It's 2018 and everyone, who is anyone, has more technology in their pocket than ever. Smartphones, iPhones, tablets, smartwatches, and the like abound. Heck! I've even seen preschool students with their own electronic devices, but at what cost? What are we starting to lose as a society as a result of all these devices aimed at making life simpler?
The epidemic has created a world where people lurk hidden behind a touchscreen. Online phishing schemes, catfishing on dating sites, scams on Craig's List, and cyberbullying on social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snap Chat, and whatever will be the new fad tomorrow, are becoming more and more of a commonplace occurrence. Ultimately, what is society losing, while making all these "gains"?
1. Social Interaction Skills: Elementary students, middle school students, teenagers, and twenty-somethings have all grown up with internet-based cell phones. They would find it impossible to imagine a world without them. Take away a teenager's cell phone today, and you would think that you stole their favorite puppy. They experience anxiety and lose the ability to focus on anything, but the device that they think contains their life. They spend so much time on Snap and texting, that even when they sit next to one another in the cafeteria at lunch, or at a diner, they communicate through their handheld device. If you send them into a social situation that requires talking like an in-store purchase, ordering food at the diner, or asking for directions, they lack the ability to initiate and carry on a coherent conversation. This, in turn, can lead to Number Two.
2. Public Speaking: Hiding behind a touch screen and using your thumbs to communicate has made a stressful situation like public speaking an Everest for the newer generations. their inside voices lack volume, confidence and they have the inability to make eye contact. Are these individuals really on the spectrum? Or have we as a society taken away their confidence at public speaking? Many people experience so much anxiety at the thought, that they refuse to speak in class, at public meetings, in front of their teams, etc. This is slowly creating a generation of social followers. hanging on to every written word that they read online, or worse, nameless, faceless individuals who lash out online and block others when they disagree with their opinions. This leads me to Number Three.
3. Lack of Respect: Freedom of speech is one thing, but it was originally just that. People would stand up in a public forum and voice their opinions in front of their peers. Today, much of this has changed. The public forum has become an intangible place called the internet. Countless people can hide behind the anonymity of their device, and troll other people. They read their posts, stalk others, look at their pictures, and in many cases lack a filter when posting their hurtful comments. "Your opinion sucks! You look like a "such and such". You're ugly!" and these are tame in comparison to what people really write. They forget that there is an actual person on the other side who has feelings just like them. This is not cool! It's not funny! and it's not how many of the older generations were raised. We didn't hide behind a phone and torment others. We didn't harass others from the safety of our private servers. If you insulted the wrong person, there could be swift and fierce consequences. We grew a backbone and knew when to open our mouths and when not to. I don't feel this is the case for the people living on their smartphones today. Lack of face to face confrontation has created a world of cyberbullies who respect no one but expect to be respected. Unacceptable!
4. Knowledge and Common Sense: Constant connection to Google, Bing, and other search engines like Alexa and Siri have given people the excuse not to retain any information. The way I can still recite over fifty percent of the Preamble to the Constitution is the way today's children can't remember what a verb is after twelve years of school. And forget doing mental math, people today can't figure out what 10%, 25%, or even 50% off means without using the calculator on their cell phone. Having a countless amount of information at our fingertips should be making society smarter, not dumber. It's no wonder that America is slowly falling behind other world powers in terms of business, technology, and innovative ideas. Having a Smartphone doesn't necessarily make the user smart. In many ways, it makes them LAZY. Knowledge is still obtained by studying, reading, critical thinking, rote recall, and hard work.
5. Spelling and Grammar: Twitter and Instagram are littered with sentence fragments and atrocious spelling. Blog posts are sometimes so poorly written, that I stop reading after only a few lines. Come on people, use Spell Check, and Grammar Check, or how about actually proofreading your posts? Autocorrect is NOT always your friend! Just look at some of the online postings involving some auto-corrected texts. Since people can't see you face to face, they are more inclined to judge you based upon your social writing skills or postings. If I have to see one more "your" the best instead of "You're the Best," I might start going all Grammar Police on people, but I promise, I won't go all Number Three on anyone.
Just my daily rant. I feel a little like Lewis Black. ( Insert brrr mouth sound here.)
Cheers!
Drakov
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