Am I Really On My Smart Phone All The Time? Most Likely

Is the smart phone the best or the worst invention the 21st century has ever seen?

Is it contributing to society becoming anti- social?

Are we turning into a society that has little or no need to speak to our fellow human beings in real life? Are our children being influenced that they will not need to speak to people in the street or at school because they will be able to say everything they need to via social media?

For me these are dilemmas that as parents we will have to face up to and ultimately answer.

By the time my five year old twins become teenagers will they be completely and utterly reliant on a smart phone and social media to converse with anybody and will this be my fault because of my over use of my smart phone?

This was all brought home to me last week. I had a health scare and ended up in hospital. It didn’t matter which part of the hospital I was in, patients, doctors, nurses, in fact whoever for that matter were on their smart phones.

There was a time when in those sort of places like hospitals where people were waiting they would make small talk to pass the time which I feel was a more friendly sociable world. Nowadays people are bowed over engrossed in their smartphones. We actually don’t need to talk to anybody because our own little worlds are on the smart phone.

I constantly ask myself what is so addictive about the smart phone? This small, but ever so powerful computer that we hold in our left or right hand. I think personally because our lives are contained in this mini computer and we can when we want too vanish into the virtual world of our smartphone. Getting ourselves lost in social media, is that because it is more interesting or fascinating than the real world, and of course we don’t need to speak to anybody in the real world?

Who is to blame for this reliance of social media? Is the likes of twitter, Facebook, Instagram or one of the many other social media networks to blame?

The truth is most likely. These social media networks are very large businesses which actually are some of the biggest corporations nowadays in the world with a massive marketing budget, and truthfully they market in such a way that we simply can’t live without social media. It has to be a part of our lives, and for that matter a big part of our lives. Which of course is something our children are watching and learning from us as normal behaviour.

So by the time my five year old twins hit their teenage years, will they have been conditioned and brainwashed to think that life is all about disappearing into their smartphone for social interaction?

The chances are yes!

Who’s fault will that be?

Well I don’t think it will be anybody’s fault. It will be a combination of issues, but most importantly it will be evolution of the human race, exactly like the industrial revolution, and how it changed the world we live in today, but also managed to mess up the ozone layer proving that anything new has a downside. I also liken it to flying from place to place around the world. When passenger flights started there was most likely a lot of resistance to this form of travel, yet now it’s an important fabric of our society.

The human race at times has a habit of resisting change, and technology is change but it’s also our future, that’s going to be fact, whether we like it or not. So I’m not bothered if my five year old twins are glued to their smartphones when they become teenagers, no not in the slightest, as long as we educate them in the safe use of the internet etc then there shouldn’t be a problem. If I’m the one to blame because of my over use of the smart phone, well sorry about that, although I have to admit I’m not that sorry it’s the life I love and live of which a great percentage of that is through my smartphone. For all of that it doesn’t me that kids can’t enjoy the simple things in life, like playing at your local park.

So instead of moaning about how technology is taking over the world, let’s embrace it  and use the many benefits it has to offer.

I would love to hear your thoughts.