THE REALITY

DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES – DIFFERENT UPBRINGINGS? 

As a person born in 2001, everyone constantly tells me, “You grew up with technology, you have no idea what life was like before that.” Yes, in some ways I did grow with technology, but I still remember what it was like before my family got a computer, a phone, and a tablet. 

Older generations will say that my generation is the first generation to be technologically savvy because

we grew up with it. And yes, many of my peers are technologically savvy and the wealthier ones grew up with some kind of technology from the day they were born. However, I was lucky enough to have my first several years of childhood untouched by technology. 

I was the kid that always loved to read. Even before I could read, I would sit down with a picture book and make up my own stories. People would tell my parents, “wow she is a really good reader” and “that girl is incredibly smart.” My parents would smile and say thank you, even though they knew I was making up the stories. When we go out to dinner, I was happy drawing, reading, and talking at the table. It was not until I was almost six or seven when my parents introduced a portable TV player. My brother was one or two, so he did grow up in a world to technology. However, I had several years of life untouched by technology. 

I would not be the person I am today if I had not had those several years of untouched technology. Not that kids now a days will not be smart because they grew up with technology. My brother grew up from the day he was born with portable TV players and tablets. However, he never got into reading or art like I did. Could it be credited to his constant use of technology as a child – in my opinion yes. 

This is not to say that my brother is not smart. He is a freshman in high school and has already accomplished things that I would never dream of. He built his own computer, has made tons of coding programs people use today, is incredible at gaming, and can fix any technology or at least diagnosis the technological problems I have. He is in the advanced mathematical program at school and even made honors for it. But there is something very different between the both of us. He loves technology and I do not. Technology is his life. Could his use of technology as a baby and child influenced his love of technology as a high school teenager? 

THE NEW GENERATION OF TECHNOLOGICAL CHILDREN:
We did have a TV when I was born, but our lives were not centralized around it. We occasionally watched TV and I had several favorite TV shows, but I was never the child who would sit in front of it and watch it for hours. 

When was my brother was born we bought a portable TV player. It was a small four inch by four inch box

that opened up like a laptop computer. The bottom part opened, and a DVD fit into it. It had a volume +
and – button, a power button, and a stop and start button. My parents brought it places to entertain my brother and I. Several years later my parents bought a Range Rover with the built in TV headset to entertain my brother and I while we were on the road. This was my first big technology. 

The kids today are overwhelmed by technology. They did not grow up with a TV in the living room. They are growing up with a flat screen TV in every room. They are growing up with a tablet in their hand by the age of one. They are growing up with a phone in their pocket by the second grade. And they are growing up with bringing a laptop to school by the fifth grade. 

Children today have access to the internet at the earliest age they can read and write. And it definitely has an effect on their personalities and characteristics. Children today are expected to be smarter than both of us combined. The reason – technology. They are expected to be smarter because they will understand technology faster than any of us, technology offers creative learning applications, and they are expected to be the next technological inventors of the world. The world is expected to flourish in more advanced technology in the future. Our whole world will be filled with technology – more than it is now. The workforce will be hard to earn and keep a job once Gen Alpha reaches it as they will have the next brains geared for technology. This is all due to their constant use and early introduction of technology. 
My brother will most likely be one of those children. Although still born in the Gen Z era, he is right on the cusp of Gen Alpha, and he will most definitely be one of the people that impresses the world with his understanding of technology. 

My niece and four nephews, ranging in age from eleven to four, have already showed their love of technology. Each of them has their own Kindle Fires. Downloaded with the most up to date technology to help them excel in school and life. Simple things that teach reading, spelling, writing, typing and more. I remember the youngest was just turning two when we helped purchase his Kindle Fire. My sisters cannot take their children anywhere without having the Kindle Fire, in case one of them has a break down and needs to escape into the world of technology. The oldest surprised me when he brought a portable video game made by Nintendo. It reminded me of my portable TV player, but this was on a whole new level. You could watch TV on the screen or pull out the controllers and play video games – everything a little kid would want packed in a tiny box that is easy to carry around. 

 Is technology ruining the new generation? I would not say ‘ruining’ I would say it is ‘changing’ them. The change I would say is good and bad. It is good in the sense that technology will become more advanced as young children become adults and can put their technological knowledge into the world. However, is technology draining the humanity out of the new generation? 

HUMANITY: 
I loved reading. I read everything. I was the student in school who always read all the books in English class. I would even read ahead and discuss them at the dinner table or with my teacher before class. I have

a list of favorite books: The Outsiders, The Great Gatsby, As Small as An Elephant, The Help, and the list could go on for ten more pages. 

Going into 7^th grade I was given my first phone. Up until then I always read everything, but technology changed that. I read what I was assigned at school and the rest of my free time was replaced by watching movies and TV shows on my new little device. 

Technology replaced one of my favorite things. It made me lazy. I would watch the movies without reading the books. It was not like me. 

I eventually got social media. My life became a complete worry over who was liking my pictures on Instagram or who repost my picture of VSCO. It all became too much. Eventually I just stopped bothering with texting people every day. I realized how toxic the online world was. 

It was not until recently that I began reading again. Not just books I was assigned in school, but books that I wanted to read too. I just finished the murder mystery novel One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus and just begun the novel The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave. I started reading because I had a realization. I needed to start enjoying life again. I needed to stop worrying about my online footprint and begin thinking about what I actually love in life. 

Technology was taking over my life. It was no longer a healthy thing in my life. A healthy relationship with technology is when it is involved enough in your life to where you can still do the things you love  without it intervening. I was spending too much time obsessing over my online life that I forgot what reality and being human was really about. 

I now use technology only when I absolutely need it. I rarely post on social media anymore. I only respond to things that are important to respond to such as emails to professors or quick text messages to my friends about plans. I keep my relationship with technology to a minimum. When you Google me, you do not find information on me. The most you can find is a LinkedIn profile I made during my first-year colloquium. My social media presence is simple and has nothing bad on it. 

It was only a few weeks ago that I was driving around with a friend talking about the problems with social media. We realized that nothing happens that is not recorded. As the saying says, “if there is no proof of you doing it, did it even happen.” Humans are losing the touch of memory and humanity. If you do something stupid as a funny joke, you have to be prepared for it to be on the internet the next morning. 
It is not just losing the idea of memory, but the idea of human touch. Online dating, making friends, and creating connections over technology has become a new way of interacting. There is rarely face to face interaction anymore.

Humans need human touch. The next generation of adults will tell their children that how they met was through a cheesy pick-up line on Tinder or Bumble. There will not be any more classic love stories. 
This is what worries me about the next generation. It is creating people that do not understand how to interact with each other. They will only understand reality as a technological presence. 

It was Elon Musk that recently said he wants to create a chip that will help people telepathically communicate with each other. That is terrifying because Musk’s products are often funded by the government. This would be giving the government a way to track our thoughts. It will also give us a way to never return to a human reality. We would all become somewhat robotic, trapped in a world of technology. 

A world inside of technology is not reality. It is not where humans can be humans. Soon the people will lose what makes humans human. That is what it is most terrifying about technology. It swallows up humanity. It takes the emotion and love out of humans and replaces it with a wall of codes. 

Technology is a useful tool, but it is an even more dangerous threat to reality and humanity.