on the internet to have my reputation and career ruined before I even walk across the stage for my Bachelor’s Degree in 2023. Now, even though I post content that I believe is relevant and meaningful especially on social media, I still will get the good ol’ judgmental comments here and there. The people that will make those comments will be very discrete and oftentimes it comes over Snapchat or a private DM on Instagram. Now, I would say 97% of my feedback on social media is positive which I am grateful for, but the 3% that will make unnecessary comments never has made sense to me but it’s what comes with social media. There’s no reason to go into detail of what comments they make, but I will say that I have noticed a trend that those people are typically one’s who are envious of my early accomplishments in the sports media industry. Now if you know anything about the sports media industry, you would know that it’s one of the most competitive job industries out there, but that’s why it’s so important to network with other sports media professionals and support each other. That is why I was raving about LinkedIn, especially in my positive experiences section simply because I have met a lot of my sports media mentors and best friends through that platform. However, negativity will always exist but as one of my mentors told me this past summer, “If you’re getting hate comments, it just means you’re damn good at what you do.”

Overall Pros of Technology

Technology has a number of pros on my life and a lot of what I mentioned about my positive experiences correlates with the overall pros of technology. The whole world of technology can almost be thought of as a trip to McDonald's at 11pm on a Wednesday, it can be hit or miss. Those like myself born in 2001 do not really have a thorough understanding of what this world was like when it did not revolve around technology. Back in the 1980's and even the 1990's, if you didn't know how to use a computer, nobody would care or make fun of you. Honestly, any conversation about technology or computers would just wind up becoming a jokingly humorous discussion. Sure the future was talked about as shown in Futrama, a video we watched in class that showed a ride in the 1960's that attempted to accurately depict what the future was going to look like. It's pretty cool honestly that people back then were interested in seeing how the future was going to be. Nowadays, when we think about the future, we think about how much technology is going to continue to expand and pay an even more prominent part in our everyday lives. Back then, technology was introduced as the most fascinating thing ever and was initially advertised and used as a positive. Thankfully, some of those positive foundations of technology, social media, and the internet still exist today. Listed below are some of the most notable pros of technology...

      1. Easy way to spend time with family (Watching movies, playing video games, etc.

      2. More access to more communication with others, especially those that are from other countries

      3. More learning methods are able to be discussed and explored

      4. Improves overall efficiency for businesses

      5. More access to purchasing items online

      6. Inspires members of society to be innovative

      7. AI has brought more of a futuristic approach to technology

      8. More job opportunities

      9. Allows us to gain a proficient understanding of other cultures from around the world

      10. Saves time with various tasks including working, cleaning, homework, etc.

Overall Cons of Technology

On the flip side, technology can have a series of cons on a person's life. The life of being online and even just using the internet or technological items at all can not be very glamorous at times. As I mentioned earlier with my personal experiences, heavy usage of technology in my life has caused me to become drained and has modified my output of a life in a way I did not want it to. I have thankfully been able to manage my overall presence online, but I know it can be extremely hard for others to cope with. Technology connects the whole world together but with that comes a price tag. No, not a five million dollar one, I'm using figurative language here. I am talking about the kind of price tag that you cannot take off. Whatever you "wear" people can see the price you paid for it whether its good or bad. In this case, we are talking about the bad and how it seems like its been getting gradually worse at times online. Having a rather through insight into the professional media industry, I know some stations like to stay positive and cover the happy news, but there are also LOTS of stations that primarily focus on covering the biggest and more controversial topics which leads to heated arguments and debates online. Let's just say the negatives that are presented through the digital world we live in today are not pleasant and quite frightening to be honest. Listed below are some of the most notable cons of technology...

