Digital Literacy & Responsibility

Early Experiences in a Digital Era

     I was a very curious boy when it came to emerging technology such as the internet, video games, online movies, music and content as well as cellular phones. I grew up very much in the cutting edge of the digital age, so it was always something I encountered and naturally grew accustomed to the 2000's. However, growing up with that huge resource came with a lot of challenges, and responsibility. While I faced a lot of these challenges, I was not always alone, I had the help of my mother who had a large hand in informing me of the responsibilities of using this digital resource. 

    One of my first failures and lessons was accidentally purchasing games on my mother's cell phone without my knowledge that it was charging her real life bank account. Seemingly a novel mistake, affected my mother's responsibility of providing for her son's needs, and left her temporarily struggling financially to put food on the table by herself.  

    When I was a teenager, I also faced challenges with social media, and receiving my own cell phone. I formed bad habits with interacting on social media, accessing negative content that influenced my real life perception in high school, and struggled socially. I experienced depression and anxiety as a teenager online coming from body image challenges, to hurtful comments made by strangers, and people I knew, to embarrassing myself on social media, that carried into my real life in high school. 

    Because the 21st century digital age is still in it's infancy, there were no widely available resources for digital literacy, media literacy and positive online habits. While I had tools to discover so many online tools, and developed computer literacy, I had no tools to realize my negative habits online, recognize how those habits and behaviors affected my real life, and how to manage my emotional response to negative content online. 

    There was a side of my development that believed I knew how to navigate the internet, and how to thrive in the digital age because of how I could easily interact and solve problems for not just myself but for others. 

Family Tech Support

    Yes, I was, and still am that member in the family that could solve every problem, troubleshoot any tech issue, or perform some random task that members in my family didn't know were even possible.

    My family had the belief that I had a natural gift for computer literacy, because I grew up in the digital age, and spent most of my early life with computers, hardware devices, software and digital tools. Part of me believed that was true, but I mostly thought of myself as that person who knows to "turn it off - and turn it back on again". Now I recognize that I grossly underestimated myself, and having met more people, have more experience in my adult life, have seen how many people don't have the same natural inclination for technology, and are in my same age group. 

    As a young teenager, I could handle so many digital tasks, converting videos to mp3's, handling complex audio difficulties, convert word documents to PDF, solve connection issues, all of these super helpful solutions to problems, still a lot of people wish they could solve. This is a good thing, and I shouldn't undersell my ability to solve problems in tech, and it's one of the skills that led me to my passion for electronic music production. 

Digital Literacy & Responsibility

    Digital literacy is so much more than having a skill to navigate the digital world, solve tech issues, work your way around popular programs and software, and sending emails to business partners. It's all about managing how to be a responsible adult in the digital world. It is how to communicate, and collaborate with others, how to solve problems with critical and creative thinking, while also knowing some problems do not have solutions. It's about being aware that because the digital age provides so many amenities and resources that were not possible before, meaning there is a greater amalgamation of content on a spectrum from harmful to helpful. 

    Digital literacy is being able to be skilled with interacting digitally, while also being emotionally responsible, avoiding impulsive sharing, promoting positive social change, and knowing when your actions online can affect your real, physical life, while also knowing that it can impact others' lives. There is a huge responsibility while interacting in an increasingly digitized era.

    Digital literacy is an extremely important skill, possibly the most important skill of the 21st century, and something I've realized that I am passionate about sharing with others. I had a very hard time growing up with a skill that I couldn't manage how to navigate emotionally and responsibly, and that led to many mistakes that impacted not only myself, but those around me. This was a topic that was at first glance something I was already familiar with, but upon further research and critical thought, gave me a realization about myself growing up in a digital age. I'm grateful that I came across the topic in my ITEC 315 course, and that I got to reflect deeply on this topic while also learning new things.  

    As always, if you'd love to support me and other artists from the Bay Area; Listen to music produced and engineered by Aux on Spotify here: