How technology is consuming our lives.

How technology is consuming our lives.

This is a post for me to reflect on how I personally use technology just so you know that I’m not preaching on this subject. How many of you pick up your phone the time you open your eyes in the morning before raising out of bed and do the same thing when you lay at night before you go to sleep. I’m a victim of this epidemic of filling our lives in front of a color screen every single minute of our wakens hours, we jump from phone to laptop, laptop to TV in the afternoon, TV to tablet, etc, oftentimes even using 2 or 3 devices at the same time. At what point do we let technology mandate our lives instead of us just letting technology be just a tool to empower and better our lifestyles. As a person who makes a living out of a computer screen, I’m a victim of believing that the more time I spend in front of my laptop the better my business will be, therefore the better life I can live. In theory, this is supposed to be true, but this is far from reality. What’s happening is people everywhere spend so much time in front of the many devices we use that our concentration span is becoming very short and limited. We have become little kids that can’t concentrate on any task for more than a couple of minutes, the constant urge to check the following list keeps us from finishing the important tasks at hand.

This is a short list of the things most people lose focus to:

• Email
• Text Messages
• Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc)
• News / Blogs / Gossip / Sports Websites
• Bank, Investments, etc

Because of this epidemic we can’t seem to just focus all of our attention to working on just one thing so we can finish up whatever it is we are working on so we can get time off to enjoy other activities, sports, music, time with family and friends etc. Our society is losing personal contact and interactions every day. Most kids nowadays hang out with their “friends” online on chat rooms and on their videogames, what happened to kids getting together going out running around the neighborhood and moms shouting out the window for them to get back inside.

The trend of technology getting more involved with our lives is growing rapidly, every day new devices make it easier for us to get distracted, smart watches are here and now you have a screen on your arm all day every day, so now you don’t even have to reach for the screen in your pocket. As a whole this trend is definitely not stopping, as more technologies arise every day we will find more ways to get even more attached to new devices. If you want to change these habits, that change has to start with you. I’m slowly trying to cut back in my screen-time and looking forward to enjoying more outside activities, spending more time reading, being active, etc.

Because of technology most of us in the developed countries have forgotten what it is to truly enjoy nature, to really enjoy the simple little things that earth and life have to offer us. All of this new technological advances are supposed to be created to make our lives easier, and in many ways, this is the case, but in many other ways they have become a burden to our lifestyles. We are no longer truly connected to other people since we don’t feel the need to do so because we can now instantly sent a text or Facebook message. I used to write love letters to my wife when we started going out,  I doubt many teenagers do this anymore, I’m not very old, and things like this seem to be a thing of the past. Today I see my younger cousins sending Facebook messages, whatsapps and snapchats to all their friends, everyday human interactions are getting weaker and weaker. Because of Facebook notifications, we don’t even call our friends anymore for their birthdays, many of us now just leave a simple wall message and that’s it. We as a society are losing personal contact which makes us feel eager for more attention at all times, this is a social media phenomenon that worries me. We are so attached to all of these technologies, wanting to live the lives of others that we see in our screens that we forget sometimes to live our own purposefully lives.

Again, I don’t want to sound like the guy that says that all technology is bad, for the contrary I love technology, but as much as I love it, we have to understand that there is a real world with real problems and real beauty as well outside of our screens. There are whole countries to see, people to meet, sports to play, languages to learn, music and instruments to hear and play…. the list goes on and on, let’s not give our lives away to the 5 inch screens on our phones and start enjoying all the wonderful things this life has to offer.

Make sure you are using technology as what it is, a tool to make things easier for you, do not let it consume your entire life.

Do this now -> Call an old friend or relative you haven’t talked to in years. Write a letter (in paper) to someone you love. Talk to a stranger and make a new friend this week!!!

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