Not-so-social, Thanks to Media

Have we become zombies to the real word? Have we lost ourselves to the addiction and fast-satisfaction of electronics? While new technologies seem to appear everyday making people excited and 'happy' they're not as great as we probably credit them to be. I'm not an exception to the large portion of people eaily entertained by the little devices but I'm not so blind to the negative sides of them either. I love spending time with my friends. It's quite frankly been my favorite part of life since I was old enough to make friends. You know when you used to make up crazy games, go on wild adventures and just about die laughing all day with your friends? How could you not love that? I suppose now it's a lot harder because everyone's noses are buried in there phones and nothing exciting really happens unless someone captures it on Snapchat. Sherry Turkle gives an example of this during her Ted talk by sharing a photo of her daughter and her daughter's friends "hanging out" but not even communicating. I'm not dissing social media completely, just the overuse of it. What happened to simply being in the moment, does no one seem to care about that anymore? Social media can definitely take a toll on your friendship, but you can avoid this by simply paying more attention to the friends right in front of you instead of the friends in your phone. Friendships lose their closeness if someone's ignored for too long. Parents also suffer from the loss of connection with their kids due to social media. I know that in my house my mom makes it a point to keep me off my phone when we're having dinner. It's a good way to ensure that I'm still doing okay, we talk about our days, she asks about my grades, and we discuss various other topics. But, the first thing I do after I clear my plate is pull out my phone and once again lose myself to my social apps. My mom will have to repeat questions over three times to my little brother before he even comprehends that she's talking to him. I don't think this is the ideal family dynamic but it's not very unusual sadly. My mom has social media too but she's a lot better at regulating her usage of it..... must be a Generation X thing. School is another thing that has been negatively impacted by technology. Students lose interest faster and get distracted easier. Many think they can successfully multitask their way through schooling but research shows that this, in fact, is not the case. When kids become less successful in school who is it that gets blamed? The teachers. So now it's up to teachers to try to regrasp the attention and will of their students all while still providing good material and producing solid results in grades. I am not anti-social media, there's no way I could be I'd be a hypocrite! But I do think it's necessary that we limit our usage, especially in the presence of other people.