Andreas Sandoval
NMD 200 Project 1
10/02/2019
The Problem: tech/Internet usage and addiction
A lot of people use the internet day by day and for some people and it can become a problem with it being excessive use or just being straight-up addicted. Being addicted to the internet seems kind of vague because it can mean a lot of things, but what I’m trying to say is being addicted to things you can do on the internet like online games, social media, watching cat videos, etc. This is important to me because there can be some people that are so addicted to the internet and are too busy living in the digital world to fully enjoy what is going on in the real world. The whole purpose of this redesign is to make people realize that there is more to life than just looking at a screen or seeing who is liking your latest social media post. I think it would be a huge benefit to our society if there is minimal tech/internet usage in the near future.
In journal three I talked a little bit about how excessive internet usage can hurt your mental health and how it isn’t good period. internet usage can make it so you don’t get a lot of sleep at night and I can say that I fell victim to that because there would be nights where I would be watching youtube until 3 am and not realize how late I was staying. My sister and friends would do this as well because there would be days where they would half-asleep in class or couldn’t understand what I’m saying because they were so tired. The internet also affects our brains as well with social media being a good example. The article I read mentioned something about how the more we use social media the more we train our brains to produce dopamine only when we get a like on a post or when someone adds us as a friend instead of us producing it naturally. There have been moments on social media where I would post a stupid joke or something semi-interesting and would always get that little rush of dopamine when someone would like the post. This topic, in general, is really interesting to look at because I never knew how much technology and the internet are affecting us physically and mentally. Our society has adapted to this age of tech and now almost everyone is connected and I see it almost everywhere like when I’m walking to class, eating with friends, or at home with the family. Everyone including me is looking at their phones every chance that they get and it can be considered a problem and this is why I’m hoping that this redesign can benefit these types of people in some way.
What I’m trying to redesign is the way we use the internet because if we can lessen the lengths people use it then maybe, just maybe our society can try to stray away from all the tech we use on a day to day basis just a bit. I do say though that the internet is great and it holds a lot of benefits, but it doesn’t something we have to use in our lives all the time. To see what we can do to redesign this platform we need to see the types of pros and cons that it holds
Pros:
- Great for accessing information and learning new things. It is always handy when you want to know more about something like tigers
- It is great for business especially the local ones because since the internet is worldwide you can get your store out there for millions of people to look at if you advertise it
- The internet is a great place for entertainment like watching videos on youtube, playing online games, posting pictures of your dog to your friends on facebook. There are plenty of ways to entertain yourself on the web
- The internet makes online shopping and banking a breeze because instead of having to go to the bank to check the balance on your savings you can just sign in to their website and see how much is in your account from the safety of your own home. Shopping is also the same way you can get a new pretty much anything you want with a click of a button and have it shipped to your house fairly quickly
- What’s great about the internet is the collaborative aspect of it. Google docs is a great example because it’s so nice being able to work with my classmates without having to be in the same room all the time. I can just type on the document in my free time and my classmates will be able to see what I typed whenever they log on.
Cons:
- The Internet can be a dark place at times especially when it comes to the bullying and crime aspect of it. People end up doing it because they know they can’t get caught or they just feel safe behind a screen.
- It can be a huge time waster or distraction for people. I know there have been plenty of times where I say I’m gonna go to bed but end up saying one more video then check to see that it’s 4 a.m.
- it makes it so people can never disconnect from their work life. People will end up getting emails and text messages from the workplace and end up taking the time to read and answer back to whatever it says
- Privacy is a big issue these days because if you are not aware and lack common sense on the internet there can be people who can hack into your computer and steal important information like passwords banking info, personal data, social security number, and much more. It can be pretty scary
- It can affect people’s attention spans and cause them to have a lack of patience. I’ve seen studies that show that our generation have shortened spans due to technology and the internet being a major thing in our day to day lives
- Another bad thing is it can cause individuals to become depressed and self-conscious. With social media being a huge thing in this day and age, there are plenty of teens who try hard to live up to the unrealistic expectations of their social media profile instead of just being themselves.
What I want from this redesign is to make it so people are less inclined to look at their screens for the majority of the day and be more inclined to go outside and enjoy what life and nature have to offer. There are some people out that have a huge dependency on their phone and tech in general and just maybe if they have a restriction to that feature then they could train their brains to use it less.
A way that I’ve been thinking for a while to combat this issue is to have some sort of software that comes preinstalled on your computer and is a mandatory setting. How you set it up is that when you usually fo through your phone set up you can set times that fit around your schedule and when it is between those certain time frames it completely disables social media, the internet, and anything that can be a distraction on the mobile device.
This will make it so it limits the person to their phone usage and help them to not be so dependent on their tech or then internet all the time and try to go out and discover things in the real world. I know this redesign can be a bit troubling for students and employees, so I was thinking of implementing features like study and work mode and what these features do is allow you internet access so you can do whatever you need to do for that assignment or the thing for work while still disabling all the rest of the distraction on your phone. Not only do I want the user to be more inclined to go outside, but I want them to have a better well being because the internet and technology has had a huge impact on our mental health and if we can limit ourselves to those amenities then I believe that we can become better people
References
“What Are the Disadvantages of the Internet?” Computer Hope, 2 Aug. 2019, https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001810.htm.
“What Are the Advantages of the Internet?” Computer Hope, 2 Aug. 2019, https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001808.htm.
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