Phones, iPads and laptops, oh my! I can say with complete confidence that every student at New Trier has at least two of the three listed devices. Because of our tech-obssesed era, our generation has largely increased their usage of social media.

About 90% of all young adults in America, ages 18 to 29, use it as a part of everyday life, acccording to the Pew Research Center.

Picture your run-of-the-mill day— wake up, go to school, after-school activities, homework, etc. The average American is awake for about 15-16 hours a day, meaning that the average person gets approximately 8 hours of sleep.

An article from Digital Trends stated that a person spends about 4.7 hours on their phone per day. This is nearly a third of our entire day spent staring at a screen. Consider that for a moment.

I couldn’t believe this when I first read the article. How could I possibly be spending such a massive chunk of my day on my phone? But I realized, throughout the day, the texts I was sending, the little video clips friends would show me, the frequent Instagram and Facebook checks, and the Snapchat videos and stories I watched added up.

When I look at everything, I can see how massive social media and communication is in my life. I began to struggle with whether this really is a bad thing or not?

On one hand, as American culture changes with technology, we are changing with it— except, on the other hand, I’m still me. I haven’t been sucked into some evil black hole of “deception and manipulation.”
What’s even more interesting is that while teenagers receive constant reminders and criticism of being on our phones too much, the greatest jump in phone usage comes from adults. In 2010, a mere 11% of adults 65 and older used social media, which has now tripled to 35% over the past 5 years, according to Pew Research Center.

It was hard, at first, to read this statistic without feeling defensive towards our generation, because I experience commentary from my parents about my phone’s whereabouts all the time. While in reality, this statistic proves that the increase in social media use has affected all ages in the US.

Consumerism hasn’t made me a worse person, and I’d argue that having answers constantly at my fingertips has made me a more curious and knowledgeable person.

I would completely agree that my ability to become distracted is higher than it used to be, and I hardly read for my own enjoyment anymore, because I’m not used to sitting and taking my mind off something for longer than 45 minutes.

This aspect of the technological takeover is more upsetting to me than anything else. Taken from the tech-website, The Blaze, an article called the “Five Ways Technology is Taking Over Your Life,” explained that “a problem exists when we cannot do without a machine for over 24 hours.” I’m embarrassed to admit that I’m 99% sure I would not be able to last an entire day.

Pay attention to how much time you spend staring at a screen and you might find you’re surprised by the outcome. We’ve reached a point of obsession with our numerous gadgets, but how much is too much?

Try to establish times during the day where phone your phone usage is prohibited, because without restrictions, we will continue to stare at screens, wasting away valuable time.

To end on a perfectly cliché note, our lives are short and time is fleeting, so we should savor the time we do have by living in the moment, not as digital witnesses.