Don’t Be About It, TWEET About It

By: Georgia Trevor

I'd rather," deadpans Philippa Grogan, 16, "give up, like, a kidney than my phone. How did you manage before? Carrier pigeons? Letters? Going round each others' houses on BIKES?" This is an excerpt from the Guardian News online which caught my attention. What the girl said was basically how many teens these days think and strongly feel. Our phones are our lives. Technology has made us anti social in many ways.

Walking Avila University’s campus is pretty much as follows: Students walking, earphones in, phones out either changing the song or on some sort of social network, whether it be Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. This is my generation. This is what happens when technology upgrades and we become a product of being raised by technology.

 This somewhat interests me.

 Did you know that it starts as young as age twelve that kids own a phone? When I was twelve, I was fighting my big brother to get off of the computer so I can PAINT ON OUR COMPUTER SCREEN THINGY MAJIG!

 “I have a phone, Ipod and this house computer might as well be mine. I’m the only one who knows how to work it forreal. I have Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I have a lot to say and all of my friends have one,” Serina Trevor, 8^th grader stated to me, as if it were a no-brainer question I asked.

 According to Guardian News, more than 80% of phone-owning teens also use them to take pictures (and 64% to share those pictures with others). Sixty percent listen to music on them, 46% play games, 32% swap videos and 23% access social networking sites!

 According to Jonathan McKee, author, and president of The Source for Youth Ministry kids declared that teens are now soaking in 10 hours and 45 minutes per day of media in a mere 7 hours and 38 minutes. (This requires multitasking. In other words, they are listening to iTunes while browsing the web, all while the TV is on in the background.)

 Me, myself, I wake up and check my phone as if it were the daily news. I check my texts first, go to Twitter, then Instagram then Facebook. I’m sure to have a couple notifications I NEED to check. This is life. I rather text you than call you or talk to you in person. I usually have nothing to say in person if you’re just a social media “friend.” If you aren’t my parents, family members, best friend or a special someone, there is NO reason for you to call me. This is just how I feel. So to sum it up, media is ruling many other teens’ lives and I’m not ashamed to say mine as well.

 We are the technology generation.

 “We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.” -Carl Sagan

 Technology has made us anti social in many ways.