The Age of Technology

Technology has come so far in the last century, it's amazing. Even in my 3 decades on this earth I've seen a significant change. I remember sitting at my dad's Macintosh waiting minutes for netscape navigator to dial up and load a page. Now I get aggravated if my smartphone takes more than a second to load. Haha. Luckily I've always had a computer and the internet, but not far before people were using typewriters and the public library.

Yes we're in an age of technology, but even more so we're in an age of Social Media. From Facebook to Instagram to Twitter to YouTube and so forth it's definitely a main part of our current society. I won't deny that I rely on social media, but at what point is it dulling our society. Before It was a way to keep in contact with friends, now it's spammed up with ads, and mindless clickbait. And everyone is a "star". I'm convinced that kids these days are born with 10k+ Instagram followers. I can't even get past 200, and I was the first generation of MySpace! Haha.

It's great to browse people's photos, I find myself doing it for hours, but no one actually engages. We're creating a shallow generation that are only focused on "likes" and "views" and who have the opportunity for making money by taking selfies and contributing nothing of value. Making a living by being popular. If you haven't watched Black Mirror, check out EP301 "Nosedive". It's not too far off from the truth of where we're heading.

And then we have Steemit. Still in it's infancy, it's becoming a lovely platform of engaging and creative people contributing actual content. I've been using it to engage in a lovely photography community, but it's got any and all topics. I'm so happy I've found steemit. I would like to see a better search and organization from the site, but I honestly don't want it to go mainstream. I feel like if it does, it will become as shallow as the rest of Social Media.

Right now I'm in a lovely group of photographers playing the @photogames. The games we play keep us creating and learning from each other. Doesn't matter if you're experienced or just starting out, this group is always keeping us doing something new. #fixitfriday is a staple and should stay a weekly game, but I'd like to see more new games and assignments. Different games each week to keep us learning new skills. I know it's called the Photo Games, but I think of it more as a community run photography class. It would be nice to use the Discord channel to volunteer as a Photostar when you have something you want to teach and create a game for it. Les learn together and help one another grow! :)

-Maya

*PS-I got the typewriter from my grandmother's house. Probably my Great Grandfather's. It's an Underwood Standard Portable Typewriter. Kinda like the laptop of typewriters. Haha. They were manufactured from 1919-1929.