Technology Usage and Presence

Technology is a major part of my everyday life, more so than it was even one year ago. I use my computer to write school papers, check my grades and assignments, learn about news events, and even catch up on TV episodes I missed. Most importantly, I use technology for facebook. A year ago, I did not have a facebook account, even though most of my friends already had one. I have always been the one to be more cautious about conforming to trends, so I tend to be constantly behind when it comes to trends. However, as friends started moving away to college, and people I knew but didn’t see often joined facebook, I found more of a reason to join facebook myself to keep up with their lives. This agrees with the argument that Boyd made that facebook tends to be more for students either in college or headed for college, whereas myspace is more for individuals who are not identifying themselves with those headed for college. When I finally created a facebook account, I definitely noticed the difference in the way facebook changed the way I interacted with other people. Suddenly, I was able to write one little line and have everyone I’ve ever known in any setting know what I was doing. Such contact with the world shocked me. I was not used to having my world and thoughts be so widely publicized. Similarly, I could also see what everyone I had ever been connected to was doing or feeling, even if I rarely talked to them. Despite this ability to communicate with everyone I know, I still really only talk to the same people that I would talk to without facebook. Maintaining relationships via technologies such as facebook and skype require a different type of effort. There is an increased number of ways to maintain contact with people, yet with more ways to communicate with people, I find myself communicating with them less, and when I do, it’s often with a less personal touch than I would if my only means of communicating with someone was through physically meeting or letter-writing. In my daily life, I use a variety of types of technology, but I have found that the Internet, and facebook in particular, is to blame for changing the way I relate to and interact with people.