With the release of the new iPhone 11, a lot of discussions have come up in my life regarding technology and the way we use it as a society on an everyday basis. We are all plugged in almost 100 percent of the time, and almost everything we do can be recorded, logged, and seen by the rest of the world. We can talk to people using videos with our voice and an animal's face. We can call a car to come pick us up with the click of a button. We can even use apps on our phones to help us fall asleep, or help us through hard times.
Technology is constantly evolving, and we are always trying to get the next best thing. While it may seem like this is good and it is making our lives a lot easier, we need to remember to not become so wrapped up in it that we forget about our lives in the here and now. Technology is making our lives better in a lot of ways, but it is also making them worse, in the same ways. It has changed the way we communicate with others, the information we share with others, and the way we simply live our lives.
Here are 10 ways technology is making our lives better - and worse - in the 21st Century.
The pros of technology in the 21st Century:
1. Everything is just one click of a button away.
Amazon, Uber, Lyft, Uber Eats, Doordash, Postmates, Kroger ClickList... this list could go on forever! You name any product nowadays, chances are you can find it online and get it delivered right to your door, including groceries! These different apps and tools we have available are very convenient and can make lives of busy people all over a lot easier.
2. You can never get lost.
If you're anything like me, your GPS on your phone is your best friend. Every time I go somewhere new, I rely heavily on my iPhone to get me from point A to point B and it always does. Getting lost while driving can be scary, and technology has made it so that that's not a huge worry anymore.
3. You can stay in contact with everyone you've ever met before.
Meet a random girl in the bathroom at the bar last weekend? Chances are you guys added each other on Instagram. Haven't seen a childhood friend in years but wonder how they're doing? Look them up on Facebook and send them a message. It is so easy nowadays to find people on the internet and get in touch with them, which is really cool if you haven't seen them in a long time or have family far away.
4. You can share your whole life with the world.
Whether it's a big job offer you just received, a trip you've always wanted to go on, or just a night out with your friends, you can share pictures and bits of fun information whenever you want to on social media. You can share as little or as much as you want and keep people updated on your life.
5. You don't even have to talk to someone anymore in order to communicate with them.
It can be really nice sometimes to just send out a group text instead of calling around to everyone in your friend group. It can also be really nice to make a reservation for a restaurant online rather than calling the place and actually talking to them. Short cuts like this are convenient and can make our lives a whole lot easier at times.
Ok, so I stated some reasons as to how technology is making our lives easier. However, I found that those exact same reasons can also make our lives a lot harder at times.
The cons of technology in the 21st Century (yah, they're THE SAME):
1. Everything is just the click of a button away!!
While it can be really convenient every once in a while to order food to your house, these apps can promote laziness and allow you to form a really bad habit of eating out all the time. These kinds of apps also deepen the issue we all have with instant gratification and make it so that it's hard to wait for anything anymore.
2. You can never get lost anymore...
Just like your GPS will always let you know where you are and never let you get lost, your iPhone location services will always let other people know where you are and never let them lose you. It can be overwhelming at times to know that people know where you are at every second of every day just because your phone has the ability to tell them.
3. You can stay in contact with everyone you've ever met before.
Staying in touch with people from your past can be really fun and refreshing, but it can also be really toxic, depending on the relationship. There is such a stigma around unfollowing and blocking people that it can be hard to do that to someone who is no longer in your life, but it can also be damaging to you to see their updates every day and continue to follow along with their life. If there is someone in your past who things did not end well with, it is almost impossible to get rid of their memory on social media, and that can make getting over the falling out really hard.
4. You can share your whole life with the world.
Ever heard the saying "do it for the gram"? This saying has become so many people's life mottos that you can tell they are doing things not because they are interested in doing them, not because they sound fun, but simply because they want to post about the fact that they did it. This has turned life itself into a contest of who can do the most fun things, and everyone is forgetting to live in the moment they are in and enjoy it.
5. You don't even have to talk to someone anymore in order to communicate with them.
Younger generations have gotten increasingly worse when it comes to face to face communication skills, and it is ignorant to say technology and social media do not have anything to do with that. It is convenient sometimes to text and do things online, but calling, FaceTiming, and talking to someone in person are SO important to do more than every once in a while.
Technology is a wonderful thing and the world today would look very different without it. New advancements are made almost daily, and we are just trying to keep up with the times.
While technology makes our lives better in a lot of ways, we have to remember human interaction and living in the moment are some of the most important things we will do in our lives.
We cannot become so buried in our technologies that we forget what it is like to connect with someone without it. Technology is making our lives better now, but that would make it so that life was a whole lot worse.
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