Le Moyne College Stories

“You kids and your technology,” “All people care about are their screens,” “They never pay attention, because they are too distracted by their phones!” How many times have you heard these phrases? Maybe it was at a coffee shop, a classroom, an office? It was probably said by your Grandma, an Aunt, maybe even your mother? It feels like “our generation” is constantly getting attacked for being “attached” to our phones. And, I’m sick of hearing that. People seem to think all us “kids” do on our phones is share cat videos, harass each other, and scroll Facebook all day. First of all, cats are gross, online bullying is not cool, and Facebook is boring. Little do people know that when I’m on my phone I’m checking my email for school, drafting a blog post, Snapchatting my mom from the gym, texting my high school friend who’s three states away and has a busy schedule, sharing a beautiful picture of my niece on Instagram, catching up on news I missed on Twitter, looking on Pinterest for recipes to make for dinner. Is all of that pointless? No. We are in an age that’s more connected than ever, and I think it’s amazing. I can look at pictures from a music festival that happened across the world and comment and tell the photographer that I love his eye for color, or I can take a picture of a dress I want to wear out this weekend and send it to my sister [to get her approval of course], I can Facetime my cousin who’s four hours away at college and ask her about her life, and I can even share my articles with my family so they can read and catch up on all my writing. We are the generation creating apps, new genres of music, different ways to film movies/TV shows/concerts, DIY projects, new innovative ways to gather information, products that make life easier, etc. Without all of this technology we wouldn’t have any of this. Our world, in my eyes, has become more creative than it has ever been. Buildings are sharper, alleyways are more colorful, shoes are higher and edgier, cars are sleeker, and my life is a lot brighter. The internet is a portal of wonderful things that couldn’t be easier to get to. How cool is that? You can open your eyes to so many different things and learn so much. I’m sure some people really are addicted to their phones, and maybe that’s a problem for them. But, I also believe, that we “kids” are used to technology at this point. We know how to have a conversation, online and offline. We go out to dinner with friends, we go on vacations with family, we go out with friends on the weekends, we sit down with Professors and talk about our work, we run clubs on campus, we go to interviews and explain our hopes and dreams, we kiss our boyfriends/girlfriends and tell them we love them, we play on swing sets with our little cousins/nieces/nephews. This is us. This is our generation. And, we are more than our technology. Contributed by Abigail Adams '16