Augmentation:

1. Fitness apps/trackers help a lot of my gym-frequenting friends keep track of their physical health. A lot of my friends who work out to build muscle have to keep track of not only their caloric intake, but also what kid of workouts they’re doing as well as how many reps and sets they’re doing while they’re doing those workouts. [“Fitness apps help people easily track and visualize their progress. They also allow easy access to workouts allowing for increased freedom when choosing when and where you want to work out.” Source]

2. During the COVID-19 pandemic, without being able to use the internet and our smartphones/computers, not very many people would be able to continue getting their education, nor would we have been able to maintain some sort of “face to face” (albeit virtual) contact with our friends and family.  [“Technology has transformed life in a myriad of ways, changing the ways we work, live and relax. It has benefited society in many ways such as advancing education, entertainment, communication and health, allowing us to surpass the dreams of the generations before us.” Source]

3. I feel that because I, and so many other people my age, have grown up with the rapid advancement of technology over the last twenty years, we’ve been able to make a lot of friends through the internet (PSN, Twitter, Tumblr etc.). Due to this, I’ve been able to gain more perspective on how others live their lives in other parts of the world. I have friends from not only all around the country, but also a few that I’ve communicated with who are from places like Ireland, England and Australia. I’ve learned about how those countries go about their schooling, their politics and what their economies are like from the friends I’ve met online. [“Daniel Weitzner, principal research scientist and founding director of MIT’s Internet Policy Research Initiative, explained, “Human beings want and need connection, and the internet is the ultimate connection machine. Whether on questions of politics, community affairs, science, education, romance or economic life, the internet does connect people with meaningful and rewarding information and relationships. … I have to feel confident that we can continue to gain fulfillment from these human connections.” Source]

4. As technology has progressed, I’ve discovered that I constantly need to have a piece of technology with me at all times. My smartphone is a tool that allows me to keep up with current events – I always have a stream of news and information in my pocket for whenever I need to look something up or for when I need to see what’s going on in the world if there’s been some sort of emergency or major event. In this way, technology has been majorly helpful because without it, I wouldn’t be able to be kept in the loop and up to date as well as I currently am. [“Humans need tools. Humans need and want augmentation. And as the saying goes ‘First we make our tools, then our tools form us’.” Source]

Amputation:

1. During the COVID-19 quarantine, I found myself using my smartphone a lot more often than I usually did. I was growing increasingly anxious as the days passed, so I was always looking for something to distract me and because of this, I started to have a hard time falling asleep. Not only was my anxiety about the uncertainty of the world’s future keeping me up at night, but so was staring at my phone screen for up to ten to twelve hours a day, afraid that I might miss something important.  [“Regularly engaging in these habits has made our sleep even worse. The late-night use of devices alters our brain’s production of melatonin, the sleep hormone, which makes it harder for us to get a good night’s sleep.” Source]

2. Technology being such an important part of our society has made it more difficult to get people off of their smartphones and laptops. Most of my family and friends are always hunched over a screen, reading, watching a video or playing a game. My parents often complain about how their necks hurt because they’re constantly looking down at their phones while they’re reading their ebooks. This became so common between the two of them that my dad ended buying my mom a device she could put around her neck that would hold her phone up for her while she was reading. [“Health experts such as Dr. Robert Bolash have suggested that the constant hunching over smartphones and screens have led to muscle pain in the neck and shoulders of teens and adolescents, terming the condition ‘text neck’.” Source]

3. Even though my friends and I have all made friends with others online at some point, there is also a sense of loneliness that comes from only having contact with those online. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was especially isolating because, though it was nice to see everyone on Zoom and FaceTime, it just wasn’t the same as getting dinner with them or having them over to play cards or watch movies. [“The attachment to our devices can also leave us feeling isolated. A significant lack of human contact can even cause depression. When the majority of our interactions with others take place online we may even feel disconnected from humanity.” Source]

4. I’ve found that because I have a constant stream of information and news in my pocket, I’ll see things that will bother me for a few hours or days, but then I tend to forget about them after another disaster or tragedy happens. I believe this comes along with always knowing information that people twenty or thirty years ago either would have never known unless it was through word of mouth or by just reading about it in a newspaper. However, the people who are part of my generation are seeing the gruesome and violent images and videos unedited online and unfortunately, I feel like a lot of us have become used to seeing such images and though they disturb us, they don’t carry as much weight with them as they would if we weren’t seeing them as often as we do. [“Loss of empathy is yet another example of how technology has changed our lives in a bad way. As we become more and more accustomed to online violence, we may get to the point where it no longer even bothers us.” Source]