In the age of smart phones and unlimited applications, it seems as though technology can do no wrong. With the ever-expanding landscape of modern day technology, human beings are widely reachable and highly connected. That’s a good thing, right? Wrong.
As helpful as technology may be, or appear to be, it has nonetheless contributed to the untimely demise of real conversation. As an employer of modern technology myself, I have struck the right balance between keeping up face-to-face interactions and those via social media or texting.
Those of us who were born in the mid to late ‘90s were of the last generation to enter elementary school without the knowledge of what an iPhone was. Nowadays children harboring the age of seven have 400 Instagram followers.
Because our generation grew up with less of a technological dependency, we still manage to understand the importance of real conversations and real people, not cell phones.
However, the brimming elementary students of 2015 will sadly miss out on the importance of human interaction.
This unsettling reality came to my attention most vividly during a trip to the beach.
A young girl, no older than 5-years-old, was playing in the sand. She lightly tossed a small rock at her mother’s foot. As the mother reacted in outrage I turned to see the scene. Both parents, facing each other, were glued to their phones; a shining example of what not to do on a perfect beach day with your children.
It was after I returned to my book that I realized this young girl’s incessant rock tossing was a cry for her parents’ attention. At this young age, she was taught that whatever was happening on her parents’ phones was more important than her. It is quite likely that she will take from their example and treat her own children the same way.
On a slightly different note, this acknowledgment of technology among younger children has led to an alarming obsession with social media. For those of us over the age of 15, social media is effective and somewhat necessary. However, the reality is that children younger than 12 rely on social media more than we do.
Just hours after I overhead the rock tossing incident, I heard two young boys discussing the importance of Instagram likes. They were waging a war of popularity. Whoever has more likes is clearly the most popular.
The fact that children of modern technology rely on social media for confidence is a truly saddening reality.
The days of hanging out with neighborhood kids, racing in and out of each others’ yards and aimlessly riding bikes just to feel the summer breeze are seemingly behind us. No longer do children stay outside until the last shred of daylight. More often than not, these children are already inside.
From my experience as a babysitter, I have seen firsthand how destructive this lust for technology is. Children find the glare of their cell phone screens much more appealing than that of the sun. Energy, the ability to converse, and a genuine love for playing in nature has been lost.
Seldom do we find the children of today standing in the street selling lemonade; rather they can create a quite profitable, virtual version of the American pastime on their iPads.
A recent Nature Valley campaign highlighted just this, the lack of nature and creativity that the technological age has placed upon the children of today is a reality. It seems as though the children of today don’t need nature.
It is up to the generations that experienced the thrills of an outdoor childhood to remind the children of today just how beautiful the world can be.
