Greta Gormley
iExamen 1
25 September 23, 13
Controversy
constantly ensues around the generation dubbed as the millennials. Being one of these millennial’s myself
I have only known social media to be the most prominent type of communication.
I’ve learned to text instead of call, email instead of snail mail, and facebook
someone instead of looking them up in a phonebook. Communication is
consistently evolving and we are in an age of constant interaction with one
another. However, through my self examination I’ve learned that I don’t need to
only communicate through the ways I’ve learned bur rather disconnect myself in
order to reconnect myself with personal communication.
It’s
no secret that my friends would rather refresh their newsfeed than engage in
refreshing conversation. We convey our emotions through emails, texts, status’
and even tweets. Those who are prone to be more introverted are able to express
themselves through these social media outlets and even through the clothes on
their back. They use these outlets- and others- such as clothing, hair, makeup,
and tattoos in order to symbolize who they are and what they like. By gazing up
instead of gazing down at my phone during reflection I’ve been able to notice
people’s clothes can tell you a lot about a person. It can explain where a
person is going- maybe class- or where they have been –the gym. They can tell
you whether a person enjoys a certain genre of music or even a particular
sports team. Almost everything today is used as a way of communication or
expression. Tattoos can symbolize a deeper meaning or even a story a person
wants to remember. People can personify themselves through these different
symbols of expression in order to communicate to others who they believe to be
as a person.
As
my friends and I have realized, much because of the discretion of our parents,
that we need to put down our technology down in order to have real
relationships with people. During my hour of unplugging my friends agreed to
join in to see what we could accomplish without our phones and laptops. We were
able to enjoy an abnormally hilarious lunch partly because we were all
attentive to conversation for once but mostly because we got to see how absurd
people looked who are eating together but don’t glance up from their phones. We
were able to notice how much more connected we could be if we rested our phones
on the table for a measly hour. By engaging in conversation our body language
was more relaxed then those whose eye were glued to their phone. We have
realized you don’t need to refresh your feed in order to keep updated on
someone’s life you can just ask him or her. Because we have become so
comfortable as making our cell phones-or even any other form of technology- our
friends we’ve learned to be content having a relationship with technology in
place of people.
Examining
myself has made me realize how I don’t need a constant feed of people’s tweets,
statuses, or emails for entertainment. In fact I enjoyed having personal
conversations with my roommates, classmates, and friends these past few days
more entertaining then clicking through a bunch of websites and texts. This
social media connection is so impersonal that it’s allowed me to reflect that
more personal relationships need to be built up to help resensitize our
desensitized generation. Reflection upon this has made me realized how
disconnected I have grown from people but how college, especially here at
Loyola, allows you to connect through different clubs, activities, and living
arrangements. Here at school you are constantly encouraged to go out of your
comfort zone to find something that catches your interest. I have been
accustomed to blame myself for my incessant need for technology on the fact
that I am a millennial however through this analysis I realize that it lies on
me to decide if I am willing to disconnect to connect.
No comments:
Post a Comment