The purpose of college is to broaden your horizons, meet new people, and better yourself. Leaving home for the first time is a scary and daunting event, but the hope of a fresh start seems to make it all worth it. When I imagined going to college, I thought of having a close group of friends that I would hang out with on a daily basis. Everyone told me that meeting people would be so easy, but that statement couldn't have been further from the truth. The reality is everyone is in their own world and completely absorbed in their phones. Even when they aren't on their phone, it appears that people have lost their social skills.

I am living in a freshman hall and I don't know a single person in my wing. Two weeks ago, I saw my neighbor for the first time and I have been living next door to her for the last two months. The idea of everyone having their doors open and talking with the people you live next to is a thing of the past. No one seems to want to meet new people, and why would they? With today's technology, there is no need to broaden your social circle. When your best friend is one Snapchat away, your boyfriend or girlfriend is one Skype call away, and you have your mom's number already dialed at all times of the day what more do you need? The comfort of our lives back home is at the touch of our fingertips.

Now I'm not saying that we should abandon our people back home, I could never do that. My family and friends back home mean the world to me. I would never be able to make it through college without them, especially when it's like this. I never would have dreamed that college would be so exclusive and closed off. Isn't this the place where I am supposed to meet my lifelong friends? How can I or anyone do that if we are glued to our phones 24/7?

It seems as if I am the only person who was hoping to make new friends, everyone else is perfectly content having their nose in their phone or computer. My dorm feels more like a hotel than a place to live for nine months. How can people live in silence? I wanted to be a part of a community, but when people pretend like they don't know me how can I? It's like high school all over again. For the people who say college is nothing like high school, they are wrong. It's exactly like high school, but some aspects of our life will be like that throughout our whole lives. I just didn't think college would be like that.

Technology has made it so easy to remain attached at the hip to our loved ones at home and I am so thankful for that. If I couldn't keep in contact with my family and friends on a daily basis, I don't know what I would do. Yes, I am guilty of being absorbed in my phone at times, but I also try to make conversation with people. I want to meet new people, I don't want to be lonely at this place that I'm supposed to call home. This place is definitely not home. I do not consider myself to be getting the college experience right now. I live in the dorms and I am away from my family, but I am not having the fun and making lifelong friends and incredible memories that I expected. I wanted that, that's why I didn't go to the college in my hometown. By the look of things, I might as well have gone to school at home, I would have saved a ton of money.

Technology is an amazing thing that we should utilize, but not to the point where we become emotionless robots. What will you remember forty years from now, a funny tweet or standing in the student section at a football game? Odds are you won't remember that tweet, but the football game will be a treasured memory. When your grandkids ask you what you did in college, you aren't going to want to say you spent your days looking at Twitter and Instagram. We need to put our phones down and get to know people, actually know people. Be kind to someone. It just might make their day, maybe even invite them to dinner, and get to know your neighbors. We need to bring back the days of leaving your doors open and being social, instead of being the hermits we are now. Technology has ruined the college experience, we miss out on the world around us. We aren't getting any younger, this is our only chance to have the coveted college experience. Not everyone has that chance, don't throw yours away.