Arlys Saladin '20 Recruiting Profile

Generation Z, the first generation of the twenty first century has had the luxury of growing up in an environment where smartphones and different types of high end technology are nothing but the norm. They have been spoiled with unlimited amounts of resources and technological innovations that keep on getting more efficient to this day. Evidently just like anything other good thing that has been handed to us, we as individuals have taken advantage of the luxury of having these resources. Forgetting the true meaning of why it all started, to make life more efficient and give individuals a platform to express themselves and meet others. Something that has not lived up to its expectancy as now more than ever children are being mentally and physically affected due to the overexposure of the internet and technological innovations. Instead of creating a platform to express themselves children have found a way to make social media a toxic environment, instead of taking away positivity from the internet children just seem to take away all the negativity and instead of of living in the moment children would rather let life pass them by because they would rather be on their phone.

           Nowadays children seem to have their phone on them throughout the whole day, always checking for notifications and other things keeping them from focusing on what really matters, the real world. A perfect example portraying this situation would be a trip I took to Niagara Falls with my family a couple years ago. The whole time there consisted of people snapping pictures of every little thing they would see, something my family would partake in especially my cousin; but I didn’t really notice this until one night when my family and I went to see the illuminated falls and the firework spectacle. I was blown away by the beauty of everything the constant fireworks shooting left and right, the massiveness of the falls and the beautiful light switches that took place and then my stargazing was abruptly interrupted when my cousin asked me to take a picture of her which led me to look around. During the first few seconds of the spectacle everybody’s attention was undeniably on the show but soonly after they were desensitized to the spectacle as I all I saw around me now were people snapping pictures left and right letting the show go on without an audience, the beauty of the moment  passing them by all for a picture. I remember that scene sticking with me all night and thinking to myself how bad the situation really was, when people were deciding to let something that special go to waste. Not living in the moment and experiencing it for yourself, not really giving themselves a chance to feel the endless amount of emotions the moment could of possibly evoked, which could’ve lasted a lifetime. This moment gets to me even more now as I look around and come across people who’ve had the chance to experience one in a lifetime moments but can’t really comprehend how they felt or even recall key moments and have to bring out their phones as backup, letting the phone tell the story that they had the chance to live. A dark reality that we live in today and I myself get caught up in too from time to time, a situation that has been normalized in society.

            In a sense the overexposure of technology has truly hurt us a generation just as much or even more than it has helped us grow as a community. Without a solution and a reality check our generation will just keep falling deeper and deeper into a hole and find a way to normalize the whole situation. A toxic trait we can allow to prevail if this generation still has hope to set things back on the right path.