The Dawn of the Digital Age

Technology has become so prevalent in our daily lives that wherever we turn, we see our peers and our children engrossed in their phones, typing away or scrolling to no end. But what happens as our addiction to our technology continues to exponentially grow? What happens when we forget that there is a world out there to experience in real life, not just through a screen?

We've all thought of the benefits to technology, whether that be its ability to connect people across the world or search up information in the matter of a couple of seconds, but have we thought about the long term repercussions that could affect our coming generations and the kind of future we will have as a society? I already see this problem occurring when people are sitting right next to each other yet they still decide to text each other instead of verbally conversing. We are able to hide behind our phones and our laptops instead of confronting our problems in person: you can break up with someone through one text message, you can talk ill of your boss on Twitter, you can post jaded, angry statuses on Facebook... but when will we decide that it's better to face our problems upfront?

I'll admit that I have done this as well: I have allowed myself to hide behind my computer and my phone and let its presence do all the necessary communicating for me. Because it's easier. But what is easy is not always the best because we never learn to be free thinkers; we don't learn to take credit for our mistakes and our failures. We instead learn how to escape our issues by creating a labyrinth online that no one, not even ourselves, can escape from.