Is This The Best It’s Going To Get... Or Is The Worst Yet To Come?

It can go without saying that life as we know it has been forever changed by COVID-19.

Do you ever ask yourself, is this the best it's going to get... or is the worst still yet to come?

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What does this mean to you? Are you a remote student this semester? Do you celebrate holidays and milestones on a Zoom call with your grandparents, instead of making memories with them in person?

Regardless of the level of severity to which COVID-19 has altered your lifestyle, being in the COVID-19 bubble for a year now, it has become clear that technology is now a dependency rather than an amenity.

Has it gone too far? Will life be as it once was, again?

According to United Health Care's "Screen Time 2020 Report" which surveyed "employers and eye care providers related to screen time" in the Summer of 2020, it was estimated that U.S. adults, on averaged, allocated 14 hours per day to screen time (p.4). For your reference, adults averaged about 8 hours of screen time daily in Q3 of 2018, and about 10 hours daily in Q3 of 2019. The rise in screen time is an extreme catalyst in the life of an individual living through a pandemic. COVID-19 makes adjustments in the lifestyles of Americans through technology; making us dependent on our phones, laptops and tablets to get an education, have a career and communicate with our friends and family.

What has driven your screen time to an all time high?

The inspiration of this article falls upon my status as a remote student. Once a commuter student with a full time school schedule and working for my family business, I found light in the opportunity of becoming a remote student for the Spring semester. I found the importance in reallocating the time I would have used to commute, to instead further prepare for an assessment or do more research for a project, that I otherwise perhaps would not have time for.

If you are not not a remote student, here's what it is like in one word: Zoom:an application I never needed used prior to COVID 19. I take my classes on Zoom, I attend professors' office hours on Zoom, and communicate with all of my classmates for projects on Zoom. Fascinatingly enough, one of my professors only teaches on Zoom, and he lives in South Carolina; I attend Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut. Interesting, right? Clearly, the spike in screen time has risen because there is now a new approach towards the way in which we study, the way in which we perform our jobs, and more.

Once the pandemic is over, how will the influence that technology has had on our society now, affect our society in the future. I can't help but think, what will be left? How will the college experience, internships, having a career… be defined?

Technology is now a dependency rather than an amenity.