Imagine you're hiking. You're high up in the hills, and you look out to the most beautiful sight you've ever seen. The trees emit shades of green which begin to blend with the sky's bright blue. You close your eyes and take a deep breath. It smells amazing. Much different than the dirty city streets you're used to. The birds are singing songs and you hear the sound of water dancing with the rocks somewhere in the distance. Then your phone vibrates.

See, that's the thing. Nature is really such a wonderful thing, but we don't take the time to genuinely appreciate it. And if we ever do, it never goes unnoticed. I mean, if we don't Snapchat it, did it even really happen?

Now you're exploring with your friends, and come across a waterfall. The sunlight hits the water just right, so the blue glistens and shines like a diamond. The air around you feels so moist and sticky, and you know that nothing would feel better than jumping right into that water. But you can't. Why? You're not scared or nervous, no. You just don't want your phone to get wet.

We live so differently than the past generations did. Some believe that's a good thing, but I want you to really think about that. We live in two seperate worlds. The real world, and the social network world. Back then, there were no "Twitter fights." There were no arguments with your boyfriend because his ex is his best friend on snapchat. People could stand to do things without posting them everywhere because, well, they had no choice.

Our parents had such different lives as teenagers. They would have been able to sit in the hills and have a picnic and enjoy the sounds of nature. They would have jumped into that water without a hesitation or a care in the world. But us? We walk around with $600 phones in our hand at all times. Our generation has grown to live for not ourselves, but everyone else. I know you aren't posting pictures of your Michael Kors watch because you think people will find it intriguing. You're posting it so people will be impressed. So people will see that you have money and style. And what's one of the first things girls say now when they run into each other in public?

"Oh my god let's take a picture!"

We all know that picture isn't being kept as a memory, but it's simply being posted as a rise of social status. What are we even doing? I would have loved to live in the '70's. I'm sure many of us have said that before. But very few of us could actually survive. Imagine you woke up one morning and rolled over to see an old fashioned battery-operated alarm clock, as opposed to your typical iPhone alarm that you usually hit snooze for. You sit up in bed. Usually the first thing you would do would be scroll through Twitter and Instagram, but those things don't exist. All you've got is a cable TV and a home phone that you have to share with your family.

Instead of living through a little touchscreen, you now have to live through your actual being. You have to live through your five senses... not your iPhone. I don't think many of us would be able to do that. We are all so absorbed by the life in the social networking world to even try to imagine a life without it all. We're so distracted by Snapchat stories and how many favorites our tweets can get to realize the real problems going on in the world. What about the global financial crisis? Gorvernments in even the richest countries in the world are being affected. Do you have an opinion on any political issues? Do you even know anything about anything politics-related? What about religion? Have you researched and explored other religions and beliefs to see if any are right for you? What about Ferguson? Have you researched it and came up with your own solid opinion, or are you just basing your views off of what your Twitter timeline says? Do you even know what deforestation is? I'm sure you aren't aware of how many species are actually going extinct. At least 10,000 species go extinct every year. EVERY. YEAR. That's bizarre. But we aren't worried, because retweets are more important than real world issues.

I think we all need to wake up and open our eyes. Social media isn't everything. We are such an intelligent generation and we need to stop letting social networks run our lives and distract us from doing things to change the world.