In the past century, technology has changed an incredible amount. I, of course, was only there to see parts of it, but even the parts that I have experienced, though minor, have seemed life changing. Today in my hometown, the school district provides every middle schooler with an iPad and every high schooler with a laptop. Little kids play games on their parents' iPads instead of the board games and glitchy computer games that I remember. Clearly things have changed a lot since I was in elementary school in the 90's and early 2000's, and even since I was in middle school in 2008 and 2009.

This technology change has been one of the distinguishing characteristics of the most recent generations, the Millennial Generation and Generation Z. We are all OBSESSED with technology. We're constantly on our phones or laptops or in front of the TV. And, of course, the older generations have definitely let us know how all of this technology has messed up our social skills, and how we're all screwed up.

To sum up the general remarks on our generation, things just "aren't how they used to be." That's definitely a valid point. You don't see people wearing poodle skirts to the mall, you don't pay a dime for a bottle of Coke, and you don't see the mainstream crowd running to an 80's punk rock band concert. Some things have changed for the worse, but some have changed for the better, like the rising awareness of mental health issues, the election of an African-American president, and the increased effort to stop climate change. Yes, our generation is different, but that's normal. Every generation is different, and isn't that a good thing? Would we want every generation to have stayed the same? Would we want to stay in the era of the 1900's, where women could not vote? Personally, I would rather not.

That being said, there are some remarks about our generation that I would have to agree on: specifically, the problem of technology.

Don't get me wrong; I love technology as much as the next person. If you would ask my friends or look on my Instagram feed, you could easily come to the conclusion that I am on social media ALL THE TIME. And honestly, you would be correct. So don't worry, I am not judging you or saying that technology is all bad. It can be bad in some cases; In my opinion, technology has especially worsened our arguing tactics.

Technology has completely changed the way that we interact, and in turn has changed the way that we argue. We have complete access to almost each others' entire lives. We see who someone posts on their snap story when they are hanging out, we see someone's relationship status on Facebook, we see someone's opinions on their Twitter; we see e v e r y t h i n g. (Okay, maybe not everything. That sounded kinda creepy. But you get what I mean.) The only thing we really don't see is the context, the emotions behind the post. We can constantly find reasons to get mad at each other on our social media profiles, but we don't know why those things are there. So, we get mad, and we react in one of many ways. A subtweet war could start, or a contest of who is jealous of who. In the best case scenario nowadays, we might text, call, or MAYBE meet up with the person. But that's the best case.

Not all of our conflicts happen online, though. Sometimes things do happen in person that we can get mad about. Unfortunately, we react in almost the exact same way that we would to an online fight. We subtweet, we try to make others jealous, we push people away, we ignore texts, or we might try to work through the problem. Even if we try and work through the problem on the phone or over text, things can still be hard to work out; the emotion behind the words are still missing. You don't see someone's face when they send a text, the tears they let out when they recieve it, or anything else that is going on around them. But that's still normally the best case scenario.

So why are we doing this? Why are we being so passive-aggressive? What do we gain? Does sending out a strongly worded tweet REALLY give you that much satisfaction, or does hanging out with the "cool" kids really make you have fun? Do you really fix any of your problems through these methods?

I personally know for a fact that I cannot solve my problems nearly as well if they are not in person. A few weeks ago, I got in a fight with my boyfriend over text, and things were pretty tense for a few days. We have a long-distance relationship, so we couldn't see each other right away, but, as soon as we did see each other, nothing that had happened mattered anymore. We talked things over, and it seemed ridiculous that we were fighting at all in the first place.

This is something that I've found to be true in almost all of my relationships. Even if I apologize and talk things through with someone over text, things don't truly feel okay until I see that person in real life. Spending "quality time" texting someone is not the same as spending quality time with some one who is right next to you.

The thing is, even if times have changed, human nature hasn't. We'd like to think that we're different from the generations before, and we are, at least in our actions. But we are essentially the same in our emotional and social needs. We need each other. We need real interaction with each other, and while sometimes texting or snap chatting might work, in the end, social media cannot make a relationship. You cannot replace the need of having friends right next to you, who will stay up watching movies with you, who will make you pee your pants laughing, and who will give you a hug when you need one. We are not meant to live life alone, and we are not meant to live with only a phone for company.

Like I said before, I can't say that technology is all horrible. I like technology, and I think it has good uses. We only need to realize what technology should be used for, and what it shouldn't be used for. If we figure that out, I think that we would be on our way to creating a better world, one phone at a time.