Social Media Fasting

Plenty of people miss valuable time that actually matters because of the distracting, network sites. Maureen Henderson, the author of the article “3 Reasons You Should Quit Social Media”, says, “189 million of Facebook users are ‘mobile only’, which means that people are constantly on their phone”(1). So not only does people waist valuable moments on the web, people can be messing up their lives by focusing on their phones, which they do bring everywhere. Henderson also states, “Almost a quarter

Have a question regarding President Obama? Google it. Don’t know if the pizza place around the corner is good? Yelp it. The quick access to the internet, contacts, apps, and social media all at your fingertips is remarkable! Yet, it’s also destroying human connection and friendships. Now, I will be the first to admit, technology has made my life easier in every possible way. There is no longer a need to spend several hours reading books for a research paper, to pull out the phone book to search for someone’s contact information, or to spend time calling someone. For that, I am truly grateful—yet, I have noticed my self being confused in every day situation when I don’t have my phone with me. For example, in my hometown, I went driving alone and ended up lost—without my phone. My dad, being the genius he is, made sure to equip my car with a few maps in case anything were to happen. I, being the smartphone dependent teen that I am, had no idea how to use a map. Needless to say, I spent hours driving around aimlessly until I caught sight of familiar signs. To this day, I am still unable to use a map correctly.

One of the many negative points in this article is that there has been a decline in teenagers’ social abilities in the recent generations. In the article it says, “The number of teens who get together with their friends nearly every day dropped by more than forty percent from 2000 to 2015 and the decline has continued to become steeper” (Twenge). After reading this article I realized the difference in the amount of times I hung out with my friends in high school than I did in middle school. Middle school was around the time I got my first smartphone and not many people had one, so I wasn’t constantly on it and neither was anyone else. We also couldn’t even bring our phones to school if we had them; this forced us to communicate in class and during passing period, instead of having our faces glued to our phones. Since we were always talking face to face, it was easy to have many

Social media has become entwined into our lives. Are you, like me, do you check your phone when you first wake? Do you secretly check your messages in class? Do you check who's liked your post? I'm guessing you've answered YES to these entire questions! We have all been there, it’s like

These drawbacks include too many people being reliant to talking online rather than in person and not verbally communicating with friends even though they are in the same room. Jasmine Fowlkes shows the reality in how social media is affecting our new generation through her article, “Viewpoint: Why Social Media is Destroying our Social Skills.” After discussing the results conducted by several researchers, Fowlkes states,“As more generations are born into the social age, social media will continue to be the favored communication form among young people. However, this shift may begin to affect their ability to properly communicate in person with peers.” Many start to rely on applications on our devices to talk to people, but this results in less verbal communication. In addition, Kelly-Fay’s Talktrack research study showed that conversations held in person are much more impactful than on social media. Rather than making social media a huge part of your life, Fowlkes wishes that people would look up from their phones and engage more with others since that could change their lives.

One time me and my brother were on our phones talking to our friends and our mother was calling us, needless to say we didn't hear her so she came upstairs and snatched the phones right out of our hands and said, "They live right down the street, just go to their house." Technology has advanced so far that we rarely need to step out of our own house to talk to people and as cool as that seem it has become a problem. Although, technology has made great things possible like communicating with your loved ones across the globe and it has even progressed human evolution. However, its has taken a fundamental aspect of humanity from us. We no longer feel the need to communicate human to human. This is lack in human contact is in fact a problem

Cell phones are commonly the first and last thing that the people in our society look at before they go to sleep. All over the place you can spot children who "are all hanging out, but instead of looking at each other, they are staring at their phones." (Newsela, From phone-to-phone). In this day and age, people are losing the ability to communicate, and instead of doing so they text each other on their phones. No matter where in the world, kids spend more time "corresponding with their friends through text messaging rather than talking to them in person." (Newsela, From phone-to-phone). These phones are taking away the ability to speak to one another. Not only that, but they are taking away part of what it means to be human. Ray Bradbury sends this message as well in his novel, Fahrenheit 451. One of the characters in this book, known as Clarisse, talks about how she enjoys communication and how she thinks that "being with people is nice. But I don’t think it’s social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you?" (Bradbury 27). Bradbury shows that if humans do not talk to each other, even if they are together, they all not being social. Bradbury also expresses the fact that if people do not interact, they will not be able to remember one another. Montag can't even remember his own wife. He tries and tries but can only come up with "my wife, my wife. Poor Millie, poor, poor

However, like genetics, it also has many negatives. Technology does improve the world’s ability to communicate quickly and easily, but it also separates people socially. Social media and smartphones for example, have dramatically reduced human interaction. Everyone would rather communicate online than in the real world. According to Pew Research Center, “Roughly two-thirds of U.S. adults (68%) now report that they are Facebook users, and roughly three-quarters of those users access Facebook on a daily basis” (Smith and Anderson 1). This a huge portion the the American population that is using Facebook alone. There are many other social media platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest that attract even more users. The more people use these services, the less they interact with others in person. Aldous Huxley once said, “Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards” (Huxley 1). Before the technology that exists today, people were unable to communicate with others that weren’t in their area. Now, people tend to communicate with those around them less. As technology continues to improve, this situation will only become worse. Preventative action must be taken to prevent this from destroying human

