Essay Finalist: Ariana Bello
Ariana Bello from True North Classical Academy was one of our top essay finalists. She wrote elloquently about her experience with technology at the intersection of ethics. Her writing truly moved us and we invite you to read from her essay featured below.
Eassay from Ariana:
I used to think that my reflection only lived in the mirror. That it stayed there, behind glass, waiting for me. However, now I feel that my reflection lives everywhere. On phones. On cameras. In pixels and profiles and posts. Technology, once a tool for connection, has become a force that waters down our lives into carefully edited performances. As a high school student grappling with coming of age, this side of technology has made figuring out who I really am much more complicated.
The biggest challenge I face with our current treatment of data and technology is not just the overwhelming amount of information, but the pressure to become it. Our lives are increasingly reduced into trackable habits, curated content, and algorithm-fed identities. I see it in myself and in the friends I love, in the way we second-guess our value based on metrics: likes, views, reach. When I was first diagnosed with epilepsy, I had to confront my physical limits. Now, I find myself navigating a different kind of seizure, particularly one where technology distorts identity into scattered reflections.
I am not alone in feeling this way. A classmate once told me she deleted her entire TikTok account because she could not recognize herself anymore. “It was like I wasn’t me,” she said. We laughed at how absurd it was, but I think we both knew it was not a joke. The version of ourselves that technology reflects back is often the one we think people want to see, not the one who stares quietly into the mirror at 2 a.m., wondering if they are enough.
These experiences have made me deeply aware of how data and technology can distort reality and dull genuine connection. The danger is not just surveillance or privacy breaches, though those are also very real, but a kind of ethical dilemma where we begin to view ourselves and others as consumable content instead of human beings. In our desire to be seen, we have stopped considering whether we are being truly understood.
To resist this, I started small. In my school's Film Club, which I founded and lead, I encourage members not just to analyze plot or cinematography, but to reflect on what the film reveals about our humanity. We ask: How does this character resist objectification? What truths are being told beyond the screen? I also teach screenwriting basics, guiding peers to write from places of rawness and reality. In a world obsessed with branding the self, writing has become a quiet rebellion.
Outside of school, I began journaling offline. I do not post everything I create anymore. Some poems stay folded inside drawers. Some paintings never leave their canvas. These choices may seem insignificant, but to me, they are a way of knowing myself without a spectacle.
In the future, I hope to explore ethical media literacy programs, especially for young students who are growing up entirely immersed in digital culture. I want to design workshops that blend philosophy, art, and technology, creating spaces where students can question the systems shaping their self-image. Questions like: What does it mean to “exist” online? Who owns our data? How do we remain whole in a world of fragments?
But I cannot do this alone. Educators, schools, and organizations have a vital role in creating environments where students are encouraged to think critically about technology rather than mindlessly consume. Curriculum should include not just digital skills but digital ethics. We need to question “How ought we live?” and ask it with as much urgency as “How do we code this app?”
I have been fortunate to have teachers who understand this. In one class, a teacher and I spoke about my favorite philosopher Simone Weil and the idea of attention as a moral act. He summarized her ideas, explaining to me, “To really see something, to really attend to it, is to love it.” I believe the same is true of ourselves. When we attend to who we are beyond data, beyond the noise, we begin to love more truthfully. We start to live less like content creators and more like human beings.
The issue with technology is not just in wires or codes, it is in the mirror it holds up to us. If we are not careful, we begin to see ourselves only through it. But we are more than our reflections. We are stories and souls not made for display.
And so I write. I reflect. I resist. Not loudly, but faithfully. Not to escape the world of data and technology, but to humanize it. To remind myself, and maybe someone else, that behind every screen is a soul still learning how to be seen.
