A Teenager’s Perspective on Technology

Mateusz is a 14 year old junior high student with an interest in technology and computer programming, he currently writes programs in Python and Java. He also has a keen eye for new technologies and is interested in motorization and dog training. Mateusz understands how to balance his offline and online life.

He has a dog, a Border Collie, which he enjoys taking his dog for walks and teaching him various tricks in his spare time. He owns a recreational off-highway vehicle, also known as a UTV. Under the supervision of his grandfather, he practises off-highway driving and he often turns it into parts, cleans and reassembles it himself.

As our youngest ever guest post writer, we would like to thank him for being so open-minded and professional in his approach to the subject matter. It is also worth noting that English is Mateusz’s second language, which we feel makes this essay more impressive. 

We know that many young people don’t remember a time before technology. However, Mateusz is a young man who, despite constant access to new technologies, is at the same time able to understand the potential risk facing young people nowadays and we’re really excited to share his writing with you. 

It’s important to listen to and acknowledge the technology users of the future, now.

Technology is developing day by day. More and more information about people is collected. Sometimes it helps us, and sometimes just the opposite. In my essay, I will show some of the major risks associated with new technologies. 

Social media can be addictive.

My first example is social networking, which is definitely the most popular kind of app among teenagers. Social networking enables us to contact our friends from the whole world and gives us some entertainment, but it has some minuses. We share too much of ourselves online.

Every day we hear that there are more and more addictions caused by social media. Teenagers are the most exposed group. While using social media you can relax and have a good time. However, it’s very risky because you can easily lose contact with real life. 

For example, if someone addicted to social networking is walking next to the road and is scrolling through some social media feed, they can easily lose contact with real life and suddenly break into the roadway, which can be very dangerous. 

People have to be very careful not to become addicted to social media. In order to prevent possible addictions, it is a good idea to limit the time of use of social media during the day to the necessary minimum.

You can try to do something else instead:

• Walk the dog.

• Do an activity alone or with your family.

• Read a book.

• Write down your ideas and dreams.

• Exercise.

• Draw or paint something.

• Go for a walk.

• Try to grow something, like tomatoes!

Advertising is everywhere.   

The second example I would like to share with you is advertising, which is very persistent and sometimes even harassing, because if you want to play free games every second on your screen pops out an advertisement. 

Online, it’s similar to how it is on the TV, when you are watching movies or shows on different channels. The number of commercials displayed on TV between programs is getting longer and longer. It can be hard to enjoy TV anymore because of this so people prefer to watch everything online, without ads.

For example, commercials on Polsat (a Polish television channel) sometimes take up to 15 minutes. Sometimes personalized advertising (also known as targeted advertising) can show us cool things that can interest us. 

Imagine that you have previously viewed some product categories on Allegro, but you can’t decide what to buy, and playing free games on your mobile phone pops out an ad with a product that will interest you. It happens very often. 

To prevent getting nervous by ads you can install so-called ad-block in your browser and no ads will appear. I have been using this program for several years and it works perfectly. 

You’re being followed by companies, online.

The last example is tracking. Today the biggest problem after getting addicted to social media is tracking us, we’re being followed by big companies. They are collecting data about each of us. This usually happens because of the search engine and internet browser. 

These pieces of information include our location, so that companies purchasing such data can analyze our habits or places where we like to be or where we live. This allows them to redirect personalized advertisements to us. 

Of course, this can be helpful, for example when parents have the opportunity to check the location of their child for their safety. But on the other hand, such data may give rise to the desire of some people to use it illegally.  Nowadays, unfortunately, we are not anonymous.

The topic of addiction to social media and the collection of peoples' data is very broad. In my brief essay, I wanted to shortly emphasize the main problems that people need to cope with nowadays. Growing up with technology is in some ways very useful but we still need to be careful not to provide too much information about ourselves because it can be used against us.

Thanks Mateusz!

We hope you found this essay interesting. How do you feel about social media addiction? What about advertising and tracking? Let us know, we'd love to hear from you!

If you’re interested in sharing your experiences with us or writing a guest post for us, send us an email via hello@mudita.com! Please feel free to get in touch via social media (send us some photos or videos too), you can find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, let’s connect! 

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