One of the main traits that makes us human is our ability to communicate. Whenever we live a healthy community life, we engage in face-to-face conversation, care and respect others, and pay attention to important etiquette principles that then help us live together without engaging in too much discord. I am not aware of any critical mass of individuals living in a society at any time in history who have survived the times by living in total isolation from their immediate community, its values and communication practices. And what is most important: the ability to learn from your own mistakes over time. The smartphone has been hurting the millennial generation in this regard.
The smartphone has been hurting millennials. You heard it right. You may be wondering… Why do you say that, professor? Let me explain why by giving you a real life example that has changed the way I interact with human beings of the opposite sex.
When I was a kid, I had a hard time conversing with girls face to face. He was so shy and literally afraid to talk to a girl face to face…he was terribly afraid of rejection back then. Although these feelings are not totally foreign to young children, I know today that my levels of shyness (and therefore my inability to talk to a person of the opposite sex) back then were probably higher than most children’s. shy of my generation.
Like most boys in their teens, he was not ready to engage in interpersonal communication with a woman. He still remembers this beautiful girl named Peggy that he was really crazy about. She was beautiful, likeable, and fortunately…he seemed to like her. The fact that we never ended up dating had nothing to do with his interpersonal skills. He had everything to do with mine. I couldn’t start a meaningful conversation with her to get a chance to ask her out of it. My total loss… and I knew it. However, my inability to break the ice and have an honest conversation with a girl made me stop and wonder why I wasn’t succeeding in my lovemaking endeavors. I spent some time thinking about this question and then BINGO! Eventually, I’ve learned what girls like from my wrestling. “They like to talk,” for the most part. I figured… Well, if girls like to talk, then I need to be a good listener. The rest my friends, is history.
See, I didn’t need to have a smartphone to feel better or learn to talk to a girl. My humanity helped me enjoy my late teens and young adulthood simply by stopping and thinking about the obvious. For most of my teenage years (up to the age of 16), I had trouble talking to girls. Some might consider the former a “bad” life experience. Well today I see these previous fights differently. I thank God for how things turned out in my life in that sense and for having the ability to face the problem and find a possible solution as a man.
When I was 16, there were no smartphones. My parents had cell phones back then, which was unusual for Brazilians in the ’90s, but they weren’t smart. I didn’t have a chance to go online to feel better about my inability to talk to a girl. Because I had no technology, I had to face the problem and develop two very important life skills: critical thinking and listening.
Children today are disabled due to technology. Too many millennials are faced with a problem with a girl and instead of facing the problem head on to find a solution… They often go to their smartphones and text! Can’t you talk to a girl tonight? Go to a smartphone, watch a video with girls and feel better. I can’t find a date to prom… Go to your smartphone, chat with girls on Tumbler and move on… No friends? Go to the smartphone and log in to Facebook and chat! The problem is that texting won’t teach a boy how to talk to a girl like a man. The avoidance (or inability) of talking to a real girl cannot be replaced with watching a video about girls. Not having a prom date can’t be replaced by chatting with strangers on Tumbler…
What if I told you that if a person faces a problem in life and decides to ignore the problem and move to the side, they will eventually walk in circles and be bossed around for life? With or without technology. All of this technology that is supposed to improve our lives is having a tremendously negative impact on the lives of millions of teens and young adults today. In fact, you are doing them a disservice by discouraging them from tackling real-life problems for the sake of technology.