Excuse me while I check my texts, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Vine, Tinder, Foursquare, Linkedin, Tumblr, Snapchat, and every other social media platform while you try and hold a conversation with me. As you talk, I am slowly being incarcerated by my social media accounts, trapped in the prison that is other people’s statuses and tweets, Instagram feeds, and Snap stories. Choosing to be lost in a digital world than to have an actual conversation with a live person: this is the problem with Generation Y, or most famously known as "Millennials" and the upcoming generations.

As I re-read that paragraph, I’ll admit at a point in time of my life, I was guilty of that behavior. However, it seems as though as time progresses this type of behavior is getting worse and worse, especially with Millennials and the upcoming generations. Which begs the question: why? Then I realized, it’s because our generation is the generation stuck in a technological time warp that taught us to be entitled, and in turn we are showing future generations that this behavior is acceptable.

Let me elaborate -- when I was born, our version of the iPod was a Walkman that took cassette tapes. I know this because on my sixth birthday my grandma gave me a bright yellow Walkman with a Brittney Spears cassette tape and it was the coolest thing I have ever owned (at that time in my life.) Killin’ it, I know. Our household had one, and I do repeat ONE, stationary computer that tied up the phone line when it connected to the Internet. I can still hear the dial up tone it made when connecting; oh, the nostalgia! Our entertainment was going outside and riding bikes, playing baseball in the streets, playing imaginary games with our friends, and having water gun fights in the summers. Times were seemingly simpler. The streetlights were our curfews and spend the nights had no expectations. We were just kids. Slowly but surely through the 90’s, we graduated from a Walkman to the Discman, the Discman to the skip-less Discman and our version of texting was AOL Instant Messenger. This all happened gradually. Now, fast-forward.

When the turn of the century hit, technology took off like a wildfire. Everyone had cell phones, iPods were invented, and the Internet became faster. Soon everything would be smaller, skinnier, and wireless. It became too easy to communicate via text message, e-mail, and Myspace posts. (Yes, I know I just dated myself a little bit.) Face-to-face communication as we knew it was quickly being replaced with digital communication. Hiding behind computer and cellphone screens became a comfort zone, and having to converse with someone in person became a task. The Millennial generation went from looking adults in the eyes, because it was the respectful thing to do, to texting a response to their parents when asked a question. The views of “work hard for what you want” turned to “it’s only one click away” and our mentalities changed from putting in the work to getting whatever we wanted, when we wanted it. The best example of this is Tinder. Your hookup is only a swipe away. When does it end?

Now, this type of communication and entitlement is being passed onto the future generations. Every 3-year-old is being rewarded with an iPod or iPad simply for doing things they should already be doing. We shove technology in kids faces to shut them up, because we no longer know how to interact with them. The worst part is we want everything now, now, NOW! Instead of working hard for something, we expect it, making us fat and lazy. The movie "Wall-E" is not far off at this point, that soon we will all be strapped to chairs that hover around and robots will wait on us hand and foot, so that we don’t have to move a muscle. I understand that statement is a tad dramatic, but you can see my point.

I’ll climb off my soap box now with one last thing: put the phones down, turn off the computers, and go outside. Go and make some actual memories rather than trolling Facebook looking at your 7,000 “friends” virtual lives. Travel, go to a park, do something other than waiting around for another ‘like’ on your photo. Life is passing you by. It’s time we all get in touch with our inner child and make life a little simpler again. It’s time to go and live life without expecting it to live itself.