Everyone has either heard or made the complaint that our generation is glued to their phones 24/7. People between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five cannot leave the house, let alone function without them. The people making these complaints are typically the parents or grandparents of these young adults.
However, I know a number of people within the phone-obsessed age range who also sneer when they see a young couple idly flipping through their phones rather than talking. The people making complaints often speak of mystical days when there was no such thing as cell phones, and that they had to make actual face-to-face contact with people rather than through an impersonal text message.
What the complainers may not always consider is that many of us also lived a decent portion of our short lives without cell phones. I can still remember playing outside as a child, and having to call my friends on the house phone or using a payphone to call home when I was at camp. Those days really are but a memory now, and I personally do not see any use in lingering over the olden days.
Many things that have happened in the past should not be brought back to the surface. I do not need to mention them, because that is not the topic of the article, but one can see what I am trying to say. Things in life change and grow, whether or not they are for the better. But is the reliance on technology truly that horrible of a change in our everyday life?
I certainly do not need to illustrate the plethora of services that phones now provide us with, but those who have almost nothing good to say about phones do need to realize the advantages of being “so connected”.
As a college student, I am expected to check my email regularly. Otherwise, I would not know many of the upcoming events on campus, last minute class cancellations and alterations, or other campus-wide announcements.
Many students do not have time to run to their room or the library to then log onto a computer and then log onto their email, therefore, just poking at one’s phone to see if anything has changed provides so much convenience. This is also most likely the case in the workforce, where a person must be connected in order to be in the loop with any sudden changes.
That being said, I also value being disconnected from the land of technology. I think that it is extremely important to leave the cellular device behind for a few hours, if not a whole day. I have tried it many times, and I find that I feel a sense of freedom and relief because I do not feel the urge to constantly check every social media every five minutes, or just because I am bored.
I feel that it is healthy to just take a mental break from the busy and nosy world of the internet, and take some time being around others, in the now. Sure, it is easy to roll your eyes at the group of girls huddling in front of a coffee shop trying to take a photo, but overall it is none of your business.
I believe that although people’s use of their cell phones can appear trivial to some, people need to learn that if it is not directly affecting them, then they do not necessarily need to worry about it.
