Physiological Needs

My physiological needs pertaining to technology would probably include my phone, pc, and active connection to the internet. In today’s world we can do much with devices, however most people need a connection to the internet in order to do what they wish with their devices. One time I specifically remember not having a phone connection for about a week while on vacation, and not being able to keep up with friends and current events started aggravating me towards the end of the trip. I remember finally getting connection back on the drive home and feeling the aggravation I’d held throughout the latter portion of the week fade away. In retrospect, the aggravation was pointless.

Safety Needs

While none of my personal devices have ever gotten any type of virus or other malware(to my knowledge), my parents have. I remember my Mom calling me downstairs to their PC while I was in high school and asking me if I knew how to “fix” the computer. It had adware on it and pop-ups were rampantly showing up on the screen. My Mom was extremely upset as she had work to do but was unable to due to the adware. I did a clean OS install to ensure the device was clean and briefly lectured my Mom on some basic online safety practices.

Belongingness and Love Needs

While I have no social media, I find a sense of belonging within my online friend groups that I play videogames with. I spend most of my time while doing homework in Discord calls with the same friends I play games with. The difference between studying alone in my room without anyone to talk to and studying “alone” in my room while on a call with my friends feels like a world of difference.

Esteem Needs

I haven’t had any form of social media in about three years, however I had multiple accounts throughout high school on different platforms. The reason that I ultimately decided to get rid of my social media presence is due to lowered self-esteem from comparing my life to those that I saw on social media. I have written papers in the past on the negative effects of social media, especially on younger aged individuals, and feel strongly on the subject. Social media is a powerful tool for connection, however the nature of quantified online “popularity” in terms of numbers of likes on posts and numbers of followers on accounts I believe to be unhealthy.

Self-Actualization

In terms of achieving my full potential with technology, I would say that either performing well in video games or finishing projects using technology would most fit. I feel the best with technology when I finish a project, such as when I recently set up a DNS server for my home using a raspberry pi 4. I downloaded and set up a variety of blocklists for the server and set my personal devices to use the pi as primary DNS in order to utilize the blocklists when browsing the internet, effectively blocking a large amount of ads I would normally see online.