Technology: A Blessing or a Curse for the Younger Generations

When it comes to social media everyone has heard of it. We are the technology age. We, over the years have been becoming more and more magnetized with the usage of our phones. Social media provides us the ability to globally interact with whoever and whatever we desire with just a click of a button. Social media is highly addicting and I know that for a fact, I can’t seem to go no longer than an hour without having to constantly pick up my phone and check for notifications. All my nights also consist of me staring into a screen scrolling through miles and miles of cute puppy pages and aesthetic foods but this addiction has damaged my mental and physical health without even having slightest idea of it, but it’s not just affecting me, it’s a whole generations worth. Let me walk you through two stories of my life. Just two. The first story is about assignment of priorities.

In my junior days just about when iPods where the latest hit and technology hasn’t taken over people’s lives yet I was out prioritising playing sports, working, riding my bike with friends and family every Sundays out to the local park screaming and laughing about god knows what, and becoming the bestest of friends with any other kid that was out at the park. Then suddenly as the years went by I stopped playing sports, I also stopped working and those friends and family I used to ride bikes with, it’s been years since I last saw them. Nowadays all I am doing is laying in my bed, eyes glued to my phone ignoring everything that is going on around me. My phone was my priority. My phone was my life. Isn’t it yours too? Then one week I fell really ill and had a bad case of a high temperature fever, I was out sick for a week and had to be hospitalized so they could inject some liquid into me as I wasn’t getting better at home. This week of sickness was complete hell but looking back at it I’m really grateful that I did get sick. I needed it in order to escape the virtual world. This is because during that week of being sick I was too tired to reach over the bed for my phone and it was just too much work to move. So from being on my phone 24/7 it abruptly switched to just me and my thoughts. I got so lost in my thoughts thinking about how back in the day I was fit, athletic, academically smart and I knew how to socialise but now, I have gained a fair amount of fat as walking up a flight of stairs makes me lose my breath, my emotional health wasn’t as optimistic and idiosyncratic like before anymore. I felt like I had fallen out of the world and only now I have been able to pull myself down and get a hold of reality. I see technology has been deteriorating generations and generations of physical and emotional health. So I ask, why is technology so important to you? Is it worth more than your physical and emotional health? Have you been using technology wisely? Simultaneously technology is also what makes this generation. In opposition it has provided countless of new job opportunities, communicative ways to efficiently and effectively reach out to people all around the world, and it is also a place for people who just want to escape their reality for a bit and relax.

My second story is about family. Since I was able to escape technology in my youth days I learnt how valuable family time is, it’s a quality time where everyone bonds with each other talking about what’s going on in their lives, how they are doing and what we have been getting up to. I appreciate every second that I get to spend time with my family. But, I have two younger siblings that were captured into the addiction of electronic devices and is visibly shown in everyday life. Such as during dinner times, all my siblings ever want to do is sit and eat either at the television room or in front of their iPads, they don’t see the value in dinner times and my parents and I had have countless of arguments telling them to put the devices away and enjoy the time being. Without a doubt every single time we tell them, they throw massive fits and tantrums. The devices have manipulated the way in which they act and think as they would rather spend time staring into the screens rather than going out to the park and having fun. It’s disappointing to see that that they don’t have the slightest interest in valuable time which leads them being unexposed to family love. In contrast, technology has majorly benefitted the kids’ education. There are various sites that help with learning as they sometimes struggle in class. With the use of these learning sites they are better understanding their work while also enjoying and interacting with technology. Because they are enjoying the learning sites it also further motivates them into completing more activities which highly benefits their academic studies allowing them to advance through the class at ease.

In conclusion, while there are many advantages and disadvantages with the use of technology there still is a rising apathy within of the younger generations of electronic usage. Although it is an unavoidable obstacle we should learn to balance out a healthy screen time to reality time ratio for the most beneficial use.