I know, I know every kid you've met that has gone abroad begins half their sentences with "When I was abroad..." but this is different, I promise. While abroad, I traveled to tons of interesting places and took lots of really cool pictures. When I was stateside again, everyone wanted to see my photos and hear the tales of my European travels. Social media and technology played a huge role in how I interacted with friends and family at home while I was gone and proved very useful when I was feeling lonely.

I was talking to an old friend, going through the routine of pictures and stories I had gotten used to sharing when he asked me a seemingly simple question: "You took some great pictures, but what did you see?" This questions stumped me to say the least. I had just sat with him for the last 20 minutes talking about Europe and showing him a million pictures, what wasn't clear? I had seen a lot! Immediately, I reached for my phone to pull up my never-ending camera roll of pictures before I started to understand what he was asking. What did I see? He wasn't asking to see the pictures I snapped through a lens, he wanted to know what saw. He wanted to know the types of people I interacted with, the culture, food and atmosphere of the city. He strove to understand the experience in my own words, not see it on a 4.7" screen. Instead of settling for the all too scripted stories I had nailed down, he wanted to have a conversation. This got me thinking; why am I so reliant on some pictures stored on a device instead of the memories stored in my mind?

Isn't the whole point of technology and Social media to keep us connected? Why are so many people feeling lonely? There is an inability for people of every generation to simply talk face to face. Sherry Turkle, a psychologist who has spent much of her career studying Social media and it's effects, held a TED Talk entitled "Connected, but alone?" You can find the full video here:

Turkle starts the talk by discussing the early days of Social media. "We were experimenting with chatrooms and online virtual communities. We were exploring different aspects of ourselves. Then we unplugged... As a psychologist, what excited me most was the idea that we would use what we learned in the virtual world about ourselves, about our identity, to live better lives in the real world."

What I find particularly interesting is the idea of unplugging. A lot of people don't give themselves the chance to unplug or reflect on their thoughts. We are bombarded by texts, calls, emails and a mile long list of Social Media accounts to check and update. Where in that list fits personal time to be alone? Many people sleep with their phones next to them, giving them no chance to shut out constant contact with the world. If we don't allow some offline time, how can we effectively learn about our ever-changing identity? In a way, technology has inhibited people to learn about themselves and be introspective about their thoughts and feelings. We are unable to use these important life skills because we're out of practice.

Turkle then goes on to discuss how technology has changed our lives in ways we don't even realize. She says "...those little devices in our pockets, are so psychologically powerful that they don't only change what we do, they change who we are. Some of the things we do now with our devices are things we would have found odd or disturbing. They've quickly come to seem familiar. People text or do email during corporate board meetings. We text at funerals. I studied this, we remove ourselves from our grief and we go into our phones."

When did it become acceptable to text at a funeral? Have we become so emotionally disconnected that we cannot, for an hour, focus on someone other than ourselves? We have created technology to escape our reality, and it's coming with quite the cost: an inability to relate.

This trend doesn't stop at "how we relate with each other, but how we relate to ourselves and our capacity for self-reflection," Turkle says. "We're getting used to a new way of being alone together. People want to be with each other but also elsewhere." Technology has allowed us to be in several places at once. We can be sitting at the dinner table with our family while texting our friends and live-tweeting our followers up to the second thoughts. We are with people, but in our own world. In this life, there's no separation, no time away from technology. This creates the idea of being alone together. When you're sucked into the world you're creating for yourself, you lose the opportunity to be with the people who are present. Conversations struggle to flow when you're dividing your attention between so many different outlets.

When Turkle asks people "what's wrong with having a conversation?" I found the response to be shocking. "It takes place in real time and you can't control what you're going to say. Texting, email and posting all of these things let us present the self was we want to be. We get to edit and that means we get to delete. And that means we get to retouch."

People are so focused on having the perfect "internet life" that they lose touch with reality. There are hundreds of apps to edit pictures for Instagram so that your "selfie" looks nothing like your actual self. What effect does this have on our self-esteem? If we are so worried about our appearance to the public, what kind of conversations are we having with ourselves? We clean up our messy lives with technology, but that's not who we are. You don't post the "ugly" pictures or the degrading thoughts; you post the picture of you and your boyfriend enjoying a day at the beach. That's what gets the "likes" and "comments." Social media is the place where you go to brag and show off. When we turn to technology for self-fulfillment there's no conversation, there's no face to face contact, there is no listening to one another.

A huge point Turkle highlights is the "feeling that no one is listening to me. That's why it's so appealing to have a Facebook page or Twitter feed, so many automatic listeners. The feeling that no one is listening to me makes us want to spend time with technology. Technology appeals to us when we are most vulnerable."

When you feel like you're not being heard, being alone seems like the problem. The simple solution people choose is to connect. Instead of human contact and conversation, people opt to connect through technology, leaving them feeling as alone and empty as they did before. Constant connection through technology is becoming the way we cope with feeling alone. But just because you send out that Tweet, does that mean you instantly feel whole again? No. The issue with thinking technology will help us connect causes a viscious cycle down a slippery slope of lonliness and even lower self-esteem.

The best way to combat this cycle is to accept solitude and to "think of it as a good thing. Make room for it... reclaim conversation.. We don't have time to talk about the things that really matter. Change that," Turkle says. Often times, solitude is looked at negatively. How often have you been walking somewhere alone and you pull out your phone and pretend to text someone just so you don't feel alone? There is the incessant need to be entertained and connected. People hate to feel alone and the second they feel uncomfortable, the automatic instinct is to reach for the technology. We have trained ourselves to think that when you're getting connected, you are no longer alone, but in fact, it does just the opposite. When you plug into your device, you unplug from your life.

Turkle calls for people to reclaim their lives from technology and start to live again. "Now, we all need to focus on the many, many ways technology can lead us back to our real lives... Let's talk about how we can use digital technology, the technology of our dreams, to make this life, the life we can love." I'm not trying to say that technology is all bad or that is has little benefit, rather we need to consider the way we're using technology. If you're relying on technology as a crutch to fill a void in your life, it will go unfulfilled. Unplugging completely is not the solution nor is it viable. Rather, the solution is to give yourself time to be alone, time to reflect; give yourself a break from the constant stimulation of technology. If you unplug from your device, you are then able to have real conversations with other and most importantly, yourself. Giving our brains the necessary time to process our thoughts is vital to self-reflection and a more healthy self-esteem level.

Far too often people are focused on the "Instagram worthy" shot. Social media can be an incredibly powerful tool when mobilized effectively, but it comes with a cost. How is it possible that when you're constantly connected, you can feel a disconnect? Sherry Turkle and her TED Talk "Connected, but alone?" provides some great insight into how Social media and technology has changed the way we interact. So put down your phone and embrace your life. Living a more fulfilled life isn't decided by what you post on the net, but rather the experiences you have with people in the now. It's time to love your life again, so I hope you put down the phone and live.