Technology - Taking Over Our Lives?

Digital technology has transformed the way we live and communicate.Just a few decades ago none of us had access to the amount of technology available today, even basic computers were out of most peoples reach but now they fit into the palms of our hands. They have transformed the way we live, from our personal relationships to our working habits, but has the balance tipped too far; have we become slaves to the screen?

Technology in the present world affects people’s daily lives. Whether it inspires somebody to be the master at videogames or makes somebody a computer hacker. It has made the generation more greedy, arrogant and lazy. An average person spends 4 years of his life looking down towards its cellphone. The touch screens have made us lose touch, contacts with the person we are living. In the light if IPhones, IPads, IPods, IMacs, so many ‘I’’s and SELFIE’S have made us lose WE and US. Technology has made us more selfish and separate than we were ever in terms of better connectivity.

Today the word ‘SOCIAL NETWORK’ has become ‘ANTI SOCIAL NETWORK’ due to the larger use of, or excessive use of technology. Having a big friend list on Facebook have made us Friend less and we are all now alone because friendships are now more broken and are squeezed up or divided among the group chats of cellphones or chat communities. We sit on computers all day measuring self-worth by checking our likes, followers and shares of our pictures and posts. Ignoring all those persons who actually love us and wants our attention. Instead of meeting someone face to face we ask them at what time you want to Skype. Technology has let us use abbreviations of the words that once were used as expressions to tell the other person in detail, e.g. OMG, LOL, ROFL, LAMO etc. This is the generation of media overstimulation, in which chats have been reduced to snap chats (clicking photos of a particular event and posting them over it), the word limit has been reduced to 400 characters and the videos have been reduced to 6 seconds in high speed.

Now  days it’s all about getting an iPod touch or a phone with a touch screen. Soon, people will have chairs that will fly around to get a soda from the fridge so they don’t have to get their butt up and walk. Though there seems to be more negative influence of technology, there may still be some silver lining. For instance, my parents did not have fancy cell phones or high-tech computers back then because it was never created. They only had a bike and ball until it was worn out.They would ALWAYS be outside, whether the weather was hot or cold, playing soccer or having a snowball fight with their friends.

In the music industry for instance, when a new song comes out by a famous rockstar wearing a metal jacket with no shirt on and multiple piercings, people end up coming to school dressed the same way. They would say to their parents, “It’s the new style at school,” and their parents would say, “Okay wear it but, if you get in trouble don’t blame it on me.” Parents aren’t even strict anymore. It’s the same thing with a rapper, if they get grills and get gold chains around their neck, so many people would do the same EXACT thing. However, music can have a positive effect on people also. It may inspire people to do what they want the most.  It may also communicate important messages to the public and can also illicit emotions and memories that we always remember every time we hear a specific song.

 Overall, technology influences every aspect of people’s lives.One main aspect of people’s life is change in social relationships. Today, mother and daughter sitting at a sofa could not talk to each other because they have a cellphone or an IPad in their hands. On dinner timings, mothers call their children on their cellphones to come downstairs to eat there dinner. Technology has created a vast distance among the relationship of mother daughter, father son or we can say children and grandparents. In older times children were surrounded by their grandparents to listen stories on different topics, but now we see that children are surrounded by IPads, cellphones, IPods, and laptops playing digital games on them. Taking the example of friends, today friends are also not like that, as once they were. In past  a group of friends would have a meeting, or a get together around, discussing about their school, college times, but now Facebook has made this thing much easier. Those friends make a group chat on Facebook or Watsapp, then chat on that group once in a week or two.

The trend of meeting old friends and chatting about the old times is now just now an old culture which is considered.Today everything is getting commercialized, where ever we go, where ever we eat, we first take a selfie or a picture of that place or food and instantly we post it on social networking sites. Our life’s circle is bounded around there activities. Going outside with friends have  also become a trend. But what we do when we go outside? We just only sit there order our  food and then again we start checking our phone to put statues of the place we have come and with whom. To show where we have come we click pictures with friends, take selfies etc.The purpose of getting together is lost in those cellphones and statues updates.

Today whatever is happening, whatever technology has created, is basically a digital  insanity. People go crazy over small technological things. So if we want to change this trend  we do have a choice, because at this time we do have an option of autocorrect, we must do  it by our self, take control, or be control, or do a decision to our self, of switching our  cellphones, laptops, IPads, IPods, not making video’s to any event but enjoying that precious  moment instead, not making pictures of our food but enjoying it eating instead. Not  installing or be crazy about any new software or app. Getting the sign of battery low creates panic attacks among youngsters, no WIFI in others homes creates a bad image of that person, the loading sign of any video creates impatience.  All these things create impatience in everyone’s life which leads to create a particular  tension for somebody. And this tension will create a low battery sign of only one bar closer  to humanity at the end.