(ThyBlackMan.com) Our absurd tech addiction cuts us off from the real life. It not only leaves us lonely, it persuades us to create alternate realities and sometimes, it convinces people to believe in the virtual world. You can blame or curse tech companies for your loved one’s internet addiction disorder, but what a wise man would do is take responsibility. Almost everyone you see is a tech addict. Seeing these dead walkers with their eyes fixated on a screen is common these days.
It’s just dangerous and to find solutions it’s important to understand how tech addiction is taking over our lives. There are 5 ways technology is controlling, you, your emotions, decisions, interactions, and keeping you happy as long as you are connected.
1. Digitally Divided Families
Mobile phones and tablets are used to babysit unruly children. Engaging apps, YouTube videos give them temporary satisfaction and parents find it easy to keep children busy. A smartphone works like a toy, and when you take it away from your kid, you get to see how disturbed they feel. You can also see adults sitting around the dining table in an internet-enabled house. Real conversations have become rare as technology is building walls around people.
2. Approval Seeking
Taking the advice from people before making a serious, life-changing decision is important, but technology has made people hollow. We tend to seek approvals for stupid things like how we look, how our new gadget looks like, how was our weekend trip and so on. Even in the offline world, people are searching for the ‘likes’ and ‘comments’. People don’t care about the depth of questions they are asking because all they want is to show off to a childish extent.
3. Reduced Attention Span
Now when we have a short and sweet version of almost everything, our ability to stay focused on things has been reduced. We want all the information quickly and in a short and straightforward way. That’s the reason people who used to love movies a few years ago can’t sit through a full movie. It doesn’t mean that people are saving time, the truth is, they have so many things at hand that they can’t concentrate on a single task for a long time. Everyone has that friend who works only for a few minutes and then watches a short video to release stress.
4. Death of Ethics
You probably can’t relate to the pain of an artist when their art is sold or copied by a pirate online, but you can relate to the feeling of being cheated by the friend who takes your assignment and submits as his own. The amount of time and efforts designers, music composers, programmers put into their work is matchless, but it only takes a second to copy, share, distribute and sell their work in someone else’s name.
Don’t you think that if you are in their position, this feeling will make you sick and disheartened? Someone is spending sleepless nights on a project and sometimes, it’s all about their passion and determination. What kind of environment are we creating for people who choose passion over money?
5. Short-term Memory
People argue that finding information on the internet is a lot easier than learning something from real-world experiences. It is true that the internet can bring you information in seconds but there’s a lot of distraction that makes you forget things easily. You may have seen people struggling to focus or stick to an idea or schedule. The problem is they get distracted easily and the idea doesn’t remain in their mind for a long time. Hence, their mind only accepts the idea temporarily and they tend to forget things easily.
Technology is a beautiful thing but with that comes responsibility. We must ask ourselves, are we controlling our devices or the devices are controlling us? If we fail to use technology responsibly and in a controlled manner, our future will not be as amazing as the technology we are using.
Staff Writer; Corey Shaw
Have any Tech Tips? News? Hit up our Tech Guru at; CoreyS@ThyBlackMan.com