Joaquin Junco Jr./Staff
Technology has advanced so far that we no longer have to be bothered with the mundane tasks of everyday life or what is the human experience. Convenience is obsession. Our fingertips are digital powerhouses.
Einstein was right again.
Smart phones, tablets and laptops have hindered the way we live. It is as if while everyone is busy updating social media they have forgotten to actually live in the moment. Technophiles are so busy posting online about their lives instead of actually living them. A quarter of Americans say they have missed out on important moments because they were busy updating social media sites, according to Mashable.com, a popular website that monitors social media.
Our addiction to technology is easy to see. Just put down the phone and look around.
Some people mindless scroll through their phones to get a false comfort of looking busy and social instead of actually standing alone. Southwestern is crawling with students standing nervously alone constantly checking their phones as if they have a line-up of people dying to hang out with them.
What is scary is that too many of us see this as perfectly normal behavior. That person on their phone is not really doing anything, she did not magically receive a text exactly as her friend left to use the restroom.
At first glance this may not appear too much of a negative impact, but it can. While people are using their “not actually alone” disguise, they are developing an inability to stay idle for a few moments resulting in shorter attention spans.
Phones and other technology is being used as a shield against uncomfortable situations, causing us to hide behind them whenever an awkward situation presents itself. This is teaching people that avoidance is okay and socially acceptable. It is acceptable that if people hide behind their phones when an uncomfortable situation arises, the issue will simply fade away and magically be resolved.
Friendships have also suffered from the addiction to technology. Facebook was designed with the intent of making connecting with others easier. Although it may be easier to stay updated on our friend’s lives, people are spending too much time scrolling through their newsfeed instead of actually going out and interacting in person with their friends. Instead of making new memories with friends, people are scrolling and clicking their lives away.
Parenting has also changed with the advancement of technology. Parents are relying on technology as their on-call baby sitters. Too may times have mothers and fathers dropped an Ipad or Iphone in front of their small children to keep them entrained, and not making a fuss and getting in trouble. Technology has become a substitute parent for some children. While tablets and other gadgets can provide children with early learning, they cannot meet a child’s physical and emotional needs they must have to properly develop. Giving children technology at an early age can cause a visual and auditory sensory overload, while causing other parts of the brain to be under stimulated and become under developed.
Older children and families can suffer from technology. It used to be that family sit down dinners were disrupted and replaced with families sitting in front of the TV together and eating dinner. Now our phones have disrupted family dinners. Families often sit around the dinner table, at home or in a restaurant, with their phones in their faces. Again, scrolling their lives away. At least when families were in front of the TV, they were doing the same thing and they could converse about the show. With phones, everyone is doing their separate things, causing families to live different lives under the same roof and with their own agenda, instead of being an actual family. When someone does try to bring up a topic for discussion they are often met with idle responses from their family members.
Technology is fantastic, in small appropriate doses. People need to learn when it is appropriate to use their tech devices, and when to put it away and simply enjoy what is happening now.
