Food for Thought

I'm by no means trying to brag about my excessively high Screen Time, nor am I trying to imply that it has never interfered with other aspects of my life aside from my academics. I know that family dinners would be more sentimental if we spent time talking about our days rather than sharing some video we saw on Facebook. However, what I hope to stress from my findings is that not all iPhone use is "bad" or a "distraction." Generations who came before mine didn't have the same technological advancements, yet are so quick to resent people my age for being dependent on technology. This raises the question: what can they expect from a generation who has never seen the world without the internet? Whether their resentment stems from how they are unsure of how to use social media the same way that we do, or because they miss the days where they could go out in public and not see every single person glued to their smartphone screen (both reasons would be valid, don't get me wrong), my point is that it's wrong to judge every aspect of the Millennial or Gen Z lifestyle off the fact iPhones are "distracting." It's an unfair judgement to make, as I am proof of that: I admit to being obsessed with my phone, but it's not something you would immediately think if you saw my transcript. Perhaps I am not an outlier, and maybe there was something evolutionary in my generation that made multi-tasking between our social and academic lives seem easier-- who knows. I do know, however, that there is a fair in-between of too much technology use and none at all, and I hope that one day we can come to a cultural agreement about what that is. iPhones and social media can be hated for certain things, but there's a reason they're not going anywhere and that is because our society continues to grow in dependency on them.