Technology has been a major part of our lives. Here’s 15 ways in which it has been secretly ruining us.
Social Awkwardness
Social media is gradually making us all socially awkward. It’s true. We’re far too comfortable talking to people online. There’s no need to leave the confines of our homes anymore, or interact with people physically. Granted that social media is a great way to connect people, but at the same time, it could also be the reason that people drift apart.
Selfies
Oh dear god, the Selfie. It’s beyond us how the selfie phenomenon became as big as it did, but here we are. Everywhere you look there’s someone or the other taking a selfie. With their food, with their “SO”, in their vehicle, at the zoo, at the movies, the list goes on. It’s gotten to the point where people are actually dying while taking a selfie. Definitely ruinous for society.
We’d rather record than experience
People are obsessed with sharing everything they do, on social media. Everyone wants to impress their friends and followers, make them jealous. It’s gotten to the point where people are so focused on capturing the moment on camera or in video that they completely forget about the experience itself. People on vacation at the beach are too focused trying to capture the perfect picture of their feet and the beach than actually enjoying the waves themselves.
We’re in front of screen 24x7
No matter what time of the day it is, or wherever it is that you are, you always have some sort of the screen or gadget on you. No matter what be reason, for making calls, or passing the time, or playing games etc. At our homes as well, we’re always either in front of a desktops, laptops, or our tablets. Fact of the matter is we’re always glued to our screens.
We’re chained to sockets (chargers)
We’re slaves to our technology. Literally. We are shackled to electricity sockets by chargers and power cords. It’s like phone companies today want us to stay at home with the tiny battery life phones have these days.If you see a gathering of teenagers, staring into their phones, you can safely assume that there’s a power source near by.
Cameras EVERYWHERE (somebody’s always watching)
We don’t mean in the NSA sense, not that that’s any better. In addition to selfie-crazed people taking pictures left right and centre, there’s video cameras, surveillance cameras, something-or-the-other cameras etc everywhere. Even consoles come with webcams now. You never know who’s watching. While these are mostly for security purposes and in some cases it’s more than justified, there is such a thing as overdoing it. And just like that, privacy is a thing of the past. Well not entirely but we’re almost there. Sigh.
Spoilt for options
This is the era of choice. With the reach we have thanks to technology, there’s no limit to the number of choices one has when to comes to, well, literally anything. Online shopping has taken over the world by storm and we can buy absolutely anything online. There’s options for everything, from food to order, clothes to buy, people to go out with *cough*Tinder*cough*. There’s a bazillion brands to choose from now and everything is right at our fingertips. Yep, definitely spoilt rotten.
You need passwords for everything
You need a password for everything, today. Passwords are primarily a safety measure. Being able to log into anything with Facebook or Google is a good and bad thing. You can log into either one, and all your accounts which are linked to that account are open for you. Although, if you forget one, you lose access to all accounts linked to that account.
Spoilers
People who share spoilers are the scum of the internet. We all love watching our favourite serials. We enjoy the excitement and anticipation that comes with waiting for the next episode. Then we decide to take a break and maybe chill on a social networking site for a while, and someone or the other has to ruin the entire experience for us by giving us their “opinion” on the latest episode. We don’t want it.
A Lazy generation
Let’s face it people, technology is making us lazy. It won’t be long till we’re all fat people on automated chairs like the kind we see in Wall-E. Everything is at our fingertips, everything comes right to our doors. We don’t have any reason to leave our houses anymore. We can talk from home, eat at home, buy stuff from home, order groceries from home. You see what we’re getting at. Start going outdoors! Live a little!
We’re getting dumber
Why learn anything when you can just Google it? We know that we can look up whatever we need online and therefore we don’t bother learning new stuff anymore. Even for simple things like word meanings and calculations we rely on technology. In most cases, we don’t seem to realise or even bother if the information is true or false and continue with our lives believing that what we just read is the absolute truth.
FOMO
FOMO stands for the Fear Of Missing Out. We need to be constantly connected. We need to know what’s happening at all times. We NEED to know what this person was doing that time. We can’t miss out on anything. Because if we do, it’ll be the end of the world as we know it. Hey wait, it actually won’t. In fact, I don’t think anything bad will come out of missing on a few things. Huh. Guess I was anxious for nothing.
Disconnecting from tech is now considered weird
Say you’re a nature lover and want to go on a camping trip, disconnected from the world. If someone doesn’t know about this and tries to connect with you, well they’re pretty much going to assume you died or something, if you don’t respond. It’s come to the point where if you don’t have some kind of tech, you’re weird. The simple things in life like sitting on a park bench are considered absurd.
This story was part our 15 year Anniversary celebration and first appeared in our June edition. Be sure to check out our e-mag app (iOS Android) to download the latest issues of Digit, SKOAR and d-mystify.