Cell Phones, Our Addiction

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Cell Phones, a great god send for humanity to keep in touch, share moments, and on a moments notice find what we are looking for without even trying.  They've helped us grow in many aspects of our lives, cell phones for business, help increase profitability, cell phones for families, keep us in touch at all times.  Long gone are the days of "we haven't talked in 10 years," we've lost excuses for that.  You can call your grandmother from a subway car in New York City, while she's firmly planted on a beach in South Florida.  They are truly wonderful devices that have changed the course that humanity has been traveling down.  With all the good that they have done, the existential growth they have come to take on, is also destroying the very thing they started in the beginning.

cellphone-crowd-goblinbyte.jpgTo start let me tell a short story, I'm a 26 year old Network Administrator, a youthful guy to say the least.  Over this past weekend I went to a wedding for my cousin, a very fun wedding I'd like to add.  My family seemed to somehow coordinate which hotel we'd all be staying in without saying a word, two uncles, my parents, my brother and his fiancee, my wife, and myself, all under one roof.  To say the least that's a pretty cool.  When we started finding out that we were all in the same hotel we started bouncing from one room, to the next room, all over the place until we all finally converged in one location.  And here I am, one of the younger folks excited to see everyone and... most of them were glued to their cell phones speaking between glares at their dim lit screens.  Not talking about recent events, not talking about how life was, instead discussing what features their new phone had, what the iWatch could do, just comparing inanimate objects.  Twelve fully grown adults, one room, eleven iPhones and one android (guess who the android was).  Why was I the only one who didn't care about my blinky mobile phone... shouldn't I be the one who cared more about my phone than anyone else?

Is this the path we've carved out for ourselves?  Cell phone addiction, seems to be veering our society off course and removing reality from reality.  Too many people are more than happy to communicate through text messages, rather than speak with someone in the same room as themselves.  This subject itself is interesting and disheartening all at once, for me I believe it serves as a good study point of human evolution.

computer-evolution-goblinbyte.jpgIn a genetic sense our bodies grow over millions of years to accommodate needed changes for predatory, and environment change.  Weather variables where survival of the fittest takes only those whom are best suited for that particular environment, get to continue to live and breed, while those unsuited, just wither away and watch their bloodlines pass away in favor of the more appropriate traits.  We've peaked though, there is no challenge we can't beat, we've taken our environment and made it our tool.  Suits of armor that protect us from cold, from hot, from radiation, and even from the void of outer space.  How much more evolution can we take on?  It's sad to say that at this point our generations that follow us have to accommodate many who can't think for themselves, they don't need to try to survive as survival is somewhat guaranteed with medicine and science.  The blessing of evolution is becoming our own curse.

Cell phones are filling a void that doesn't need to be filled, and it's moderately ruining our society as whole.  Human interaction is lacking and dying down, everyone is too distracted by a new Facebook update, or the new iPhone to actually pay attention to their surroundings.  Watching people drive through rush our traffic to busy with a phone call to pay any attention to the rush our traffic they are in; planted in the left lane, going 20 miles under the speed limit, ruining the drive home for everyone else around them.  Even as a young adult it hurts me to watch my generation be the generation in descension, the generation that starts to watch human evolution cripple itself, to topple under it's own weight due to technology surpassing what we are capable of handling as a whole.

distracted-cellphone-goblinbyte.jpgCan we all agree that we need to take a moment and stop with all the cell phone nonsense?  Can we stop getting distracted by a tool that by design is supposed to help us, yet by action we've only hacked ourselves and turned a tool for good into bad?  Put your phones down for just a minute, enjoy a sunset, read a book, go to the park, have friends you talk with, and just drive; that phone call from Becky can wait.  We need to bring back the socialization part of society, and stop being puppets to our smart phone masters.  I for one am tired of hearing someone else died due to a negligent driver; or someone forgot about their child because they were on a funny phone call that they just couldn't stop.  Our families, our friends, and lives are much more important than the technology we use to pretend they are connected with us.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, let us know in the comment section below.  And as always, be safe my goblins.
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1 comments:

  1. Spot on. The only time where I was ever glued to my phone constantly was when I was in the Navy and talking to my then girlfriend (wife now). I prefer talking to people directly over talking to them digitally.

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