Go on a walk today, as you wander about outside you may see people looking at the beautiful snow, the shiny winter blue sky, or the snowcapped mountains. They are looking at all this beauty that nature has to hold, but they are not looking up to see it. Most people are looking down at a 3.5 inch glass screen to see their world.

As I walked to class this fall I kept drifting off the sidewalk into the mud because I was preoccupied with looking at the changing leaves of the trees. As I passed people I also noticed they were doing the same thing, but it wasn’t because they were looking at the trees, their eyes were glazed over staring at their phone.

I will not pretend that I am not guilty of looking at nature or using social media on my phone. I try my hardest not to use my phone while I’m outside so I can enjoy nature and being alive, but this got my thinking, why are we glued to our cell phones?

Our handheld devices can access the internet almost anywhere in the world and is literally all of human knowledge in the palm of your hand, but it is not used to gain knowledge. We seem to use out smartphones to send text messages or snapchats instead of furthering our intellectual knowledge. Perhaps we are compelled to always keep in touch with our friend in the back of the same class we are in, or maybe we are addicted to finding the next hilarious video on Facebook.

In either scenario, there is clear evidence that we are attached to our devices. At some point in your life I hope you get the same epiphany I did about our phones. We are ignoring the beauty all around us for the next update on social media.

When I near the end of my life, I don’t want to look back in reminiscence and regret missing so much due to my phone.