Why is it that everywhere I tend to go, there is someone constantly on their phone? It honestly aggravates me. It seems as if the technology we use and take advantage of, to enhance our lives, is more so taking over ours. I’ll go to a restaurant, whether I go with my family or friends, and will make sure that we avoid our phones and actually interact face-to-face. Yet that doesn’t seem to be the same for others. I will see a family of four sitting at a table, with their phones out, and not one will speak to one another.

So why is it that we seem to always be so actively engaged in our phones? Most likely because it’s ubiquitous; we have access to technology at any given moment and it’s beginning to affect the younger generation.

There was actually a time when children would go outside to run around and play; they weren’t insiders and technology wasn’t problematic. I also remember those times. Using my imagination to create the world around me without the use of technology. Lately it seems as if most children avoid nature and the outside world as well as the use of their own mind’s. Technology becomes their imagination, feeding them with everything they want to see and hear which in turn, they regurgitate this information, true or false.

The number one problem I have with technology today is that we don’t interact the same way as we had in the past. We’re avoiding social interaction without realizing it and the children consider it to be the norm. These children conform to this new way of life ruled by technology since they don’t realize how harmful it potentially could be. They learn by observing their parents and the ones around them. Our actions affect their future ways of life due to our obsession over phones, computers and almost any form of technology. We wonder why these children can’t hold a conversation and we don’t see that technology can cause this issue.
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The world will never revert back to its previous ways. Technology is always going to be a factor in our lives and it will be impossible to suppress; and that’s just where it goes wrong for the children. It’d be much healthier if children had a relationship with the outside world and connected through physical speech opposed to connecting to the WiFi.

Technology is ubiquitous. That’s final. There is no way of changing it as people have relied on it for centuries; it just keeps changing. Modern day technology has become the controversy of today as the children of this era are deeply affected by it. When industry boomed in the late 1800’s and machines were introduced this technology had affected these children through physical harm. Our technology today has affected our children mentally leaving them clueless, inept and dull. Children have become robots.

Children’s minds are being infused with garbage, information which eventually limits their full potential and interrupts their imagination. Technology continues to tear at these kinds of minds as they are still in development and pliable. They are susceptible to any external force. It would be most helpful if parents could realize this and restrict the technology that their children use. Instead, they give in to their child’s desires and allow them to use this technology with little to no supervision. Some parents don’t realize how much access their kids have to the internet and they can’t seem to notice how potentially hazardous it can be. They aren’t being as cautious as needed in order to protect their children. This is most likely why you may see an immense amount of the younger generation with iPhones. These parents seem to struggle with that concept, most likely because they didn’t grow up around this new technology so there awareness isn’t as keen as one with a technological background. If these parents were taught to understand the disadvantages of technology, not only will they be able to restrict these dire features and make technology advantageous but they will open their children's minds again. Children will not only use their mind to create their own world but will soon develop potential. They will learn to utilize technology without overusing it.

Children use social media, as most people do, but many do it at too young an age. It becomes a bit ridiculous when a child under the age of 13 is posting pictures of themselves that everyone can see and they don’t recognize that the entire world can see them, if they’re private or not. What’s even worse is when the parent doesn’t see the harm behind it or they aren’t taking any action to intervene in their child’s so called “social life.” Children are very open-minded as they are willing to have a conversation with most people over the internet. That’s where it becomes risky. The person on the other end may not be who they say they are and it becomes too dangerous an issue that the child is incapable of handling.

Children are not only in harm’s way due to social media but they are isolated from the world in which they live in. Not only are children singlehandedly affected by social media but most people with some type of social media account is guilty of isolation. Children may have depleted social skills once adapted to this social media. These children may be able to speak to a person over social media because they’re isolated. It’s a different environment and they can speak to a person they would’ve never thought about talking to before. It’s great that the child is learning to talk to different people but the isolation part is the cause of the problem. If the child is on their device, connecting them to the internet, they block out everything around them. They have their mind set on the device and they are now isolated from the world. Their seclusion has caused deterioration of their social interaction within the real world. They’ve become too timid when they speak and when an adult starts a conversation, they try to find every which way they can get out of it because they don’t know how to respond.

Children used to love going outside to play a game of roller hockey, tag or have a snowball fight. Where did that excitement go exactly? It’s followed a lot of children into their houses as they sit around playing videogames. Why do these children stay inside? They prefer to play videogames or watch TV probably because this technology has took their interest away from the outdoors. These children aren’t getting as much physical activity as they had previously since they aren’t staying completely active by playing outside. Children of today are only spending half the time outdoors opposed to what their parents had. These parents are worried that their children aren’t getting enough physical activity or play time outside as their generation had in the past. The sad, disappointing part of children not heading outside any longer is that they don’t connect with their communities any longer as their parents had in the past. They don’t have as many friends in the same area as them as well as the multiple opportunities for fun that their parents had. Neighbors are just the people in the community, they used to be the ones you mostly connected with. Ever since the introduction of modern day technology, it has heavily impacted the children’s choice of sitting around inside or running around and playing outside.

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You may be asking yourself, How ironic? Why is he degrading technology so much if he’s using a computer to write this? Well it’s not so much that I’ve degraded technology because let’s face it, it’s been a very important resource for us over the years. It’s more so that I find it to be affecting the newer generation in a deleterious way opposed to a beneficial way. They don’t understand when they should put down the phone, look up, and pay attention to their friends and family. They need to learn to get outside more often than not. I grew up with the outdoors and technology wasn’t introduced to me until later in life. This is how my opinion developed over time. I believe it’s important that a child isn’t exposed to so much technology until their minds have developed enough where they are capable of handling most conflict.

I think that we should all begin to realize how dangerous the omnipresence of technology can be. If parents could see that their children don’t need so much openness with the world until they reach an age capable of problem solving, then they should hold back on allowing their children that privilege. Technology is a privilege which should only be held in the right hands; if not, it will negatively forge the lives of children with control of this technology.

Sources
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY

[2] http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-prime/201212/how-
technology-is-changing-the-way-children-think-and-focus

[3] http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap10_frq_eng_lang.pdf

[4] http://dailybruin.com/2009/10/21/social-networks-deplete-social-skills/

[5] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2307431/Children-today-read-chores-
HOMEWORK-play-outside.html