Social Media, Video Games, and Personal Interactions

Gone are the days where kids ring the door bells of their neighbors to go outside and ride their bikes. I remember when my neighborhood friends would ring the doorbell to ask if I could come out to play and I was heartbroken if I wasn't allowed. Cops and robbers was the neighborhood favorite, which has now been replaced with a more demeaning, MUCH more violent video game version called Grand Theft Auto. Today, the only interaction I see around my neighborhood is when someone is passing in their car, or the kids are out selling something for a fundraiser. The generation that is growing up now seems to only know the world of technology- unless their is a video game, or a social media website at the end of the tunnel, they aren't interested. Whose fault is it that kids today sit on the couch and play video games right up until dinner and then again until bedtime? Is it the parents fault? Is it corporations and businesses like Apple,Microsoft, and Playstation who have continued to evolve the technology? I'll let you answer those questions for yourself.

This illustrates almost perfectly how the gaming world has evolved over time.
Retrieved from google.com/images

Growing up I never owned a game console, no Nintendo64, no Gameboy, nothing. Do I feel like I missed out on anything? No. I do not resent my parents for not letting me have any of those gaming machines. My family didn't even own a computer until my dad needed one for his return to University. I never got sucked into the technology like the generation today has. To be fair though, the older I got, the more I got interested in understanding how it all worked and I started spending more and more time on the computer and the Internet. I was one of the first of my friends to have an MSN account, and let me tell you, my parents objected until the cows came home. I also claimed I would never fall into the trap of Facebook, but that did not last for long and once I signed up, into the endless rabbit hole I fell.

Image retrieved from google.com/images on April 13, 201

So much of our technology has continued to evolve over the years to "make it easier to stay connected" but are we really staying connected with one another? Angela Zimmerman wrote a fantastic blog entry on the disconnect of connection that is occurring in our world today. One of my good friends made a good point when we were out for dinner one night; I was replying to an "important" e-mail and she pointed out that we could be eating dinner on our own and just text each other, but instead we are sitting together, so we should value our time together. Ever since that meal I have made a conscious effort to keep my phone in my purse or my pocket when I am out with friends. I frequently find myself observing others when I am out in public and more times than not I find that too many people are out with friends, but really they aren't, because they spend their time on their phones doing something that does not involve personal interactions. A perfect example of this was last weekend. I was out for breakfast with my family and at the table next to me, every member of the family was on some sort of technological device. The infant, maybe she was 3, was on and iPad, dad was texting away on his iPhone, and mom was doing the same on her Blackberry. Before we know it we will all interact with each other via computer screens while we sit in our bedrooms in our pajamas all day. This picture, to the right, demonstrates the direction our world theoretically is going in if we don't start interacting face-to-face with one another. It is not just my fellow students and I who feel this way about technology. Take a look at this blog posted about how technology and social media are really effecting our relationships. 

The way technology is going, in 10 years I'll be able to just think of this post and my computer will type it out for me. Is all this technological improvement for the better? Or are we setting ourselves up for a very lonely future.

Thanks for reading, check back soon for my reflection on ALES204 and what I've learned.


Cheers,
Kelsie