Technology These Days

The summer going into 7th grade my parents surprised me with a new cell phone and I was shocked. But the deal was: I had to pay for it. That's when my addiction to technology began. Two years later, my pink Motorola Razr turned into a Verizon LG Voyager, which then turned into something else, and now six phones and seven years later, I'm now on my third iPhone. My family's nintendo 64 turned into playstation and then xbox one. It seems like everyone has fallen into the vicious cycle of always upgrading to new things just because they're invented. People always feel the need to be better than everyone else and having the newest technology helps them achieve that satisfaction.

It feels like yesterday that, my brother and I were playing on our swing set in the back yard, talking about what mom was going to make for dinner and just a few days ago he texted me asking if I want to upgrade to the iPhone 6, even though we just got new iPhone 5's. Back in elementary school, I would have to call my friends house phone in order to make plans instead of sending a quick text message. When my parents were young, they never had to ask someone "where are you?" over the phone because they always knew where the person was, at home. Even earlier than that, in the 40's, my grandparents would go over to each others house's to talk and make plans.
As time progressed, our society has started to lose the value of face-to-face conversation. Most conversations exist through text, chats, and tweets. Phone calls are even starting to lose their value as well; this is particularly evident when people get mad at seeing a voicemail notification on their phone.

Entrepreneurs are trying to make technology faster and easier for people to communicate but the result of their work is making people lazier and not as self confident. Everyone is sitting behind a screen; they can say whatever they want online but in person they could be extremely shy. Many people use a screen as protection from their true identity. This then leads to, "catfishing". For those of you who don't know, cat fishing is a term that refers to people who create a fake identity to trick others into thinking they're someone else. This is just another example of how technology has shaped and changed our society.

Technology can be a good thing but the way people are abusing it makes it dangerous and toxic to our society. Times used to be a lot simpler; when we were younger we worried about not being able to play outside after school and now many of us worry about not getting enough likes on our Instagram posts. Overall, technology has revolutionized our world into a world many cannot recognize. Whether it's being addicted to the newest technology or simply buying an iPhone because it's the cool thing to do, everyone feeds into this addiction.