“Sorry what did you say? I wasn’t paying attention....”
Our lives are being taken over and controlled by electronic devices. When I was a child, my parents were busy teaching me manners and respect. I went outside with my neighbors and played until it got dark. The only time I sat in front of a television was when I was sick or the occasional rainy days. I didn’t have an iPad to keep me company and even if they did exist when I was young, I am one hundred percent sure my parents wouldn’t let it become an everyday activity. Amongst the many things my parents taught my sister and I was how to have and hold conversations with people. It’s almost 2016, and times have changed drastically. Now, if you go out to a restaurant or any public place it is likely you will see a child start to act up and the parents or care giver shove an iPad in their face. They aren’t being taught how to act or that their tantrums are inappropriate. Instead, they are being rewarded by getting exactly what they want...more game time. The lack of guidance and parenting will follow them through life and create more problems.
What would our lives be like if they didn’t revolve around technology? To be honest, this question pops into my head more often than not and I still have yet to come up with an answer. We have been so conditioned to text messaging and social media that being without our phones creates a separation anxiety. Conversations through text messages are so one dimensional that the person on the other end is forced to interpret how things are being said.
Social media is robbing girls of their childhood. We all want to grow up and get older, until we get there and realize it’s not what it seemed like. I remember seeing my older sister go out with friends and I couldn’t wait for the day I turned fourteen to be able to go to the mall by myself. Now, you see thirteen-year-old girls on Instagram looking like they are eighteen. The apps available at their fingertips are turning them into some sort of sex symbol that determines their value by the amount of likes they get on their pictures.
Relationships are being ended by jealousy and speculation of cheating over a simple “like” or “comment” on a picture. Then when things go sour, the use to be couple takes to social media to rant. That is no ones business but the people who are going through their difficult time, and it is certainly not going to make anything better. I think we could all take a lesson or two from our grandparents' lives. They didn’t have social media and their relationships lasted forty, fifty even sixty years. Why was that? Perhaps because they had open communication, they didn’t have hundreds of provocative pictures staring back at them every time they opened their phone – maybe because they knew how to talk to each other and solve problems, without letting the rest of their connections know what was going on behind the scenes.
We are all so caught up in our cell phones and social media accounts we forget what really matters. Hanging out with friends and family has turned into sitting around with each other with our noses in our phones. By being so anti social and obsessed with our electronics we are doing a harsh disservice to ourselves. Please, while we still have time to change, put down your cell phone and enjoy the company of those around you.
