We should all be incredibly tired of people demonizing social media and acting like technology is the worst thing that could possibly exist with their posts about how “nobody talks to each other anymore!” and, my personal favorite, “this is why everyone has social anxiety!”
Do people really think that when someone is on their phone they are just staring at a small glowing rectangle and not doing anything else? I mean, it’s not like that piece of technology is connecting people to each other, or anything. Technology and social media play a big part in how we talk and communicate with others. Baby Boomers and anyone else who likes to criticize younger people that are active on social media clearly have zero common sense with respect to that aspect.
With the help of technology, we’re connecting people who are thousands of miles apart, people who, just a couple of decades ago, we wouldn’t be able to talk to. For all you know, that person who is “so addicted to their phone” could be talking to a sibling who is in a different country. They could be talking to a parent that was deployed in a war zone. They could be talking to someone who they have never met but are best friends with because they were brought together by technology.
Social media is powerful as hell, and without it, nobody would know about the water crisis happening in Flint, Michigan. The Black Lives Matter movement, one of the most important and prevalent justice-oriented movements in our society today, wouldn’t exist. Michael Brown, an innocent young black man, was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, and social media blew. Black people fought, we exploded, and the #blacklivesmatter movement was born. This just goes to show how powerful the internet is, with the capability of creating a movement filled with passionate people fighting against social injustice and police brutality.
What’s even more ironic is the fact that people post their self-righteous, condescending posts about how “we live in a lazy generation, everyone is so focused on their phone instead of the people in front of them” on social media, probably from a smartphone, because people would rather demonize others for connecting with the world around them than ever stop to realize how immature and pathetic they are for complaining about people communicating with each other. Don’t ever underestimate technology, because, without it, the world would be a somber place.
