In a world surrounded by iPhones and Samsungs, it’s crazy to think that there’s an actual world beyond them! In today’s society, as soon as you’re able to read you’re granted an IPad or a tablet. For me, I’m actually jealous of these children. When I was stuck inside and bored, my mom’s favorite line was “Well...clean your room if you're so bored,” and I feel like that’s the famous line that most of us heard.
It isn’t just children that are so utterly obsessed with technology. I mean, I’m typing with on my Mac right now... And It has a lot more capabilities than the basic type writer could do. But that isn’t the point. Not only me but also all of my friends, and most other young adults can not put the phone down. Most of the time we aren’t even texting anyone. We’re just scrolling, liking, retweeting and ya know, burning brain cells. We are so used to it that we don’t even notice we’re doing it. I’ll close an app... reopen it and refresh it two seconds later, to see what? The see latest tweet that isn’t even original? To see Karen’s (who I’ve never spoken to) new nail polish color? We’re addicted, and we can't stop.
The older generations are guilty of cell phone distractions too. I’ve seen grown women play on the phone for hours on end, and I’ve watch baby boomers scroll through facebook for hours. “Don’t text and drive!” says the woman who schedules her appointments over the phone...while driving.
This brings me to another point. Texting. While. Driving. Why? More car crashes are caused by texting and driving than by drunk drivers. Although I’m not condoning that either. Thousands of people die per year because that had to respond to that text that was so important, or they had to see who all liked their latest Instagram picture. Stop it. It’s not more important than your life.
We’ve lost touch with the real world. We are too busy recording what’s going on around us to enjoy it. Some spend hours snapchatting a concert rather than living it. People are too invested in their phones to say “Hi” to store clerks working checkout lines. All forced social interaction can be avoided by unlocking your phone. Great, right? We spend thousands of dollars on a machine that doesn’t even have a decent battery life. We spend thousands of dollars on a machine to distract us from the real world. A machine that is becoming more and more advanced every day.
I hate it, but I need it. I need a phone, to call my loved ones. For the connection you get being a hundred miles away from home. (No, I’m not talking about cell service). Without it, I actually might get lost and never find my way home (Thank you, Google Maps). That being said, I actually hate it. I get so frustrated when I’m trying to work, or I’m trying to study, and everyone wants to talk to me at the same time. I hate when I’m almost asleep and my phone goes off because I forgot to turn on night mode. A few months ago, I was getting so annoyed by constant distractions that I went into my phone’s settings, and turned off all notifications for social media. All my friends know not to expect me to open a snapchat for at least two hours after they’ve sent it. Now my phone only dings if it’s a text, or a phone call. I now forget to check social media (crazy, right??). I still check it before class, or when I remember, but now I don’t ever feel an urge to look at my phone.
Phones suck and I’ll probably never get rid of mine, but that’s fine.
