Story By: Kaitlynn Sorensen and Grace Schuler
Your alarm goes off and you wake up slowly. What’s the first thing you do? Jump out of bed and get ready, or check your phone to see what you’ve missed while you were sleeping? Our technology and social media are increasingly taking over our lives as we know it.
As social media continues to completely consume every aspect of our lives, it becomes more and more of a necessity, rather than a luxury, forcing us to ask: Is social media really making us more social or is it hindering our ability to communicate with humans face to face?
When asked to participate in a social media survey made by students here at ThunderRidge, 50 percent of the six students surveyed said they feel more comfortable talking to someone through a screen rather than face-to-face. That’s not surprising, since our generation has been the most impacted by technology. We’ve known nothing different. Our parents were introduced to technology much later in the lives.
Technology has just become an additional stress factor in the everyday lives of teenagers. The Child Mind Institute article, “Teens and Social Media”, addresses the amount of pressure put on teens as they are meticulously viewed through social media. The author, Rachel Ehmke
also addresses the huge problem of indirect communication. At restaurants today it seems more common to see kids playing on their phones rather than coloring the menu and talking. However, like anything, social media has its pros and cons.
“It’s good to get the word out and spread messages and get in touch with people. We like feeling connected,” said junior Hannah Shea. ”But, it can be bad when it becomes our only focus; it can become a distraction from other priorities. You just have to find a good balance.”
Finding that balance can sometimes be a struggle.
After surveying six different students from various grade levels, one freshman, four juniors and one senior, the average amount of time spent on social media a day for teenagers is a little over two hours.
Two hours?
Those two hours could have been spent doing something productive like homework. In
two hours someone could walk their dog, paint a picture, or make dinner! Why do we feel the need to constantly be checking up on what’s going on?
“I think we just like to be up to date and know what’s happening,” said freshman Bridget Bartlett. “We like getting involved, and I like knowing what people are talking about.”
The Growl survey conducted on September 3, 2015 included questions about preferred social media: Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, or Facebook. Four students chose Twitter and the other two chose Snapchat, a testament to our short and demanding attention spans.
“Teenagers want to stay in the loop because they like getting involved and getting information quickly and efficiently,” junior Jackson Myers said.
The students surveyed prefer the apps that are constantly updating with new material.
Those 140 characters and 10 seconds make everything quick and easy for us. Or do they? Are we cutting loose the emotional tie to conversation?
Expert Jonathan MacDonald expresses his thoughts, “Our fascinating technology could potentially be considered as context vacuums that allow us to express for the sake of expressing, rather than express for distributing meaning.”
Finding the right balance and knowing when you’ve had enough screen interaction and need some human interaction is going to be the key for our generation.
According to a study done by Microsoft Corp.,statistics show that since 2000, the average human’s attention span has dropped from 12 seconds to eight. According to scientists, this is due to an increase in external stimulation. External stimulation is the distribution and production of content on social media. The demand for new and greater material is going through the roof! Believe it or not we now have an attention span one second less than a goldfish, according to Kevin McSpadden from TIME.
“However, our technological innovations that set out to make things more efficient, have also provided us with the ability to communicate in far easier and quicker ways, without so much effort,” MacDonald said.
The Internet -- and especially Google -- has significantly changed the way our generation learns and researches new material compared our grandparents’ generation. No longer do we carry large textbooks to and from school everyday. Libraries now have more laptops and computers than they do books. The internet has become an unlimited data base. Anyone can search anything on the web and have hundreds of answers in five seconds. It takes research and knowledge to a whole other level of speed and depth. Google Docs alone makes turning in papers, creating a presentation and doing group work miles away from one another possible. It connects teachers and students in an amazing way.
Science teacher, Mrs. Riggs, expresses how she feels about technology in terms of teaching, “I prefer to teach with technology because technology helps teaching tremendously by using computers, projectors and email. I can keep in contact with students and students can see videos or virtual labs that help them visualize the concepts. Students are so used to technology and having information at their fingertips, I think understanding how to use this technology is helpful to all students and is a way for students to learn the concepts better.”
