In the age of technology, we find ourselves on our phones interacting with people online more than we do in person.

We’ve become attached to our phones, treating them as if they are an extension of our bodies, so attached that we begin to panic when we lose our phones for a split second.

This addiction to technology hurts our skills in finding the human connection that we, as social creatures, so desperately need. We’ve become dependent on technology not only because it provides us with a sense of satisfaction from a social aspect but also because it is practical for us to use it in our daily lives.

We use our technology as a connection to the world around us.

It allows us to communicate with people 50,000 miles away in a matter of seconds. But at the same time, it can disable us from socializing with people five feet away.

The problem at hand is that we are so invested in our lives online that we don’t give our real-world lives any attention.

Many of these culprits are millennials, who check their social media accounts around 10 times a day or more for various reasons, often out of fear of missing out. In a study conducted by the photo-sharing app, Flashgap, it was found that “87 percent of the millennials that participated in the study admitted to missing out on [real-world] conversations due to being distracted on their phones.” 

This goes back to finding the human connection that we thrive on. Technology is supposed to allow us to interact with as many people as possible, so it is ironic that it hurts how we interact with people face-to-face.

We lose the ability to have a formal conversation where we feel empathy while doing so. Technology and social media are essentially an illusion. Their purpose is to help us but instead they are hurting us by keeping us glued to our screens.

Our dependence on these devices is disabling us from living in the moment. It has become practical to use our fancy technology to complete our everyday tasks.

Simple tasks like taking notes or simply adding numbers together have become easier for us to accomplish with technology because it does the math for us and we do not have to struggle reading chicken scratch writing because of apps like Evernote.

There are other apps like Task Rabbit which is a service app that helps you connect with individuals to free up your time to do other things. One quick touch on the screen and bam your grocery shopping is done and all you have to do is pick it up.

However, a lot of tasks that technology has shortened for us has also made us lazier in the process.  Remember that illusion analogy from earlier? Yeah, read it and weep.

In an age where the majority of the population has access to technology, we’ve become quite dependent on it. Whether it be for completing simple tasks or connecting with people, we tend to look down at our screens more than what’s right in front of us.

Challenge yourself and try to not use technology as much, take a break from social media and focus on the interactions that matter.

Don’t make technology your lifeline.