Music blares out of speakers from all angles, the pounding of the bass drum mimicking your heartbeat. Thousands of bodies press and sway around you in time with the beat. The air smells stale, of cigarettes and alcohol, but the gentle breeze wafts a fresh sent up your nostrils every so often. In the distance, the stage is lit up in purples and blues which blend with the falling of the night. You look to your friend at your side who is staring down at his phone screen. "Hey, you're missing it," you say to grab his attention. "Hang on, I'm going live on Facebook..." Rolling your eyes, you return to singing along with the band.
The mountain air is thin and cool with little breeze. The sun peeks out from behind fluffy clouds now and then, warming the rocks around you. The foliage is scarce at such an altitude, for the rich soil has given away to mountain rock and tall trees to small brush. Despite the chill, beads of sweat roll down the sides of your face as you grip the rock and hoist yourself up. The gear clanks against itself and the mountain, tinkling like wind chimes on a gusty day. As you scramble over the last boulder, your legs ache and your breath is heavy. Hands on your knees, you pant for a moment before looking out across the valley. From the summit, you see for miles below the crystal blue of the lake, the deep green of the forest, and the lush tones of beige and brown and yellow in the fields. Smiling, you admire the beauty, when suddenly someone taps on your shoulder. "Excuse me," says a fellow hiker, "but would you mind taking a few photos for us?"
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Around you, the other members of the graduating class sit clapping as the final names are called. Beach balls and blow-up baseball bats fly through the air and snippets of laughter echo throughout the theater. In the dim audience lighting, you watch as the final student crosses the stage and the school-board President takes the podium. Standing, you feel a rush of excitement as he begins, "By the power vested in me..." Your hand moves to the tassel hanging from you cap, your fingers grasping the silky threads and toying with the charm which bears the current year. "You may move your tassels..." The rest of the president's sentence is cut off by the celebratory roar of your class. Smiling, you look around at your former peers, soaking in the moment. Instead of the 261 smiling faces you expect to see, you are greeted with the continuous flash of phone cameras and glow of screens. Sighing, you look back to the stage for the smiles of the faculty and hear their proud applause. The moment brings enough joy and honor to remember without an electronic record.
Advancements in technology in recent years have been absolutely incredible. In less than half a century, we have completely transformed our way of living. Messages, which previously took 10 days to move from person to person by post, now travel in 10 seconds through email and pictures that used to take hours for development are now available instantly in the highest digital resolutions. Not even the sky is limiting anymore; companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic plan to send commercial crafts into space as early as next year. As amazing and exciting as all this new tech is, it is important to evaluate how "positive" the changes of technology really are.
It is my hope that the scenarios written out in the paragraphs above make you question the effects of technology on our everyday lives. With cellphones and digital cameras, it is easy to get caught up in recording life as opposed to actually experiencing it. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and more have changed the mindset with which people approach things. It's rare to watch any type of performance without the flash of a camera or the looping soundtrack of a Snapchat video playing somewhere in the crowd. We post things to gloat to friends, teenage girls base their self-worth on the number of "likes" a picture gets and young boys can name more video game characters than U.S. Presidents. The biggest drawback of technology advancement, however, is the threat it poses on interpersonal relationships.
Almost everyone has seen Disney's 2008 sci-fi movie "WALL-E" in which the human race not only fled Earth due to garbage and pollution build up (a immense problem of its own), but they also had become so integrated with technology that person-to-person interaction was essentially non-existent. In the current situation, we can expect to see director Andrew Stanton's visions becoming reality. Take a moment to ponder the implications of living in such a society. Would children be taught to speak or to type? Would we walk to work in big cities or would a self-driving "hoverboard" be the norm? Would people visit and explore nature? Would child feel the warmth and safety of a mother's hug? Would we, as the human race, forget what it's like to experience things? Technology has united people across oceans, but it has also isolated us from those standing right next to us.
As a writer for a digital platform, I obviously take advantage of technology in many of the ways that others do in order to maximize the number of people I reach. Despite this, I am a firm believer in making time to unplug and enjoy. I have found it best to be present throughout my life instead of glued to a phone screen. When I go to a concert, I go to listen and sing along, not to record and post. At the top of a mountain, I try to enjoy the view. When I graduated high school, I closed my eyes and basked in the pure pride and joy of the moment. I'm nowhere near perfect, and I can still be caught recording street performers in Manhattan and tweeting about my day, but I often stop myself from whipping out my iPhone and digitizing every moment. Instead, I take "mental pictures" with which I can record everything my brain experiences: sight, sound, smell and most importantly how I'm feeling. In 20 years, I may not remember exactly what the scene of my high school graduation looked like, but I'll never forget the way I felt. When you stop focusing on the bits and bytes of the technological universe, you are opening up to the exceptional phenomena of what is real and tangible. This is not simply living, it's experiencing and it's incredibly, amazingly outstanding.
