By Jeff Kennedy 

Contributor 

I think technology is ruining the world. For twenty-three years, I have resisted getting a smartphone, but now I have one.

Here’s an example of why I like it: Last week I was trying to find my friend’s house, but I’ve never been there. Normally I would print out directions before I left my house, but I didn’t have a chance to this time. But I remembered that I just got a smartphone. So I looked up the directions on my phone. This made finding the house a lot easier than it normally would have been because in the past I would have had to call my friend and ask for the directions, which can get complicated. There have been times when I’ve had to call someone for directions and I have to memorize them because I didn’t have a pen. So much to my unwillingness to convert to the dark side, there are some useful tools that come along with a smart phone.

The reason I dislike having a smartphone is because it’s ruining my relationships. Before I had one, I hated when people would pull out their smartphones in the middle of conversation. Now I do that to people all the time. A lot of my friends have noticed a big difference in my conversational skills. I don’t listen as actively as I used to. As much as everyone says they can multi-task, it just doesn’t work that way with smartphones. You can’t be on your phone and listen to whoever’s talking to you at the same time. Also, I’ve never had to worry about taking such great care of a phone before. And now I feel like I’m carrying a baby around with me wherever I go. It’s also affecting what I do with my free time. In the past, I would bring a book with me so that if I had downtime I could spend it reading. Now when I have downtime, I just sit on my phone, wasting my brain away, trying to beat my highest score to Temple Run 2.

This is why I think technology is ruining the world. It’s forcing us to depend on it, and it’s jeopardizing our relationships. So next time you have free time, instead of pulling out your phone, talk to the person sitting across from you.