We have all heard it about a million times, "Please put your phone down for just one second." We see the scary statistics about how many hours we actually spend on our phones a day (not to mention our computers). Every now and then we look up and acknowledge that about three-quarters of the hundreds of people around us, including ourselves, are on their phones. We see it. We might even say that it is a problem. However, we won't quit. This is just how it is. We're part of this technologically advanced generation and all of the customs that come with it. We wake up and immediately check our texts, Snapchats, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. in some order or another. Then we get out of bed and get dressed and while we eat, we check it all again. We get bored in class so we check it all again. Before we go to sleep we possibly spend hours on it.
What are we really doing? Yes, we are communicating with people. We are learning about what is going on in the world. We are connecting with the millions of others who are doing the same thing. We are sharing, liking, posting, and checking to see who else is sharing, liking, and posting. But what are we really doing, guys? We are sitting on a chair, couch, or bed and staring at a screen for hours of our day.
People have acknowledged the sad truth that, while social media allows us to communicate much more efficiently and frequently with larger groups of people, it takes away many of the actual communication skills that come with looking at people in the eye to speak with them. People no longer interact as easily as they used to. People are more connected than ever, but they are also more separated than ever.
What technology has really taken from us is our relationships with ourselves. Young people have a hard time figuring out who they are and what their place is in today's world. We don't know ourselves. A huge part of this is the lack of time alone with ourselves. We are never alone. We never have to really face ourselves or the realities that we are confronted with that make us who we are. We don't have to question our decisions or contemplate our problems on our own because, in a minute, we can always escape to the simpler world of Facebook or Twitter where there are ample distractions from reality. We don't even have to think. It's all there in front of us.
A young person today has every opportunity to live in a fantasy world of gaming and social media in front of a screen. There is no need to face the real world at all.
So what do we do? Do we throw all of our computers and phones into the river? Do we decide to go entirely off the grid immediately in a bid to reclaim who we are? Do we separate ourselves from the rest of our generation?
We could. Or we could continue to take advantage of all of the positives that social media and technology has brought us. We should, however, make a real and bigger effort to no longer allow our technology to rule our lives. We should practice resisting the automatic inclinations to check social media every 15 minutes. We should practice self-restraint and self-control. We should try to learn about ourselves in our alone time. We should try to better ourselves, improve our talents, or develop new ones. We should reignite our passions or, sometimes, we should just sit in the quiet and listen.
Practicing these things can allow our generation to be the most powerful yet--with incredible advantages of technology, but also with impressive power over ourselves and a command over our own realities.
