Texting, calling, tweeting, sending Snapchats, Facebook stalking, Instagram scrolling, playing games, the list is endless. As someone who has grown up in the age of new technology and social media, I can honestly say that I hate cell phones. These little devices that were supposed to make our lives “better” and “easier,” have made them so much worse without people really realizing it.
The madness ensued when my peers and I all started to get cell phones in middle school. At this point it wasn’t that big a deal because no one really had texting; just calling, and even that was usually limited. If you did have texting, it was probably not very useful at this time because most, or all of your friends didn’t. In this era, it wasn’t really a problem. The problems start in high school when everyone started to get more advanced phones and unlimited texting. I can remember being at friends' houses, excited to hang out with them, go to the mall, watch movies, etc., and to my surprise, none of that ended up happening. Most of the bonding time was spent on phones texting a multitude of people and no actual conversing between the two of us really went on. This change happened quite fast. It seemed like just yesterday we were playing outside from the early morning to late at night, and making our own fun, to now just sitting in the corner of a bedroom texting people that had no real effect on our lives. This is the time I absolutely dreaded. I started to distance myself from these individuals because that was not my idea of “fun.”
The next stage was smartphones. These became popular towards my sophomore/junior year of high school, and quickly rose to popularity. Along with smartphones came many apps to distract ourselves even more from reality. In high school, teachers were always telling people to put their phones away, or even ended up taking them to the office making the student pick it up at the end of the day. That seemed like the pinnacle of punishments for some people. They would rather have detention then go without their phone for the day. Even in college, professors actually have to put “no electronic devices are to be used in the classroom” on their syllabus. Yes -- that’s actual college professors telling college students that they shouldn’t be on their phones for the whole hour-and-15-minute class. Even with these syllabus warnings, I still see many of my classmates on their phones for most of the class. I know sometimes it can be boring, but you pay so much for college, so why not actually listen to what the professor is saying? They have become our security blankets.
One of my biggest pet peeves is going out to dinner with someone and they aren’t paying attention to a word you say because they are glued to their phones. It feels like whatever they are doing is more important than you, and it’s just downright disrespectful. I think it is important to note that it is definitely not just limited to my age group. Many people my parent’s age, and even people significantly younger than me succumb to this as well. I hate going to a restaurant and seeing virtually every single person eating and scrolling through their phone. Or the table of a family with parents on their phones, and the children texting, or even the little ones on iPads! It is sad to say that this has become the norm, and it has to be stopped.
While I too like to catch up on social media daily, I never truly understood the obsession behind it. I know when the time has come to put my phone down and actually interact with people. Face-to-face communication is very important, and knowing when to disconnect yourself from your electronic devices is crucial for future career and life endeavors.
With this all being said, I hope the next time you are out to dinner, or having a casual get-together with your friends, you put your phone aside for a few minutes, make eye contact, and actually have a full-on conversation with them. It really shows you care what they’re saying, and it’s just plain respectful.
