When I was younger, children were adequately entertained by the TV and their Gameboys.  When the weather wasn’t suitable for playing outside, electronics were available for a few hours of indoor fun.  Fast-forward to today.  Kids ride the bus home from school on a beautiful sunny day, excited not to play a game of baseball on the street with their friends, but to lie on the couch and play their favorite new video game.  On a clear Sunday afternoon, children are not playing with their friends at the park, but lying in bed playing the most popular smartphone game of the week.  What happened to those days when kids would entertain one another while enjoying whatever type of weather Mother Nature threw at them?  Has technology become better than nature? Better than real friends?  Better than real life? 

The evidence says yes.  Three out of every four kids today don’t get the required 60 minutes of physical activity every day, but sure as hell they meet the two-hour recommended limit on screen time.  More kindergarteners are fluent with computers these days than are able to ride a ride a bike or swim (58%, 52%, and 20% respectively), and from living with a four-year-old, I can testify that they are quite capable with iPads, iPhones, and just about anything else with a screen.

This dependency on technology is not only found in children; teens and adults are just as guilty of spending more time staring at a screen than they probably should.  Today the screen is present in every part of our lives: we carry our phones everywhere, we’re never far from a computer, and when we relax we do so in front of a TV.  Nowadays, we’re finding screens on everything: appliances, watches, cars, and almost anything else the engineers can fit one on.  With great role models like ourselves, it’s no wonder kids spend so much time playing on their devices.

Why do we allow our devices into our lives to such a degree that if they disappeared we would not know how to live?  Is it for their convenience?  Every new device is capable of doing more of our work and making what we must do even easier.  Take Siri for instance, every iPhone owner’s beloved companion.  To use our smartphones, all we must do is tell her what we want to do.  Easier than doing tapping a few things ourselves?  Yes.  Is it too hard for us to do it ourselves?  Not exactly.  What about email?  It’s obviously quite useful for sending written messages long distances quickly.  But using the service to send a message to your coworker across the office, while it might be easier, just isn’t the same as walking over to him and saying hi.  And what about video games, the modern youth’s second reality?  Having fun from the comfort of your home while enjoying a beverage and a snack certainly beats undergoing exercise for the same entertainment.  But will you ever remember an afternoon spent playing Xbox like one spent with good friends?  I doubt it.

One thing is clear.  Technology is transforming our lives as it always has.  Just like the invention of the wheel undoubtedly changed the lives of our ancestors thousands of years ago, modern technology is making our lives easier.  But is the current technology simply a continuation of our technological progress?  Or, for the sake of convenience, has it finally reached too far into our lives, to the point where we have to tell it to back off?  In many ways our technology has gone beyond usefulness and our innovation has become focused on tiny conveniences.  But the problem isn’t our laziness.  New devices with amazing features aren’t the enemy.  The issue is our constant use of advanced devices that takes away from simple things in life.  Like riding a bike to the park on a clear Sunday afternoon.  Or playing baseball on the street with friends after school.  We need to take breaks every once in a while.

In the age of innovation, technology seems to control our lives.  It takes away from the natural world, from the small things in life, from gorgeous days when the weather is beckoning us to come outside.  We have become too focused on the latest devices from Silicon Valley.  We need to cut back on our usage, and enjoy things that aren’t man-made.  It’s only natural that we worship the latest and greatest inventions, but if we wish to keep in touch with the real world, we must keep our devotion to the digital world in check.