How Technology Is Derailing Our Lives

Technology has greatly immersed into our daily lives over the past few years, and although the side effects are not abundantly clear, they still exist. The advancement of technology has sucked us in so deep that we are oblivious of how damaging it really is to our well being.

As we lay in bed, it has become a common habit, especially for teenagers, to look through their phone for a little as a last "check up" on the news, text messages, or social media pages. In Psychology Today,Susan Baili Haas has an article stating how damaging the night-time use of our phones is damaging to our sleep. Not only does it make us feel more awake than sleepy, but it also ruins our REM sleep, which is the stage of sleep where creativity, memory, and problem-solving skills are reinforced. She also writes that the blue light is damaging to our brain. It seems that the only "gain" from being plugged into our phones at night is feeling that satisfaction we get every time we look through the small screen, but that is about it.

Social media has become a huge part of many people's lives, and as great as it seems in the moment, our skills that do not involve technology deteriorate. "Social" media causes us to lose our social skills in everyday interaction, and the term for it seems to become more ironic as this becomes more of an issue. According to Joe Robinson, "One of the best ways to improve real social life is through… participant recreation. Play is a real-life social network. It's a social catalyst that creates immediate common ground between strangers and makes it easy to forge friendships that can last a lifetime." Real life interaction and communication cannot be met through social media/technology, and the skills we once had slowly fade away.

Communication is a key element in everyday activities. In fact, communication is the top skill employers are looking for. If we continue to live in sleep deprivation and in our own isolated bubble, how will we be successful in our careers, relationships, and our well being? The internet truly is an amazing advancement we live in, but if it is taken advantage of, it will continue to hold a bad representation.