Navigating the negative effects of technology

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/08/2022 (1185 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We are a cause-and-effect society. When something goes awry, we immediately seek out the cause. We need to decipher what exactly led to the result, and what we can do to reduce the chances of it happening again.

This is one of the reasons stories of true crime grip the masses. When people make heinous decisions we cannot comprehend, we’re stumped. We have this need to understand motivating factors and environmental influences that led them to act with such malice.

While some researchers have been able to point to specific factors that can increase or decrease a person’s likeliness of walking down a certain path, the answers to these questions are often far-reaching and complex. We often don’t even realize the effects our environments and situations have on us, nor will we.

For example, reading about how a local politician laundered money may slightly decrease our trust in elected governments or leaders. Watching your older sibling consistently succeed in sports you’ve only dreamt of mastering may affect your self-esteem. Even spending those extra 15 minutes scrolling through social media could be impacting us more than we thought.

This is why it’s so important to take a moment to step back from your life and assess your day-to-day activities. What are you doing that’s helping you? What could be harming you? Are there things that are holding you back from being the best version of yourself? How can you remedy those things?

One activity almost everyone will identify is their use of technology, video games and social media. These things can negatively impact children’s social skills, relationships, health, and ability to focus. But we see them in everyday life without always understanding the true repercussions.

Like everything else, their impact on us is complex, diverse, and hard to clearly understand. There’s no formula that tells us how much time we can spend on Instagram before we get depressed. But we do know that overall, social media can have this effect. And with the sharp increase it its overall usage, especially for children, how can we ensure our next generation is not brought down by this environmental factor?

While we are often seen as products of circumstances, we have one very powerful tool that proves this is not always true — our decisions. They may be influenced by the world, but we also influence the world with our decisions. Every decision we make has a ripple effect on ourselves and others, empowering us to change the direction of our lives rather than succumbing to those external influences, like technology.

We make the decision of when we go online, when to log off, who to spend time with, what we say and what we’ll do next weekend. We are decision-making machines, and we often forget the power of those decisions. When we think about life-changing decisions, we usually think about marriage, relocation, or work. We don’t always realize how substituting 15 minutes of real socialization for those 15 minutes of screen time might help our relationships and overall happiness.

There are few programs that show us the importance of ethical decision-making. The BBB Education Foundation recognized this and created LIFT, an educational program that does just this. It helps youth and adults alike recognize the significance of decision-making in their lives and how they can navigate both everyday and difficult choices to create a better life for themselves and others.

“In a world populated with negative influences and circumstances, we want to give youth the tools they need to navigate turbulent tides,” said Len Andrusiak, president and CEO of the BBB serving Manitoba and Northwest Ontario.

For more information on the BBBF’s LIFT program visit bbbef.org or contact foundation@manitoba.bbb.org