The other day, while walking to class and minding my own business, a girl actually ran into me because her face was buried in her phone. Her response to hitting me? “Oh, sorry. I was reading my Facebook,” and she continued walking. Is this really what our society has turned into? Should America now put a law on walking and texting/reading Facebook or Twitter?
If you’re not one of the millions of users that use Facebook, Twitter or even the forgotten child Myspace, then you are considered to be technologically challenged and assumed to not have enough friends. I mean, even my grandmother has a Facebook page.
In class (the one I was heading to when the girl ran into me), my professor asked if technology was too much a part of everyday life. Have people become so dependent on social media that they are forgetting to truly live?
Living life is more than just posting a status about what you’re doing or where you’re going.
Warning signs about keeping everything private are everywhere, and we usually hear these warnings from our mothers. They seem silly and we disregard them, like stalkers don’t exist and bad things won’t happen to us.
But, just to let you know, sometimes it’s best to keep some information to yourself. Not everyone wants to know what you are doing every second of your day; and better yet, not everyone needs to know what you’re doing all of the time.
Case in point: In the earlier part of this year, an Indiana woman had her home broken in to and burglarized by a childhood friend she had not seen in 20 or so years. How did this friend know the woman was not home?
He saw on her Facebook status that she was going out to dinner and a movie with her family so the perpetrator knew exactly when to go in and steal her big screen TV and computer.
We always hear the warnings about not posting things like this on the World Wide Web, and ignoring these warnings has become customary, because of course, nothing bad will happen to us. I am sure that’s what the Indiana woman thought too. Now look at her, TV and computer-less.
Has our society become so consumed with checking Facebook and Twitter every few seconds, that they had to create “an app for that?” Don’t get me wrong, I love Facebook and such social media just as much as the next person, but is posting my latest whereabouts really important for my 500 friends to know? And come to think of it, do I really know 500 people? Hearing the story above made me want to rethink all the long lost aquaintances I have befriended since getting my Facebook just over a year ago. Actually, it makes me question all of the friends I have befriended.
So, society, think about it. It’s a technological era, where everything is on the Internet and social networking is the “cool thing to do.” But, is it really necessary to discuss every minute of your life to the “friends” on your page?
It’s frustrating to read 20 posts in the same day by the same person.
Keep some mystery about yourself. Keep people guessing, because you will have very little to bring to the table if people already know every aspect of your life.
Oh, and girl who ran into me, please put away your phone long enough to walk to where you need to go. I’d rather not get pummeled because you were reading something so trivial as a Tweet or a Facebook post.
