By Karen Pegueros
There was a time when the Internet did not exist. Fast forward 30 years to today and to the blind eye, things for the most part look the same. High school is still high school, math is still hard, the earth remains in constant spinning motion, and humans haven’t evolved into freaky creatures sprouting two heads with eight toes. However, mankind has made immense technological advancements affecting the world today.
A revolutionary innovation came about in 1990 that not so secretly runs the world: the Internet. With it came social inputs such as MySpace (2003), Facebook (2004), and Twitter (2006). It is rarer to see a seven-year-old running around outside and playing than one who is glued to his new iPhone 7S.The main source of entertainment and information is social media. Opinions are now mostly based on what is trending on Twitter rather than on facts.
Social interactions are becoming more difficult for teens by the minute. Meetups in person turned into talks on the phone into texts on Snapchat. Confidence is hidden behind a keyboard. Schools are endorsing this by pushing technology onto kids at young ages and throughout their educational careers.
The youths’ ability to create relationships is being undercut. Dating has turned into merely “talking,” and friendships are for the most part fake. As the days go by, it feels like the world grows smaller and more intertwined within itself. Technology brings information to the tips of the world’s fingers within a matter of seconds. Privacy is now a thing of the past.
With celebrities such as the Kardashians to look up to, sharing every bit of information with the public is glamorized. Reckless decisions, like posting a controversial photo, are made in hopes of obtaining a moment of fame. Young people are forgetting that not all attention is good attention. They are overlooking the fact that they can ruin their futures almost instantaneously.
The scariest part is that mankind somehow survived hundreds of thousands of years without this glorious phenomenon, yet adolescents can’t go five minutes without checking their phones. As the world continues to advance, will people revert back to their outside orientated ways, or continue into silence?