     1. Reduces more entry level and humanized jobs like restaurant servers

     2. Creates addiction and dependencies rather rapidly 

     3. Reduces the overall quality of human effort

     4. Very easy to copy or plagiarize information online

     5. Technological items can be extremely expensive

     6. Limits the overall privacy one has

     7. Can create serious health problems

     8. Upgrades are almost a must every single year with some sort of technological items

     9. Formulates an unfortunate social divide amongst society with all the debates/judgements that take place online 

    10. Online malfunctions are bound to happen!!!

Final Verdict & The Future of Technology 

I had the wonderful please of interviewing
the legendary Jim Nantz at the NSMA
Hall of Fame Banquet in Winston-Salem

I discussed a lot about my personal experiences with technology (the good and the bad), society's perspective on technology, but now it's time to give my final verdict on whether I think I have had a good or bad relationship with technology. The answer is.... a GOOD relationship! The ultimate factor was just me thinking about how life without technology would be like. What opportunities would I not have? Well there's a lot that I would miss out on. For instance, without technology I wouldn't be announcing games on ESPN+, I wouldn't have been able to start a podcast and sports blog, and I wouldn't have had the opportunity to take pictures and interview the legendary sportscaster, Jim Nantz!! I recently had the opportunity to interview and chat with Mr. Nantz at the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame Banquet earlier this month and it was one of the most satisfying and just flat out awesome experiences of my life. To be standing right next to and interviewing one of my biggest idols in the sports media industry just made me feel super grateful for what I do with sports media and more importantly for technology. It's not everyday people can say they interview Jim Nantz, but I did, and I did because I used technology. The camera, the microphone, everything. All of that was possible because of the feature that makes our world today. When you have memorable moments, you don't think about the bad, you think about the good. I also interview Tom Verducci, a legendary sportswriter and he said something that really stuck with me and will stick with me forever. He said "Don't try and worry about and live in the past, or the future, live in the present, and be yourself. Those words correlate so well with the overall foundation of technology. Don't worry about what happened or what is going to happen, worry about what's happening now and how you can be the best version of yourself based on that. Technology presents one thing that I feel as though many tend to underestimate and that is: Opportunity. The opportunities we have with technology are immense and make such a difference on our every day lives. I view technology sort of like you're driving a car. If you put too much on the gas and fail to use your breaks, there's going to be a lot chaos and twists and turns during your drive, but if you are managing both and having a balance when you drive and are going at a reasonable and steady pace then you'll be fine. There are actually so many great opportunities that presented through the use of technology that can truly enhance the overall quality of the human life. I am an optimist, so I choose to have that positive mindset when it comes to using technology and it has aid off immensely. I have adapted to what technology entails and that has allowed for me to form a stronger bond with technology as a whole. 

Now as to what the future has in store for technology, who the heck knows. I don’t think anyone in October of 2019 thought a COVID-19 pandemic would take over the world and completely alter the structure and interactions of our everyday lives, but it did. As a sports person, predictions are something that I make every single day when it comes to determining who’s going to win this game or that game, but with technology I don’t think you can do that. A safe bet would be to just take the Tom Verducci approach and embrace the present. All thinking about the future does is bring unnecessary anxiety and stress to one's life. Trust me I know that because I’ve made that mistake before. Perhaps we will see monkey's controlling Twitter in 2080 or Robots running electronic stores, but hey while all of that is super cool, let's not worry about that just yet. Let's worry about focusing on the good that we have now, using it to our advantage and properly analyzing our flaws and weakness of technology and social media and use it to grow and teach and learn from others. You may not know this but if you're a user of technology even if you just use it once a week, you are on a never ending roller coaster. The ride is just getting started with technology, my ride is just getting started and that's why I had so much input to say on how wild this ride has been. Writing this blog post and analyzing my overall relationship with technology has made me feel like I'm 40, but NO, I am 20!! I am a big fan of roller coasters and I'm not going to lie here, I genuinely would put this roller coaster ride of technology in my top 5. I have had my fair share of ups and downs with the digital world we are in today, but through it I have grown and learned so much from this. I will end this blog with my favorite quote which is actually perfect for this blog post. "Life is like a roller coaster, it has its ups and its downs but it's your choice whether you want to scream or enjoy the ride." For the ride of technology, I choose to enjoy it and you should too.