Try and remember the longest you’ve gone without your phone. When was the last time you just left it on the charger and had a genuinely good time without being notified someone liked your photo or retweeted you? When you don’t know the answer to something isn’t your immediate response to Google it? In the last ten years adults and teens have grown increasingly dependent of their phones and with the creation of smartphones what used to be common devices are now just antiques.
The phrase, “there’s an app for that” is now stamped on just about anything our parents used to use. Let’s not forget the radios that one had to dedicate five minutes of their time just to find a station in the static only to get a commercial or a talk show about plumbing. Now we have our playlist and the holy grail of music, Pandora.
Today putting pen to paper is strictly for the misery of school purposes but, at one point it was for something sincere from one to another. Now we can go on Facebook and read about the perfect boy or girl or subtweet about someone. And if you can still physically wink, please come forward because you are a national treasure compared to those hiding behind emojiis.
Most recently, every other social media post has a photo tagged along with it. Now one can send a quick snap chat to that chum of theirs sitting five feet away from them. While 90’s kids will always have the large VHS tapes of their first steps and tee ball games, twenty first century born toddler can look forward to a quick Cinemagram on a continuous loop.
But there are a few things that technology can’t replace like the taste of food, the feeling of clothes on, the warmth in your heart for your loved ones, the gratitude you feel during the holiday season.
One’s dependence on their smart phone isn’t necessarily bad when they are using is it to save those precious moments and share them with others. One cannot continue to have a bad day when they’ve watched a video of two babies talking and laughing at each other. Sharing a photo or statement is taking pride in that moment or fact. Its giving advice to others even if they did not ask for it. How was I supposed to know ain’t nobody got time for that?
By: Elizabeth Mosakowski
