Our current generation is one, that has been given a lot of flack over the past years, and it's for great reason. A little information: our current generation (1996-Now), is known as Generation Z, and a couple of our associates belonging the infamous group known as the Millennials (1977-1995).
The many of us that there are in this world that are born from 1996 to now, is extensive, and with that comes a lot of room for opinions and comments from the older generations. All of these comments that we receive aren't the nicest of things, but they also don't apply to all of us. It just so happens that having so many of us in the world, allows for them to create a stereotype for us: We are all lazy kids who are glued to our cell phones. Boy, they aren't wrong. Kind of.
In our everyday lives, we constantly have the want and need to be looking at our phones because of a random notification from one of our various social media applications. It's become a disgusting thing that is easily observable by anyone walking down the street. I'm not saying I'm not guilty of this, because I am a habitual phone looker, but I know when not to do it. It shouldn't be hard to show common courtesy to others and put your phone down while talking to them face to face, because I can guarantee that if they did it to you, you'd be very angry with them. The first thing that you'd begin to think is "Am I not interesting enough for them?" Then this will evolve into "Well, I didn't want to be here anyway, I'll just look at my phone too." From there the conversational aspect of this face to face meeting is flushed down the toilet, and there's now no real reason to be there with the person. Just put your phone down and be a person for once, and not a mindless robot that can't help but see what Stacy has to say on Twitter about her cat, Muffins.
There's also the flip side of this entire thing: the fact that, sometimes, phones make it convenient to do things in the moment. We're passed the era where you could only get a phone call in your house and having to patch through to the operator. We're passed the time period where if you had any form of mail, it strictly went to your house brought by a man in short navy blue shorts. This is a great thing though, because now if an emergency happens, your family can call your cell phone and give you the information that is needed. If your boss needs something done at work, they can email you and ask you to read or check on something that needs to be submitted within the hour. There are plus sides to having cell phones, but the way Generation Z uses them is unacceptable.
To continue with this, the biggest thing, is that we have to document everything through a phone camera. I have no clue why we do this, maybe it's because some people are so self-absorbed that they need to feel special and get the most likes on Instagram, I don't know. Regardless of why we do it, it is the most disrespectful thing that we can do to others. To walk around nature, go to a conference, watch a famous childhood idol give a speech (Bill Nye), or see a major event, and have your phone out taking pictures or videos is a slap in the face to the event. Let me give you some examples:
When I went on a service trip to Nicaragua with Heidelberg University, we had the pleasure of being with other schools from across the country. One of the schools was from Massachusetts and the group was all girls. All of the girls, never knew how to put their phone down. Everywhere they walked, their phone was in front of their face and they kept tapping that "take photo" button. When we went to special presentations, instead of being involved intrigued in what was being presented to us, nearly all of them were too worried about getting the perfect picture and finding the perfect filter to put on it. I literally heard one of the girls say out loud, "Hey, come over here and get it from this angle, it'll look so cute on Instagram later." Um, what? So instead of listening to these people, who are taking time our of their day to inform you of their passion, you are more worried about the way a picture will look on Instagram later. You are the worst.
The second instance is when Bill Nye came to Heidelberg. I didn't go to the talk because I didn't want to get out of bed, but yet I still didn't miss anything. While I was laying in my bed, happily bundled up in my blanket, I received four notifications that people were Live Streaming on Facebook. Curious, I looked to see what people felt was important enough to stream, and all four of them were of Bill Nye's speech. So, instead of actually caring about what the man was saying, they thought it was better to stream it on Facebook and watch for all the Likes, Hearts, and comments came pouring in. Along with this, on Snapchat, there were at least nine people that had multiple videos on their Story, documenting the speech. All the people seemed to care about was bragging to others that Bill Nye was at their college.
The human eye is significantly better than that of your phone camera, shocker, I know. The camera, on the iPhone 7 Plus is 12-megapixels, which in the phone realm, is fairly well. The human eye has 130 million pixels (makes your phone seem obsolete, huh?). I get the point of taking a picture here and there, just to remember the event, that's fine. The problem arises when you start to stop living in the moment, and start living through your phone camera, and through your phone in general. You don't need to take an obnoxious amount of pictures for people to believe that you went somewhere and did something. Look at your grandparents and do what they did; they couldn't take pictures of everything, they just have the images in their heads, which is all they need for their lives. They don't care about likes, or views, or comments. All they've ever cared about was being able to sit down with you and tell you these stories without you looking at your stupid phone screen every 5 minutes.
Live in the moment. I know, as a generation that concept sounds impossible, but I promise you that you are able to wrap your heads around it and do it. The cell phone is a great invention, it is, don't get me wrong, but the stupid thing runs our lives more than it needs to. The next time you go to a speaker, listen to them, don't record them. When you walk through a park, enjoy it, don't take ten selfies with various trees. When you see someone you like to hang out with, be with them, don't take a bunch of pictures of them "for the Gram" to see how many likes you can get. Your world will go on without seeing what your friends are doing on Twitter every minute of the day, because I can promise you that they don't 100% care about what you're doing.
