Ok, long title, but how else can I describe this masterpiece of a video.  My good Friend Isabella, whom I have known since High School posted an article on this video on Facebook. I have to admit, half way into it I started to cry. It’s such a powerful message, of how most of us now spend our time with our faces staring into a our smart phones, our computers, and our tablets.  That we barely look up to greet those around us.  Instead of having social gatherings, we text message or chat on our phones.

After watching the video we started to discuss it in the comments.  And I came to a heavy realization: our world has changed exponentially.  If you are in the Generation X (Those born from the World War II Baby Boomer generation) then you have probably heard your parents tell you how different you had it growing up.  How at our age (when we were young) they didn’t have TV, they listened to radio on Sundays and spent all their time outside.  Mind you they also said they had to walk 40 miles in the snow, up hill, barefoot, to get to school… so some of it is a bunch of hogwash.  But you get the gist, technology wise they didn’t have much.  Us GenXers had TV, and the Vic 20, Commodor64, The First Nintendo system… So there was a bit of a jump.

But when you look at it, we still played outside, we still socialized.  I can remember back to a time before the internet, when we used to dial into Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) and had Get Togethers (GTs), sure we had social systems, but they were local, we went out to the movies with others… When the internet hit, everything went global.  Can you imagine trying to explain to kids today what life is like without computers, without smart phones, without 3d video games.  What its like to actually sit down and write a letter, not an email, an actual hand written, not printed, letter, and mail it.  The difference between our child hood and our kids is a much more drastic change, then that of our parents to ours… Technology has advanced exponentially. We are the generation that our childhood wasn’t spent on a computer. We will be the last generation that can remember a time when socializing meant hanging out at the local coffee shop with friends, and not browsing your social media feed on Facebook.

We have gone from the industrial age to the tech age in under 50 years, the boom of the internet in the mid to late 90s has brought the world to our fingertips.  Why go to the library to do research in the Encyclopedia Britannica when you can find a million articles on your subject in seconds online, from your smart phone….

We have become and anti-social society, spending most of our time online, in social media. We would rather spend time online with our friend than in person face to face.  As the video states, its time to raise our head, experience the world through all of our senses, and enjoy life the way we are to.

This short video by Gary Turk is a reminder of the effects of social media on our society. By connecting online, we are disconnecting offline. What are we missing from life as a result? What critical moments do we miss that we didn’t even know passed us by? Be sure to watch this entire video, especially the ending.
Source: The San Francisco Globe

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