• by whitley , January 26, 2011

Technology is consuming my generation. We have been deemed the ‘millennial’ generation, and just as the millennium introduced new technologies, our generation were some of the firsts to get extremely excited about the gadgets of the future. It seems like everything around us has to have some form of interactive technology. Whether it is gadgets, buttons, 3D digitalization or a simple video, we are fiends for technology.

We have become so wrapped up in technology that our brains are starting to operate in radioactive waves. The old form of communication died within my generation years ago; specifically when we were in middle school and got our first cell phones, or spent hours Instant Messaging our friends that we just saw at school a few hours earlier (instead of doing our homework).

We have become accustomed to speedy technology that gives us instant gratification. For example, e-mailing and texting has become the new form of sitting down, writing a letter on lined paper, folding it, licking the envelop, writing out the receiver’s address, putting a U.S. postage stamp on it and sending it off for the intended person to receive and read five to seven business days later.

This is how I realized how bad my lifestyle with technology has gotten:

Last Tuesday, I sat in my school’s largest dining area while promoting my fraternity’s rush week events. While sitting there, one of my fraternity brothers approached and informed me that she and her boyfriend had broken up.

Of course I was shocked by the news, but excited at the same time because of my knowledge of the context of their relationship and knowing that the guy was a loser. After she told me everything that happened, I, as a journalism major and a curious, young individual, immediately began questioning the situation.

I wanted to figure out all of the details of the break-up. My mind always seems to be technology driven. The series of questions that I asked next proved this theory: “How did you break up? Over the phone? Through text messaging? Skype? Facebook chat?”

My friend responded no to all of those technologies. I have been surrounded so much by emerging technology that I forgot to consider the only respectable and what most people would think, common sense way that people use to break-up from a relationship: face-to-face.

When she revealed to me that it was face-to-face, I was amused with myself because of the fact that I never thought once about the traditional form of communication. My generation tenses up at the thought of conversing with our peers over the telephone and even more as it pertains to talking to one another face-to-face.

Technology is a code embedded into the millennial generation’s being. If that code were ever taken away, we would not be able to function correctly. Our systems would be forced to reboot, but the value of our services and functionality would decline drastically.