Blog Post #8

 The technology that I want to highlight today is the iPhone and the innovations that have stemmed from its creation. The most impactful of those being, in my opinion, social media; specifically TikTok. Let's start at the beginning though. The iPhone gained its popularity due to its design being unlike any other smartphone in the world at the time. Not everyone was an early adopter though. Some people wanted to stick to features they were used to such as physical keyboards while others embraced the new changes. Nowadays, some people prefer phones from other brands such as Samsung for its user customization. 

Diffusion, as described in its Wikipedia page, is "a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread." This idea can certainly be attributed to the rapid spread of TikTok. I witnessed this first hand. Being part of a younger generation, I heard about this platform in elementary school under the name "musically." Years later the app was rebranded and gained much more popularity. While the news began to cover it and adults started downloading, my peers and I had been in the know for quite some time. 

As I mentioned earlier, TikTok is the one social media with the most notoriety in the modern day. Despite that, I personally do not use it. I never used this app because I already spend enough time on my phone as it is. Adding another social media app that takes up my time and attention would not benefit me in any way. I realize that I would receive some benefits had I chose to use this app. The main one is that I would be up to date with recent trends that my peers are all aware of. Instead, I find myself unable to understand references they make in day to day conversation. All in all though, I don't believe that the positives outweigh the negatives. As I mentioned before, spending hours a day scrolling would be an overall detriment to my life. I believe that the cost-benefit analysis can only be done personally. Each individual decides what they spend their time doing.