Final Post

    Technology has always been present in my life. It started off relatively small and non influential; mainly in the forms of TV or movies. My mom made sure I didn't spend my childhood in front of a screen. I was maybe allowed an hour or two at most with the TV before I was told to either go outside or play with my toys. This trend started to die out in middle school when I got my Xbox One for Christmas. I installed it in my basement, so that I wouldn't hog the TV in the family room. This would also put me out of my parents eyes, so they wouldn't notice how long I would be playing for. Initially, the time I spent on it grew slowly.   

  About two years after I had received my Xbox One, I found the game Fallout 4. That summer, I probably managed to put ten to twenty days worth of time into that game. My parents, especially my mother, had begun to notice the hours I was putting into the game. My mom would soon pose to me the question, is my relationship with technology healthy? I could probably acknowledge that I spent too much time on the console, but my middle school stubbornness wouldn't let up. My grades were good, I did my chores when told to, and I played basketball at my school every winter season. I thought those reasons were good enough to offset the amount of time I spent on my Xbox. On average, I was spending around four to five hours on a weekday with five to seven over the weekends. 

    Looking back, I can tell that I suffered from some unintended consequences. I definitely became more anxious, my grades were good but never great, and I did cut myself off from my family a bit. I have taken some steps to improve this unhealthy relationship with technology. I've employed time limits on my phone, I've been more communicative with my family and friends, and I just try to take a break from it during the day every now and again. Instead of eight hours on the Xbox it now looks like an hour on the phone, and five hours on the computer. It is an improvement, but there is still work that needs to be done.

    While my time management was egregious, my experience overall was not all bad. I was able to get closer to some of my friends by playing games we shared. To this day, when we are together, we will think back to those times and reminisce about those days. I also had access to games with rich stories that influenced my taste in media to this day. These games would sometimes ask hefty questions about morality, life and death, or self worth. 

    I feel that regardless of your experience with technology, unhealthy amounts of screen time has slowly been accepted in society. Obviously some people are still opposed to it, but how much screen time are people getting while in school or work? According to BMC most children are already spending too much time on screens. I think technology has just incorporated itself into nearly all aspects of life, making it difficult to police how much screen time everyone gets.