Dear Sisters and Brothers,
In
today’s technologically driven world, we now have “the world” at our
fingertips, we can search for an answer to any question we may have, play
senseless games, listen to the new hit songs, buy groceries, shop for clothes— you
name it, there’s now a way to do it in the palm of your hand! Though technology
is a good thing, it becomes a bad thing when we seem to lose sight of the people
around us, so much so that people often become inconveniences, annoyances, less
important, and even objects. Brothers and sisters, I cry out from the depths of
my being, return to the real world!
I will
be the first to admit that I have overused technology in selfish and even, at
times, sinful ways…but I try my hardest to recognize and be present to the people
around me. What bugs me the most is when I am in mid-sentence and someone whips
out their phone because it buzzed with another text message. How incredibly
rude and how incredibly selfish, but sadly this kind of behavior has become
common place in today’s modern technological world.
Probably
the saddest sight I have ever seen is a couple on their first date, sitting in
a restaurant, and scrolling through their phones, looking at texts, tweets, Wikipedia,
and Facebook pages…not saying much of anything to each other. As I saw this, I
thought to myself, “Is this the point we’ve come to as a society?!” if it is…count
me out.
Don’t
get me wrong, I love living in this day and age, but not necessarily because of
the new iPhones, the latest RAM capacity, or the new Google Glasses…I love
living in this day and age because of the people I am on this planet with, and
when I see people glued to their iPhones, computers, tablets, what-have-you, it
makes me sick to my stomach. Sometimes, there is a whole group of guys or girls
surfing the web on their handheld devices and when someone says something they
are often ignored because everyone else has been sucked in.
One
person once said to me that “Because of the primacy of texting and ‘Facebooking’
as our generation’s main form of communication, a face-to-face interaction is
so much more intimate.” The thing that disturbed me is that he was saying this
like it was an accomplishment of some sort. I would contest that it is the
furthest thing from an accomplishment, because what this means is that we have
become so comfortable with not actually talking to each other that we can no
longer have many TRUE conversations with each other face-to-face. There is a
disconnect in the personal aspect of conversation and the physical presence/existence
of another human being, the disconnect seems so big that when we are thrust
into a room with the person we were “talking” to, it almost becomes awkward. We
have lost of the true sense of the personal experience as a generation…how sad.
How do
we as a society fix this problem? It’s so easy. Put your phone down, shut down
your computer, go outside, be with people, read books, go for a walk…and have
the REAL world at your fingertips. Touch it, smell it, see it, experience it—live
it.
-The Catholic Troll
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