Access: A Death of a Generation

Walking down a busy street, it is rare to see no one on a cell phone to text or call someone. Observing people on computers, it is not rare to see someone browsing the likes of Facebook. Technology has created a vast array of options for communication and accessibility. My generation, however, seems to be submersed in this world of technology; whereas, previous generations, for the most part, have not submersed themselves in such activity. Access is causing the death of my generation.

Access is not inherently bad. In fact, it provides a unique opportunity to connect with others, to research ideas that would have not been possible 20 years ago, or to be innovative. The line between a healthy amount of access to technology and a harmful amount is found in time and purpose. For example, Facebook is an ingenious offender. Talking to many of my friends, we agree on two points:

1. Facebook is great for keeping in contact with friends back home, or those who have moved away.
2. Facebook is a ridiculous time waster.

On the matter of the first point, I do not see any harm in keeping in contact with people from back home. But what I do realize is that most of the time, when I am on Facebook, I hardly talk to those people, which brings me to my second point. If I am not talking to those from back home, it wastes an incredible amount of time. For myself, I find myself just browsing the countless amount of ‘news feed’ items. More notorious than just browsing the simple ‘news feed’ items, is the phenomenon called ‘Facebook stalking’. If you have a Facebook, you know this. Basically, what happens is that if you see a person comment on your friends stuff, or if you vaguely know someone, you find yourself on an endless trail of people you have never met, but yet you still end up looking at their Facebook.

Facebook is the epitome of a bad form of access. It provides just enough to keep us coming back. It hits our surface level needs: We get to see what our friends back home are doing without having to talk to them (which would just take so much time!) OR if we have to take a break, it is fun just to burn 15 minutes (which always turns out to be a lot longer).

Cell phones are another form of access that seem to degrade my generation. When I hang out with someone, I enter with an intent to make sure my attention is focused upon that person(s). But it rarely seems to have a reciprocal effect. It seems like this generation is always texting someone–distracted and not very attentive to their surroundings. This brings about two very discomforting realities:

1. Intimacy, in a strictly friendship manner, is something that has become corroded. There is always someone else more important to text rather than to focus on those they are around.
2. Communication is no longer about face to face contact; people are satisfied with reading the segmented pixels on a screen that generate a message in 160 characters or less. We become confined by such boundaries, but yet, my generation has become satisfied with such contact.

In this blog, I have taken a fairly limited view on a subject that could easily be expanded upon. The point that I am trying to make is that the generation that I live in has become obsessively attached to technology and access. I feel that this is ripping away at the very nature of human being: relationship. We live our lives so often multitasking that it takes away from our own time and the intimacy to be gained in true friendships. There is a time and place for the access that technology provides, but does not encompass all things at all times.