INF103 Week 1 Discussion 1 How Do You Currently Use Information Technology?

Technology has an impact on everyone in the world today, both positive and negative. Information technology has significantly increased in the past two decades, and parts of the world have still not quite caught up. I am currently living in Myanmar, and the way technology affects them compared to America is very different yet similar in many ways. They are not equipped, nor have they been equipped with technology for as long as we have. For instance, roughly five years ago, phones were not a thing here. A single SIM card costs roughly $1,000 and sometimes even more. Bowels states (2013), “We all know how easy it is to stay in touch with our loved ones with cellphones. However, this communication technology also connects us to people throughout the world, ending our isolation in even the most remote areas on earth.” Now, almost everyone has a phone in this country other than remote villages around the country because a single SIM card costs less than $1. This is due to the supply and demand for technology nowadays.

Information technology, in specific, impacts my daily life in many ways. As the professor stated, I do not think I could live without my phone or laptop. Our phones hold a variety and, if not most, of our information. Our phones can be described as a virtual extension of ourselves. It has countless amounts of data, whether it’s my bank account, messages, people I talk on the phone with, or even recent stock market trades I have made. Not to mention everything I’ve seen from around the world is stored in my phone, and it is stored the same I’ve seen it, in some cases probably even better. I use technology from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed, it’s my alarm, how I set appointments, communicate to people all over the world, and how I’m even writing this paper. It will continue to be embedded in not only mine but all of our ordinary lives, and I believe it will consume our lives, even more, when everything becomes “smart.” We rely on technology to do everything for us, which is a direction we’re already headed in.

References

Bowles, M. D. (2013). Introduction to digital literacy [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/