Discovering a New Way of Life

My topic is a question, has technology made us lazy? I believe technology has allowed people to not work hard towards dreams, and day to day tasks. To some it may be a distraction, to some it might be an excuse. My perspective is that we don’t enjoy the moment and the life that is happening around us. We don’t work hard for things anymore because all of our energy is ded- icated to social media and not our futures. The purpose of my commentary is to propose a solu- tion. I believe this is something that needs to be addressed and that many negative things can im- pact people's lives if nothing is changed. A solution I want to propose would possibly be not us- ing phones when you're with a group, limit time on apps and games, or even turn off social me- dia. Once people make one positive step towards less technology they will understand how much more they get done day to day.

Remember the ice bucket challenge, in my feelings challenge, the mannequin challenge, etc. These were all ways we brought social media users together whether it be in a positive or negative way, it was a big influence on society. That is why I want to do the same thing. The main point of this is how is the change going to be made. It has to start with the children and teenagers who are the most “addicted” to social media. I am projecting an idea that there be- comes a YouTube challenge once a week. When do kids not like to have a little competition. Weekly or whenever they feel the time is right they will upload a video of them and their family doing something special to the hashtag #FamFirst. I get that may be difficult for some but with statistics it is found that children who use social media often is caused because adults give it to them at a young age. So instead of them being in their rooms, on their phone not enjoying the time they have with family, they will have something to do. It requires family time to be spent together, allows positivity on social media, and it makes everyone want to do fun things with their family.

How many times has someone been talking to you, but you didn’t fully hear what they were saying because you were texting instead of giving that person your full attention? Have you ever let your phone go to voicemail because you’re spending time with a person or do you an- swer it immediately because that is your natural instinct? Have you ever wanted to go to bed ear- ly yet find yourself scrolling through social media for hours and its suddenly midnight?

I am guilty as can be, that’s because the societal norm nowadays is technology, technololgy, technology.

I believe we should be limiting our time on social media apps, video games for play-sta- tions and xbox’s, tv timers should be more in use, etc. It shouldn’t be an option on our iPhones anymore if we want to control our screen time. While downloading an app it should automatical- ly only allow 40 minutes per day to be on it. An author wants to introduce a new way of silenc- ing your phone to not get as many notifications. By doing so Mark Wilson condemns, “Android P will automatically silence your calls and notifications when you flip your phone over, screen side down.” This feature is called Shush and gets the job. “To put the phone down you just . . . put the phone down” (Wilson, Mark).

With such a simple change I know people will put their phones down way more and have more productive days, enjoying what is happening around them. I won’t say this doesn’t pertain to me, I catch myself on my phone way too often and I hate knowing I waste valuable time pay- ing attention to my screen vs my family or friends. I have made the change of allowing only a certain amount on social media and it is one of the best changes I have made. I won’t be on my phone, therefore I get more chores done around the house, read books on my own time, complete my homework that much quicker because I don’t have a distraction, and hangout with my roommates a lot more. We will have more conversations on a day to day basis with people we do not know, creating new bonds, living a real life not comparing body images or cars to unrealistic dreams because that is all we see on social media.

Technology has allowed us to become less attached to ourselves and our peers but too attached to “fake world”. I understand, of course, technology has given us many opportunities to bigger and better things such as ____, but has also made many people detached from the real world. With technology, it has allowed people to correspond within seconds all across the world which is something so lucky to have vs having to write out letters and mail them, with technolo- gy it has given access to not working hard towards things its an easy task you don’t have to think twice about. Instead of looking though books at the library, every answer you could ever need is sitting right in your pocket, the smartphone has brought a new way of life.

We can spend our time with one another enjoying company while instead it's a room full of people on their phones. This is our norm right now in society, that feels so wrong. Social me- dia, emailing, and texting is replacing the little amount of time we have, perhaps it could be spent in a more meaningful way. It is allowing individuals to not value each others time, everyone is connected in a fake world and not with each other face to face.