Do you have dinner with your family or with your phone? Having dinner with your family creates more bonding but having dinner with your phone or technology cause you to get dumb and dumber exponentially. Meaning starting slowly but increasing rapidly over time. From the article by Ron Friedman “A New Year’s resolution for the workplace,” Friedman talks about how study shows that devices or technology has been (can) cut our thinking ability in the workplace. He also talks about how phones can be such a distraction and you can get most out of it by keeping it away. This article talks about how technology is getting in the way of you making friendships or interpersonal connections with humans. A survey from “Pew Research Survey” from feb. 14-23 of 2014. “When is it okay to use your phone?” from 4 different generations. In “The Giver” by Lois Lowry, everything in the community is controlled by technology and that really limits them from knowing that technology is only hurting them. Technology hinders society because it gets in the way of person to person interaction, community is too dependent on technology, and lowers cognitive performance.

Technology has opened many opportunities for students, but is it taking a toll on their education? Based on the two articles the “Avid Weekly: When it is and isn’t OK to be on your smartphone: the conclusive guide” by Caitlin Dewey and Is Technology Killing Our Friendship By Lauren Tarshis, technology can have a lasting effect that can either be positive or negative. Technology has let the world stay in touch with what’s happening around them, which has positively affected students and their surroundings. Causing disruptions though is something not to be happy about, because if technology advances in classrooms, students can easily be picked off into the wonders of technology. Although technology has helped students prosper, there are still

Teens, and even adults develop a bad habit of being on technology 24/7, in which is hard to break, the article Health Experts Concerned Tech Habits May Threaten Speech, Language & Hearing as Communication ‘Time Bomb’ Looms by PR Newswire mentions this, saying, “New polling from ASHA finds that informing parents and teens of the potential risks that overuse of personal technology devices poses to speech and language development as well as to hearing health prompts an overwhelming unwillingness to change usage habits.” Our society has been so attached to technology that we can’t give it up, no matter what damage it causes. In fact, it is shown that technology has had a negative effect on relationships, the article Mobile Devices Are Detrimental to Personal Relationships states “While some analysts have argued that cell phones open up new possibilities of communication, fostering instant text messaging and social media connections that expand an individual’s personal relationships, some psychologists and sociologists have suggested that this type of communication and connectivity is both less meaningful and less developmentally beneficial than face-to-face and traditional communication.” People in relationships have relied too heavily on technology and consequently has torn their relationships apart. In addition, overuse of technology can affect your communication skills as well as speech. To demonstrate, in the article Overexposure to Media and Technology Deprives Children of Healthy Outdoor Recreation by Castaldy, Daniel, Collins, and Linda Rice, states, “Social interaction for adolescents is now largely achieved via text messages, Facebook posts, and tweets, while interpersonal interaction that typically accompanies outdoor recreation is on a decline… As a result, they don’t fully develop the interpersonal communication skills they need to interact successfully in

I completely disagree with the points the article puts forth. The author says that our generation has been ruined due to our phones. The data and percentages the author gives does not correlate with things I see people do everyday. Personally, my phone is very important to me and I can not go anywhere without. While my phone is important to me, and is a vital part of my everyday communication, it does not in any way at all prohibit me from going and hanging out with friends or leaving my house to socialize. I am not the only one who socializes either. All my friends and people in our school go out to eat after school, go to movies and go to parties and football games. I usually see someone I either recognize or know every time I leave my house.

Technology abolishes human interaction with one another. Human interaction becomes less frequent as technology advances. Many people have access to technology. For instance, walk into a diner, or a fast food restaurant, and then discover a group of people at a table all on their electronic devices. People need to be more aware of how technology is affecting the relationships among people. People are going to lose their friendships because they failed to separate their cyber life from their social life.Melissa Nilles describes her experience as a nightmare that was actually reality. In the “nightmare,” she lost many opportunities because of being attached to her cellular device.

But this has ceased to exist after the introduction of Smartphone 's and the internet. People prefer to chat in the many social media offered on the internet and accessed by their Smartphone 's, play games, listen to music and even blog than strike a conversation with a person sited next (Tuckle, 2011, 23). As much as people are communicating more, a threat of communication becoming more of quantity than quality is emerging. As much as the use of Smartphone 's and internet has expanded people socially and geographically, it drives people from authentic relations. Too much use of Smartphone 's and web results in declining people social circle. It is a fact that the more time people spend on their Smartphone 's and the internet the less time they has with their families, friends and other people in the society.

I missed those times when I could chase the bus with my friends, when people cared about not just their own lives, but also their surroundings, and when people sat and socialized with one another before mobile devices were invented. It’s ironic how social media has done nothing but make us antisocial, and touch screens have caused us to lose touch with each other. Just like no one noticed the weary old senior who wished for nothing but a seat, no one would ever notice a lonely, depressed boy who was in pain and wished for nothing but