OWE IT TO I.T.: How Information Technology has been Useful to me as an Individual

"Laziness is the mother of all human progress."

This quote really stuck with me ever since I heard it from a random anime I had watched from when I was 19 years old. The main character was so laidback it was infuriating because even when he was always chill, calm and collected, he always managed to get through any adversity that came his way. He wasn't on a high horse but you see, the protagonist's halo was prominent. While everyone was so determined to make use of the traditional approach to any problem (which usually involved violence and bloodshed in the story's context), his solutions were always seemingly out of the box, and seemingly...lazy; but that was mostly because his methods were those that technically made use of minimum effort yet posed the smallest of risks and loses.

When you think about it, that was kind of how most technologies were born: someone or some people, at several points in time in history, basically got lazy — in the case of information technology, pioneers must have considered how much of a pain it would be if data and info continued increasing in various parts of the world and then left unmanaged and isolated in their respective sources. Doing that manually, that is, would be insufferable. We still, however, owe it to the people who took on the job of developing information technology to its stable, well-established state as a body of knowledge today. These were the people who crawled and struggled in the past so that the future generations could walk leisurely in their individual journeys toward education, self-improvement and entertainment.

As defined widely on popular search engines nowadays, information technology, or "I.T.", is the use, as well as study, of systems that function mainly for storage, retrieval and exchange of information, specifically pertaining to computers and telecommunications. After our first class discussion in ELIE course, namely "Living in the IT Era" under the supervision of Professor Salazar, I was made to acknowledge that one could not consider a machine as something related to 'information technology' if it is missing either computer or communications technology components. The first lesson was enlightening, in a way, and enough to pique my interest.

I. Access to Information

I have been a student for most of my entire life and this role takes up most of my identity as an individual. It was not too difficult to realize that the crucial thing to education is the access to information. We were given reference text books back in elementary and the use of other sources was rather scarce back in the day. What was asked was within the stock of information contained in those pages. As an individual's educational level progressed, the learning outcomes required went beyond what these publications could offer and also, beyond what our mere hands could scribble on a paper with ink. Information technology, in the context of education, provided an expressway towards information as an alternative to the old-fashioned, painstaking journey through long, rocky roads of leafing through compiled texts scattered all over different, numerous places. I.T. made it possible to congregate, as well as systematize and organize, data in one place right when you need it, rendering them convenient and within arm's reach for intellectuals like me. These information are not also limited to just academic ones — like, I don't necessarily have to go to a culinary school to cook a few cuisines of complicated names, or attend crafting schools to make simple personalized trinkets; I can create book reviews, learn the basics of video-editing, and even navigate through new applications out of an outline based off an example online and the same goes for other sorts of formal and creative outputs, etc. DIYs, five-minute crafts, how-to-do's — these are everywhere. The pioneers and developers of I.T. had allowed all these numerous sets of information to be laid out on one single, smooth, compliant and versatile "page", which we simply refer to as a "screen". These highly capable individuals were basically doing a cosmos's work.

II. Entertainment and Recreation

Studying or learning is not the only facet of my life as a student where information technology is essential. My great, grand-aunt used to tell me a lot, 'All work and no play makes Juan a dull boy,' so this is where I would like to mention social media - yes, those scary virtual places, collectively a home to a diversity of people, largely reliant on what's trending or what's generated by an individual's algorithm. I really mean a lot of things when I said 'scary' but I would only highlight that I think so because of how capable social media are when it comes to letting me see what I want to see. It is like you're being scrutinized thoroughly without your knowledge; practically staring at an abyss and it is staring back at you.  I'm not a stranger to using social-media platforms. These are where I express myself and interact with other individuals that share my interests. I can also store and share my files and documents there without minding how hefty they are or how far my recipients are from me. Social media thus pose a two-edged sword where at one point they're useful for (1) telling you what is currently happening, keeping you updated regarding the whereabouts of the world around you, (2) being connected to your social groups, (3) providing you a huge space for data storage and sharing; but at the same time, they expose you to threats to your virtual security. There's also the fact that they are very addictive.

III. Transactions and Processes

Other than access to information, entertainment and recreation, I.T. also made what used to be long-winded and bureaucratic, faster and efficient. For example, this happened lately, in order to be enrolled in ASU, I had to request necessary official documents from my old university which was situated in Miagao, Iloilo. I then recently discovered that they had already developed a document request system as well as tracking. That was how I got my honorable dismissal and official transcript of records without the need to travel for total of 12 hours, to-and-fro. The waiting time was the same but at least, it saved me effort and money. The convenience was commendable and deserved a ten-out-of-ten. I’m also an avid patron of online shopping and other e-commerce platforms. They make purchasing and monetary transactions smooth, effortless; thus, less of an encumbrance.

⸺♥♡♥⸺

My use of information technology is, in general, mostly me consuming it if you look at it at one point, mainly: access to information, use of social media and logistics. At another point of view, however, the systems of information technology are also eating data off me: they have access to my location, my basic information, my face, my search history, a gist of my thought pattern and probably what I ate this morning. I tend to neglect this idea a lot because its scope is far beyond what I can control. This is usually how it is: things being two sides of the same coin, having ‘cons’ for every ‘pros’. I guess the only way to alleviate this problem is to use social media wisely such that what I could lose is worth, or even less than, what I could gain.