Letter to the editor: are you distracted by technology?

By Autumn Wascher

Do you find yourself spending more time staring at the same screen everyday rather than admiring your current surroundings?

Think about how many wasted moments we spend scrolling through people’s news feed, timeline, or Twitter feed. Perhaps the posts belong to people you may not particularly like, or some you don’t even know.

I’d like to clarify that I’m not opposed to social media, because I know the potential great things our generation can do having this tool. Though social networking can bring us closer together, nothing can replace warm-hand-to-warm-hand contact.

My hopes of writing this article are not to sound like every old-fashioned professor or family member who claims all young people have their nose in their phone at all time, but rather to put a new perspective on the way you view technology in your life.

I want to encourage this generation to try boxing out time to put technology away—with meaning. Look for little moments you would otherwise miss if staring at your phone.

The most precious thing you can give someone is your presence or your attention. Be completely there in that moment to seek out and experience all of the pleasures and joys that life has to offer.

I know for some of us we can get stressed out, filling the anxious time with constant mindless scrolling and thinking, “Well if I can just get through finals week.”

Why not start living a life free of technology distractions now?

College is a process we must go through to get where we want to be in life, and it’s important to enjoy the process. Right now is all we have, so don’t see the journey as a means to an end.

The joy you get from the results is temporary. The joy you get from the experience lasts forever.

Siddhartha Gautama once said, “In the end, these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you live? How deeply did you learn to let go?”