Have you ever spent a meal with someone who spent more time using their phone, than having a meaningful conversation face to face? I can say I have encountered that multiple times. As humans, we have all these many inventions at our disposal, which are great, but they are also a negative distraction to life in general. There were days when cell phones did not exist, instead, there were telegrams and letters. The newest generation becomes more advanced in technology and becomes more adaptive culturally to the environment of our newest inventions than the older generations of our society.

More people now a day prefer to text, email, or Snapchat someone, rather than have a phone call or a face to face interaction. Many social media networks are used too often; for instance, Facebook is used too many times a day by people who share meaningless crap. Many people think it is ok to give a play by play of what they do every day. Seriously, who gives a hoot? No one! Unless you are a famous celebrity like Justin Bieber or Ellen, then stop, you are just embarrassing yourself. For those who do not have loved ones to talk to every day, they use social media as a form of comfort, a way to make them feel less lonely than they actually are.

Many studies and recent information have shown that the social skills that are being diminished by technology is that when one uses smartphones more than interacting with people in person, it truly effects social cues. For example, reading and understanding emotions during social interaction is very misunderstood and goes unnoticed. There has been multiple experiments that have proven when children spend a short term amount of time, about a week without engaging in any type of screen activities, example: television, internet, phone. These children were able to better understand human emotion during social interaction, for instance, when someone is sad or angry, than those children who spent a week in front of screens.

“In a recent study, a group of children spent 5 days in a camp without access to any screen-based or electronic communication and being limited to only in-person interaction [a control group stayed at home with access to all electronic devices). It seemed that the time participants spent engaging with other children and adults face-to-face made an important difference. The children’s in-person interaction improved significantly in terms of reading facial emotions, while the control group’s skills remained the same. The results suggest that digital screen time, even when used for social interaction, can reduce the time spent developing skills to read non-verbal cues of human emotion (Urls et al., 2014).”

Bullying has always been a concern and major problem in our society, but ever since our society has been evolving with the social media networks, texting, and online chatrooms, there has been an increase of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is so easy to commit these days, the bullies hide behind a chat room and or a screen, they cannot even see the damage that they do, it is that easy to terrorize someone over the internet. It has been proven that girls are targeted more through cyberbullying than boys. Students who are cyberbullied are more likely to skip school and develop psychological issues. So far there are no criminal laws in place to punish someone who cyberbullies, instead, it is considered civil not criminal.

“Until recently, no laws specifically addressed cyberbullying. But legislators have not been blind to the increasing number of high-publicity incidents, including tragic results in certain cases (suicides and school shootings, for instance). Laws have sprung up in some states, but often leave enforcement in the hands of school officials. As such, cyberbullying may often be treated as a civil, rather than a criminal matter. However, prosecutors have used existing laws on the books to prosecute individuals suspected of cyberbullying. Criminal harassment statutes can often provide a basis for bringing charges in severe cases , and more serious criminal charges have been brought in cases where the offense has resulted in suicide or other tragic consequences.”

Suicides and school shootings are a significant effect of cyberbullying, and the statistics of these effects increase every year. One in 10 kids commits suicide because of cyber bullying, but 20% of teens who have reported being cyberbullied have thoughts of ending their lives. Every year 4,500 kids commit suicide – this is the third leading cause of death among teenagers, suicide.

School shootings are increasing every year, and America holds the highest record of school shootings compared to any other country in the world. Since the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, there have been 142 school shootings. “There have been 142 school shootings in the US since the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, a near average of one a week, according to data compiled by Mass Shooting Tracker.”