Personal Narrative

Personal Narrative

My experience with technology has always been a strange one. I have always felt like there was a disconnect between my interactions with technology and other people's interactions with technology. Other people have always seemed to be more obsessed and addicted to technology than I ever have been. People act like technology- specifically social media- is an important, and even necessary part of life. If you weren't on a social network, you obviously didn't have a social life.
I started to notice people's obsession with technology early on in life- starting with my dad. My dad is an engineer who works on the GPS and tracking systems for buses. He has a work issued laptop. My dad always brought that work-issued laptop with him whenever we went on vacation. Because of the laptop's frequent appearances during our vacations, my mother facetiously decided that it must be part of the family and decided that it needed a name. So she called it Larry. Each time my dad got a new laptop from work, we would just rename the laptop to Larry the 2nd, then Larry the 3rd, then Larry the 4th, and so on and so forth. I am not quite sure which Larry we are on now, but he still remains my father's constant companion. Every morning, the first thing my dad does is go on his laptop and check up on the buses. He and his technology are practically inseparable.
It wasn't really until middle school that I started to notice that me fellow students were having a similar obsession. Instead of buses, though, they were obsessed with checking their Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. It seemed like everyone had a Facebook. I didn't get one until maybe 7th grade, but when I got it, I didn't actually use it very often. In fact, it wasn't until very recently that I started to use it with any consistency. I would go years at a time without using it and it never bothered me. Meanwhile, other people couldn't go an hour without checking their feed.
For the longest time it confused me as to how other people could become so addicted to their social media. It wasn't until this past Christmas that I finally figured it out. Their social media was so addictive because it was so easily available- it wasn't a hassle for them to access it. What changed at Christmas was that I got a new iPod Touch. Before, I had an iPod Classic Video (which I had lovingly nicknamed "the dinosaur" whenever I was around middle school students). I had been quite content with my old iPod, and for years I never thought of getting it replaced. That was, until I had bought some Doctor Who HD episodes on iTunes and found that I could not load them onto my iPod because its old systems did not support the glossy HD-ness of my Doctor Who episodes. That was enough to motivate my nerdy butt to ask for a new one. That Christmas, I got exactly that- a new iPod Touch. However, my new iPod touch did more than play Doctor Who episodes and music- I could also link up to my house's Wi-Fi and log onto Facebook via my iPod! This meant that I didn't have to get onto my computer in order to access my Facebook account- which completely changed how easily I could access Facebook. Using my computer to update Facebook was a bit of a hassle. During my middle school years, my computer was so behind on its OS that I couldn't even see the pictures or images on Facebook. When that finally got updated, I found even more problems. Sometimes, my computer would log me out as soon as I logged on to my computer, so even getting on my computer was a problem. Then, when I actually got on my computer I had to be sure to save whatever I was doing every few minutes because my computer screen had a habit of shutting off whenever it felt like it- leaving only the backlight on. Then, I would have to turn my computer off and back on again, because there was no other possible way to continue to operate the machine. I also had multiple internet problems where my computer would decide to not connect up with the internet for no reason. To top it off, my computer was extremely sluggish. All of these factors made logging onto Facebook more trouble than it was worth. My new iPod touch meant that I could bypass all of those problems completely and get onto Facebook easily. Suddenly, I found myself using Facebook more and more often. I also used YouTube more often because of the YouTube app. That is when I realized that the reason why I wasn't as addicted to Facebook was because I didn't have an easy way of accessing it. I'm still not as addicted to Facebook as other people- I think that is because I learned to live without it.
I have also noticed that I am not as addicted to texting as other people. I have easy access to texting- so that is not the issue there. I think part of it may be the fact that I am actually a fairly private person. That could also contribute to the fact that I don't use Facebook as often. I like to have time exclusively to myself, and I prefer to communicate in person. So maybe people's personalities can have an effect on their use of technology. Maybe that is a good thing. I don't think the world needs everyone to be loudly voicing their opinion to the rest of the world. Sometimes the world needs some peace and quiet.