Reading & Activity #1

“Is the Onslaught Making Us Crazy?”  A shockingly eye-opening article, written by Tony Dokoupil, about the correlation between the recent increase technology, and the changes that have taken place in society in recent decades.  Dokoupil begins by giving the controversial story of Jason Russell and his psychotic break after the explosive response to his “Kony 2012” video.  He uses this to show the reader’s one of many different examples of people obsessing over social media to excess. 

            Today, when going out into society and looking around, one thing that is glued to almost everyone is a cell phone.  Whether they are texting, facebooking, checking their email, talking on it, or playing games; they have one.  As Dokoupil tells us, American’ s spend an average of seven hours of screen time per day; whether that is on a computer or cell phone.  Although cell phones and computer have made many things in our every day lives entirely more convenient, one has to wonder when it becomes excessive and unhealthy.

            When interviewing my Mom about what it was like growing up without a computer or the Internet, it became increasingly clear that our society is definitely flying down a one-way road towards a very detached future.  I asked her what it was like when she was very young, and she responded by telling me that she spent much of her time outside playing with the neighborhood kids, she read a lot of books, and when she needed to call a friend she used her shared “party-line” with their next-door-neighbors.  She told me about high school, and how when she needed to research something that all of her information was obtained from the encyclopedias and periodicals.  This also was the way she did her research for college as well.  The most interesting thing to me about the interview was the networking aspect of her teenage and young adult years.  She informed me that throughout high school, networking revolved around school functions; such as sporting events, and club meetings.  Other than that, parties were arranged by word-of-mouth, and occasionally phone calls.  In college, to meet people she and her friends would hang out in the student union.  They would find out about parties there, and make their plans for the weekends that way.  

Reading Dokoupil’s article, and listening to my mom talk about the growing up process really opened my eyes to the fact that society is becoming increasingly disconnected.  Instead of children outside playing games, they are inside with their eyes glued to their video games.  Instead of calling someone you have not talked to in a while, people save time by just sending him or her a text.  Before it is too late, a balance needs to be found so that our society does not completely lose touch.