As social media continues to completely consume every aspect of our lives, it becomes more and more of a necessity, rather than a luxury, forcing us to ask: Is social media really making us more social or is it hindering our ability to communicate with humans face to face?
When asked to participate in a social media survey made by students here at ThunderRidge, 50 percent of the six students surveyed said they feel more comfortable talking to someone through a screen rather than face-to-face. That’s not surprising, since our generation has been the most impacted by technology. We’ve known nothing different. Our parents were introduced to technology much later in the lives.
Technology has just become an additional stress factor in the everyday lives of teenagers. The Child Mind Institute article, “Teens and Social Media”, addresses the amount of pressure put on teens as they are meticulously viewed through social media. The author, Rachel Ehmke
also addresses the huge problem of indirect communication. At restaurants today it seems more common to see kids playing on their phones rather than coloring the menu and talking. However, like anything, social media has its pros and cons.
“It’s good to get the word out and spread messages and get in touch with people. We like feeling connected,” said junior Hannah Shea. ”But, it can be bad when it becomes our only focus; it can become a distraction from other priorities. You just have to find a good balance.”
Finding that balance can sometimes be a struggle.
After surveying six different students from various grade levels, one freshman, four juniors and one senior, the average amount of time spent on social media a day for teenagers is a little over two hours.
Two hours?
Those two hours could have been spent doing something productive like homework. In
two hours someone could walk their dog, paint a picture, or make dinner! Why do we feel the need to constantly be checking up on what’s going on?
“I think we just like to be up to date and know what’s happening,” said freshman Bridget Bartlett. “We like getting involved, and I like knowing what people are talking about.”
The Growl survey conducted on September 3, 2015 included questions about preferred social media: Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, or Facebook. Four students chose Twitter and the other two chose Snapchat, a testament to our short and demanding attention spans.
“Teenagers want to stay in the loop because they like getting involved and getting information quickly and efficiently,” junior Jackson Myers said.
The students surveyed prefer the apps that are constantly updating with new material.
Those 140 characters and 10 seconds make everything quick and easy for us. Or do they? Are we cutting loose the emotional tie to conversation?
Expert Jonathan MacDonald expresses his thoughts, “Our fascinating technology could potentially be considered as context vacuums that allow us to express for the sake of expressing, rather than express for distributing meaning.”
Finding the right balance and knowing when you’ve had enough screen interaction and need some human interaction is going to be the key for our generation.
According to a study done by Microsoft Corp.,statistics show that since 2000, the average human’s attention span has dropped from 12 seconds to eight. According to scientists, this is due to an increase in external stimulation. External stimulation is the distribution and production of content on social media. The demand for new and greater material is going through the roof! Believe it or not we now have an attention span one second less than a goldfish, according to Kevin McSpadden from TIME.
“However, our technological innovations that set out to make things more efficient, have also provided us with the ability to communicate in far easier and quicker ways, without so much effort,” MacDonald said.
The Internet -- and especially Google -- has significantly changed the way our generation learns and researches new material compared our grandparents’ generation. No longer do we carry large textbooks to and from school everyday. Libraries now have more laptops and computers than they do books. The internet has become an unlimited data base. Anyone can search anything on the web and have hundreds of answers in five seconds. It takes research and knowledge to a whole other level of speed and depth. Google Docs alone makes turning in papers, creating a presentation and doing group work miles away from one another possible. It connects teachers and students in an amazing way.
Science teacher, Mrs. Riggs, expresses how she feels about technology in terms of teaching, “I prefer to teach with technology because technology helps teaching tremendously by using computers, projectors and email. I can keep in contact with students and students can see videos or virtual labs that help them visualize the concepts. Students are so used to technology and having information at their fingertips, I think understanding how to use this technology is helpful to all students and is a way for students to learn the concepts better.”