In a time where screens rule the hours, we’re awake and electronic gadgets easily integrate into everyday activities, it’s an irrefutable fact that technology has taken on greater significance in our lives. How we communicate with digital technologies impact our experiences, decisions, and even our perception of self from the moment we get up until we fall asleep. The way we communicate has undergone significant change. Playing with neighbours in the park or going to a game arcade have become unusual activities that have faded into the past. Instead, we find ourselves on video conversations, frequently only a few minutes away physically. The physical link we once had has suddenly vanished into the digital realm. As technology continues to change our lives, we must evaluate the changing nature of our social relationships and how to strike a balance between the digital and the real world.
In today’s society, children as young as one year old are addicted to mobile phones; they cannot be said to be at fault, but this is the way things are. Children from one to six years old are heavily exposed to technology, which is dangerous because by the time they reach adulthood, they will be obsessed. For example, a young child is crying, which is completely natural for a child, but parents or anybody else watching the child would just put anything on their phone to calm down the child, and after a few years the children grow obstinate and constantly demand a phone or a tablet. This suggests that parents today may not form the same deep emotional bonds as they did in the past. It indicates that genuine connections in their lives may be lacking This may result in parents and children feeling like strangers under the same roof; if that parental link is not established, how can the child trust his or her parents? Worse, do parents know their child well in this extremely contemporary society? How closely are they related? Certainly, connected to technology.
Perhaps spend the weekend with a family member? No, it’s more that people send messages to check on others, which is acceptable once in a while, but being there for people, going to their house, is something that some seniors want as they grow older because they demand more love from their family, but because we are too busy, we check on them through messaging apps. I may check in on someone from time to time, but I have no idea how that person is genuinely feeling, and behind the screen, they may simply lie, and sometimes that is how some wonderful soul leaves us. Sometimes spending just one day with someone without bickering is essential; that face-to-face interaction, people laughing together is a basic thing that has to be preserved, but it is dwindling little by little.
Do not use technology as an escape from reality since the world needs people to exist in it. Diving deep into a life with no contact costs a lot, as someone wise once stated, ”cheap costs a lot.”