Hailey Morse

October 12, 2017

Prof. Emerson

 

Technology is taking us Over

Imagine this, you are doing your homework, when suddenly, your phone buzzes. That sound that your phone makes everytime immediately tells you to stop whatever you are doing and pick up your phone to see what it possibly could be. As you think about what it possibly could be: twitter, facebook, snapchat, you’re going crazy just thinking about it. As time passes, you look up to see yourself an hour into your facebook news feed, instead of doing that English presentation that is due tomorrow morning at eight a.m. In today’s society the internet is providing everyone and anyone with multiple distractions, and each day they are getting worse. Teens and even adults are so distracted and love to be apart of any social media that they can get. People like Thomas King, who did the Tedx Talk, “Adults we need to have a Talk,” believes these technologies have endless benefits. Because of this, people all over the globe are constantly drawn to its many uses. In the digital world today society gives many benefits to all ages, and it is giving us a bigger disadvantage to many young adults who are very distracted.

Many social media sites have so much power over young adults. From TV, to video games, to apps; the internet offers so much for everyone. It can provide an escape for students, it’s also a way to cope with stress. This however comes with a significant cost. Young adults don’t always have time to spare when they spend so much time on the internet, when in reality they should be spending time to focus on growing up and transitioning into the real world. Robin Henig, a journalist who wrote the essay,  “What is it Aabout 20-Somethings?” states, “Keniston called it youth, Arnett calls it emerging adulthood; whatever it’s called, the delayed transition [into adulthood] has been observed for years.” (206) This delay could possibly be the fact that young adults are spending way too much time doing other things then focusing on themselves. It’s hard for these young adults to transition into the real world if they’re not focused on themselves or what they should be doing other than being on social media. This may seem like a minor distraction at the time, but in time it will lead to a large setback in the timeline of a young adult’s life. Spending a large amount of your life on social media worrying about what you are seen as on social media can feel as if it takes over your mind, distracting you from reality.

Another problem that has emerged from the overuse of technology and the internet is going blind to the bigger issues. They are constantly overseen by events in the media, such as celebrity drama, who just won the sports award, and what’s happening on the popular TV shows. All these things are what we young adults hear most about. We don’t really pay attention to major world issues, such as hurricanes, war, and climate change. We just don’t realize what actually happens and we pay more attention to things we want to hear then what we should be listening for. Young people should use technology in small doses to pursue their passions, rather than fill time. As Thomas King states in his Tedx Talk, “I became set on changing the world and wanted to escape my classroom to pursue what I was genuinely passionate about, and I was really lucky” (4). King was referring to the educational website he had developed, which informed over half a million people and over 20 countries. This event is an example of a major world issue, and King who was 13 at the time wanted to spread information about the risks of deforestation at the time. Staying distracted online is taking everyone’s attention away from the things that actually need attention in this world. There is no stopping our changing world today, so why not try to make the best out of the future. If the internet is our most powerful resource, we should use it to benefit those all around us in the world, instead of us getting so distracted.

Multitasking is another big disadvantage with technology. There are so many people in today’s society who get so distracted just by multitasking and even with the technology that is now helping us multitask. There are many things now a days that pull people into distract them and lose focus. As Richard Restak, a journalist, in his article “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of our Era” says “people have always been required to do more than one thing at a time or think of more than one thing at a time” (374). Everyone in this world today is always trying to multitask, which is really distracting us from work, school, family life, and social interactions, other than our phones and TV’s. Distracting us from all these things can affect us way more then we really think it can. “I no sooner begin thinking of one thing than my mind starts to wander off to another subject and before I know it I’m thinking of yet a third subject” (374). Richard Restak states this in his article about being distracted and multitasking. This quote was out of their best-selling book “Driven to Distraction” and this is one of the 12 most common manifestations. As I read these I thought to myself about how each one really applied to myself once, or how it applies to someone I see, or know. The amount of people you see a day that are very distracted and try to multitask is a very high number and I feel to change that we should try to get people to get out and be active or find something they love to do other than TV, phones, video games, etc.  

There are many people in this world today that may see things very differently. Would you rather see it through your own eyes or would you rather look at it through a screen? Lots of people are looking at their life through a TV screen, phone screen, or not even worried about how they see their life. I look at this as being reality vs. virtual because you see things differently when you are in the actual time and place of what is happening. People who use technology a lot don’t have time to look at reality the way it should be. They see the world differently than other people do because of all the technology usage. In time when it’s you doing this, you don’t realize how bad or how often you do such a thing. Your mind is completely oblivious to certain things, and one of them is looking at your life, your family’s life, and others people lives. “Easy distractibility, trouble in focusing attention, a tendency to tune out or drift away in the middle of a page or conversation” (376). This says not only a lot about being distracted but I feel that it explains the impact of technology on everyone in this society today. Even TV’s nowadays are very distracting and some people can’t get their eyes off of them. Restak really influences me to think about what I do with technology. It makes me think if I used it the right way or just used to my best ability.

When I was younger, in middle school, I thought that having a phone was the coolest thing ever. I never really payed attention to what people had to say about being on their phones or how often people were on their phones. Something so small, with so many ways to use it, was distracting so many people in many different ways. Between texting, facebook, or even video games so many young children and even young adults now are so distracted into these small devices. My family used to say that I was always so distracted by my phone and never payed attention to them when we were at family gatherings. I never realized how true it was, and just laughed because I thought they were joking. I never took anyone seriously when they told me to either get off my phone or join the fun. Now that I think about all this, I never realized how much time I lost with my family all because of technology, a cell phone. After I realized all this I started to think about what I should do to keep the time with my family while it lasts. I started to not use my phone so much and try to do as much as possible with my family. This helped me think about how not only it affected me but it also affected my friends, family, and people around me.

So let’s think about this and ask ourselves are we the ones who are constantly on our phones, checking emails, doing all sorts of different things on our little devices? Well everything I talked about, is really impacting us as individuals and we try so hard to not do it, but in reality it’s a habit. To me I think that some people think of it as an addiction, they would rather deal with technology than being with their family, friends, or paying attention to school. All this is really distracting because we are more worried about what is happening on social media rather than worrying about an exam, or homework, or how your family is doing. Young adults think their priorities are phones and social media. To me we should all have time for everyone and anything other than phones, so let’s put them down and enjoy life while we are still here.