Affects of Technology on Life

The ever forerunning inventions of new technology leads the way to the future. Technology already controls most life today, almost everyone has a cell phone and uses social media. Before the invention of social media and cellular phones, how was life different and how has their inclusion now affected daily life for people. If you look at life before cell phones, there was something else taking up peoples times, television. There has always been some kind of technology that has changed the way people have lived and it has seen as a bad thing with how much time people are putting into it and now is no different. 

Personally, I have relatively average relationship with technology, I do think that I am on some form of it a lot, but I do not think it has a massive affect on my life. I still enjoying going out to do things with my friends and family that is not online and most of the time, I am conscious of the amount of time I am spending on technology. I use things like my phone and computer mostly for work or entertainment but I do find a lot of information on these things. I enjoy looking at instagram and I see a lot there, I normally don't have an issue with finding out if something is true or not because of the accounts that I look at are normally very trustworthy. If I do happen across a thing of news that seems weird or possibly untrue, I can normally look into the comments of the post to see reactions from other or if I don't want to do that, I can find posts from other accounts to verify the truth. 

In regards to social media, I know that what I put out online is extremely important and I am very careful about what I put out, what I say and who I interact with. This isn't only because I know that my informations could be taken, but I know that at my age, I am probably most vulnerable to post something on social media that affects my future. This is especially important because businesses are now looking into social medias as a way to see what their applicants are really like. An article by Business News Daily goes into more detail about how companies look you up on all different social medias to see who you know, what you post and all different things about a person. I know right now, this does not affect me because my social medias are pretty clean, I only post about once a year on my instagram, don't use my Facebook or Twitter and most of my information is lacking on those sites. 

Overall, I think I understand the power of social media, and the power it has on my image and how it can affect my future. I keep my information relatively private on social media as well as make sure that I retain a clean and proper image of myself to show to others.

The Age of AI

 In todays world, everything is online. Everyone has some kind of social media whether that is a Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat. With these app come a virtual footprint and a virtual life, people put a lot on the internet. You can find all about someone by getting into an account or just by looking at the contents of the persons accounts. With all of the information people have online, it makes it quite easy for people to use your identity online. Identity theft is a surprising common occurrence in the US, 47% of Americans had experienced identity theft in 2020. This is a number that is constantly rising every year and represents both the possible weak privacy that people have, or the strength that cyber hackers are gaining. 

There are places that say they are safe places for your passwords and privacy, but how can you really trust these places. People are scared of hackers getting their information so they would rather give passwords to  these larger business that say they can protect their information. Google is promoting their new plan on promoting their security and how you can trust Google with passwords and accounts and your personal information. This may seem safe, but Google can get hacked as well, and not even just that, you are giving your information out to strangers. Google and Google accounts are constantly under fire from hackers, with plenty of accounts being corrupted by these cyber attackers. 

The main issue with the possibility of cyber attacks isn't just the possibility of identity theft, but also the amount of information that a person can know about you and possibly sell to others puts you in danger at any point. This doesn't just involve giving your information to a big company, whenever you have a password or account, you can always be at risk with your security. It is always fun having a public account, that anyone can see and you can interact with anyone, but you also lead to the possibility of others finding information on you or acting like you.

I know from personal experience that there are sometimes accounts on instagram that will find a girl, make a fake account of her, follow who she follows and acts as if it is a second account. This account will say that they have a link in their bio for more inappropriate things and then it is just a way to hack into other accounts. This is a real danger because the account that is made uses the same pictures that are on the public account, so it looks more realistic and people who aren't paying much attention can be damaged by it as well.

Cyber security kind of a myth, it is almost impossible to be completely protected online, especially if you post things about yourself or give your computer important information. There is always a chance that you can be hacked and things can be found out about you. The only real way to protect yourself online is by giving information, but not enough where damage can really be done to you or the ones you know.