Growing up I was always playing outdoors, not much with my neighbors but I know many of my friends grew up that way. We learned how to ride bikes and got cuts and scratches and picked ourselves up and kept playing outside. Nowadays it's so sad to see many children playing on their parents phones, playing video games inside with their friends, not being read to from their parents or siblings, or even watching television all day everyday. Society has become extremely lazy in the last 20 years, on my opinion and this is why. "They used to live longer and not much addicted to technology but today’s generation is more into technology that’s the reason average human age is reducing.” This is completely true, many countries who do not use tech- nology live happier lives, and longer lives.

“The world’s first mobile phone call was made on April 3, 1973, when Martin Cooper, a senior engineer at Motorola, called a rival telecommunications company and informed them he was speaking via a mobile phone. The phone Cooper used – if you could call it that – weighed a staggering 1.1kg and measured in at 228.6x127x44.4mm. With this prototype device, you got 30 minutes of talk-time and it took around 10 hours to charge (Goodwin, Richard).” In 1984 there were 7,000 cellphones, in 1985 there were 10,000 cellphones, and in 1990 there were 2 million. Today in 2019, there are 2.71 billion smartphone users. The number has rose extremely over the last 40 years and it's actually insane. Clearly there aren’t going to be any changes when this many smartphones are being sold yearly. This is going to have to change. A start will be selling fewer amounts, let there be less access to technology and soon enough there won’t be as many addictions.

The reason of looking at smartphone users over the years helps give a better understand- ing of how addicted we are. We can watch all the entertainment you want from bed or the couch, you don’t even have to leave the house to get food, its delivered right to your doorstep, shopping, its delivered to your doorstep, libraries are useless to some now, all of these are daily activities that with technology you don’t even have to move for them. A huge reasoning as to why we have become lazier and lazier over the last couple of years.

My change that people are going to make is that children have to change the way of do- ings things first. I believe that children won’t change things unless their parents do so. So the with the beginning of technology, adults need to teach their children the way of technology. Children won’t be able to make their change if their influencers aren’t doing so.

I am publishing my paper to InstaPaper.
https://www.instapaper.com/notes
This website is a replica of Instagram but in the fact of articles and posts vs pictures and

videos. The overall concept of my project is to have children post videos of themselves of them and their families. That won’t be able to happen unless they have the connection with them and the bond.

Details behind InstaPaper has to deal with likes (people who like your post), archives (people who want to save it for later), notes (anything you want to write about a particular arti- cle), and lastly browser (anything you want to read or research).

I chose this because I am a fan of instagram. I like being in touch with my friends as well as posting things about my life to keep everyone updated or to just share my life in general. This website gives me the leeway of getting to share my feelings about how technology has made us lazy over the past 10 + years and it will also allow people to favorite it and save it to reflect on. If people do not agree with me they have the option to keep on scrolling and pass by my article and review things that attract to them.

My goal is to get everyone on the same page as me to where technology has become an addictive piece of everybody’s life and to change that is going to be difficult but with the help of children there will be the change. The parents are going to teach them from a young age the good and the bad from it, give them limits, as well as making them learn what a damage technology has to their lives. I completely understand that children are growing up in a society that is full of technology but to change that are role models. Most of us were taught what a role model was and how to follow it while some were not.

The change I am making to society is encouraging technology use in a positive way. Not the it is used always in a negative way but is it is being used properly. With a video being created by children it is teaching them to use it in an effective way. What they will be using it for is also effective, It will not be for video games and so on. It will be of live footage if him/her and their family during the week. To encourage family time, and if that is difficult to do so it can be live footage of him/her live footage of close friends posted to YouTube with the hashtag #FamFirst.

Works Cited
Angst, Lizzette. “How Technology Has Made Us Lazy.” Pucker Mob, 24 Aug.

2017, puckermob.com/moblog/how-technology-has-made-us-lazy/
Goodwin, Richard. “The History of Mobile Phones From 1973 To 2008: The Phones That

Made `It ALL Happen.” Know Your Mobile, 3 Oct. 2019, www.knowyourmobile.com/ retro/the-history-of-mobile-phones-from-1973-to-2008-the-handsets-that-made-it-all-happen- d58/
Wilson, Mark. “Google's Plan To Make Tech Less Addictive.” Fast Company, Fast Company, 9

July 2018, www.fastcompany.com/90171307/googles-plan-to-make-tech-less-addictive.