College students, nowadays, are a generation behind, without even knowing it. The Facebook Age is practically over and now the competing, less socially active apps are dominating. Instagram has only been around for a few years, but it monopolizes the social scene when it comes to most engaged users.

You would be amazed how your younger sister gets 300 likes on a post that you were proud of with 75. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that kids these days are less active and socially inept, but I can tell you some facts that will get you thinking.

When smartphones first became popular, it shifted the way we communicated. Before this shift, social media was all done on computers and was much less prevalent. Now, we can judge a generation based on the type of apps that prevail. In my opinion, this is ridiculous, but an easy and understandable approach to see, through different eyes, exactly what is happening to our future. Although most apps are forms of distorting reality and avoiding real life situations, our more popular apps are becoming less engaging. Twitter practically kills all creativity by limiting your voice to 140 characters. Even worse is Instagram, an app on which you post a picture and hope to get more likes than your best friend. I would talk about Yik Yak, as well, but I think we all know it is quite the mindless and self-esteem destroying fiend. This may be hard to believe, but when Myspace was popular, people were much more inviting and conversational.  

Now that I have you on board with how apps have shaped our generation, I can point you toward a few tidbits of how this can relate to everyday real life. For one, dating has gone down and the college hook up culture is all too real. I would talk about how my best friend was when I was little, but I refer to him as his gamertag, rather than his actual name, and never once shared my real feelings with him because we just talked through Xbox. Also, you can actually hide behind your phone in a social setting by merely dipping your head down to form a 90 degree angle, and never look up. 

When is the last time you went into a restaurant or coffee shop and looked around to see what is actually going on? You’d be surprised by how much you discover now that you are now with one less distraction. But unfortunately this one distraction has millions of other distractions built within it. I love my iPhone and all that it can do for me, but imagine how much worse middle school kids who have had smartphones since they were in kindergarten are going to be? What more can we bury our heads into?

My main concern is that the problems I had while growing up will be the same for these kids, but escalated exponentially. I hope the newest generation won’t have horrible game when it comes to talking to their crush, since a date can seem too awkward, nowadays. Maybe they won’t have a problem with best friends and feelings since all they need to do is to download a few apps for followers and friends. If you haven’t already heard that our phones can be programmed into a pair of glasses, then you’re in for a treat. This way, our necks won’t hurt when avoiding another human being.  

Now, let us look at the big picture. The incredible inventions that we, as humans, have created are slowly turning off our minds to what captivates us most. Before the Internet, problems were much less complex, but now that we have focused all energy on progressing in the social media age, we are in a bit of a dispute. Even the apps we choose are gradually engaging us less and less, and creativity is at an all time low. This is clearly affecting everyday life, made evident by how the youth handle dating, friendships, and free time.

It’s up to the individual how they will spend their time and define their life. Will you be like your dad, and frown every time someone pulls their phone out? Can you only ask a lovely lady out by adding her on Twitter and dropping sweet rhymes to the public? Perhaps things are headed in the wrong direction, but we can slowly change the inevitable through a decrease in social media usage.