Over the past few years; the advancements in technology have skyrocketed. Our limits seem endless and our aim is set high for all the improvements we are looking to accomplish.  There are endless ways to use technology, from interacting with friends, to paying bills, to gaining access to free movies.  It has without a doubt simplified our lives and enabled to accomplish something in seconds that previously would require hours.  But despite all the things we use technology to guide us through, and piggy-back us through life, is it having an extremely negative effect on our society?  Is technology making us more alone?  I asked students at Freedom High School what they thought about this issue.

I asked Junior Will Stonesifer if he thinks technology is making us more alone. He replied “Yes I think that they hurt your social skills, and give you away to avoid face to face communication.”  I asked him how social media plays a part in avoiding face to face communication.  He said “It does allow us to connect with friends and family that we may not be able to see often, but it disables from the face to face communication with them because we find it more convenient to avoid it with our technology.”

Similarly, Palak Patel a Senior at Freedom said “I think technology does a great job at making us feel connected, but gets rid of our desire to want to physically be with people. Instead we feel more comfortable relying on likes or retweets to feel like people like us, when in reality we are just being anti social.”  I asked Palak what technology she uses and if it distracts her from more beneficial activities.  She replied “I use my phone, laptop and TV occasionally.  Technology definitely gets in the way when I’m trying to do homework or even go to sleep.  There’s always that urge to respond to a Snapchat or check Twitter one more time.”

Technology can clearly distract some people very easily, so I asked Patel what makes it so addictive. She said “The need to be connected with people and gossip, and stay in the loop of everything.”

To continue, Sophomore Angelica De la Cruz gave a similar answer to Patel and Stonesifer and said “I think technology can make us more alone, because it can get in the way of physically interacting with people.” When I asked for an example she said “When you’re in public, or at school or somewhere, you have opportunities to be interacting with friends or meeting new ones, and a simple notification sound can take you out of a conversation or away from people to see what’s going on, on social media.”

Yet there are some students at Freedom who say the opposite; that technology does not make us more alone, but can make us more social.

Sophomore Andrew Mulligan said “I don’t think technology can make us more alone because it keeps us in touch with everyone who you may not be able to see in person. It can also give you a chance to see someone in person because you can contact them.”  When asked if he finds technology more entertaining than what you could do with friends,  Andrew replied “Technology is great but it can get a little boring after a while.  It makes you want to go out and do things with people.”

Furthermore, Sophomore Keyshla Soto said “Technology gives us more access to hanging out with people since we can call up or text our friends for a ride, and make plans to hang out when asked what social media she uses and if they distract her from other more productive activities, she replied “I use Instagram, but it doesn’t distract me from friends or other activities because I only use it when I’m not busy or have nothing productive to do.”

But Soto also saw some negative in technology. I asked her how she thought social media was affecting people.  She replied “It makes us as individuals worry about how we look and compare the things we have in life to what others do.  It also makes us worry about our image and how we present ourselves.  This could make you want to stay in because you feel secure or are interested in other people’s lives making us more alone.”

Clearly technology has many positives and many negatives. Technology can connect us to friends and family like never before but can isolate people from face to face contact.