Patience.

It’s something that millennials, as a generation, lack, and most people wish they had more of.

Being able to access a plethora of facts at our fingertips has made waiting for information, or even looking deeply for it, an activity of the past. Now, all anyone has to do is type any question into Google.

In the pre-technology world, gaining certain knowledge required the use of encyclopedias and flipping through many pages before finding the desired information. Currently, in a more impatient world, the extent to which many people search for information is to the second page of Google results. As a technological society used to getting answers instantaneously, frustration often follows an inability to answer a question.

Technology, and specifically social media, allows us not only to have constant access to information but to also be constantly plugged into the lives of others. Within a few seconds, we can enter the lives of others and know what is happening in their world, satisfying our primal need to have as much information as possible. The quality of patience is lost as the ability to have constant access to the lives of others becomes something we feel that we need.

For so many, lying in bed in the morning, walking through the halls of CHS or even pausing at a stoplight have become filled with scrolling through various types of social media. As a society, we are becoming more attuned to the lives of others as the reach of technology has grown.

This is inherent. For the younger generation, it has become a natural instinct to keep technology near as it contains the information people believe they need.

Use of social media has become habitual. What started as a way to get information has become a routine way to kill time.

The root of this attraction is puzzling. People have become engaged with technology because they are lured to all that it offers, especially the ways that it allows one to interact with other people in untraditional and noncontrontational ways.

Various types social media grant users access to the lives of other people and allow them to connect behind screens. As humans become more absorbed in these mediums, the connection with many other parts of our lives is lost.

Face-to-face interaction has become an inconvenience for many because of the ease in which technology allows one to virtually communicate with others. As the connection to technology deepens, the value which humans assign traditional discussion dwindles.

Technology has become something that is always closeby and offers a sense of security. By being attached to technology, a barrier is created. It prevents one from attaching to friends and family because the wonders of the technological world are all-consuming

Additionally, by looking at different forms of technology all the time, people choose to forgo many possibilities that the tangible world offers.

The lure to be plugged into technology plugs humans out of the beauty of the world. Something as simple as a walk down the street can consist of people scrolling through their Twitter feed, absorbing the information given to them through their prized technological device and rejecting the natural wonders surrounding them because of it. Without really knowing it, so many people are falling deeper and deeper into the artificial world.

But what if it was different?

Disconnecting from technology will allow people to reconnect with reality. When a person isn’t constantly checking their phone, they are able to become more engaged with their environment.

Leaving technology behind, even for brief periods of time, will lead to improved relationships with others. Having a conversation without feeling the constant need to check one’s phone allows more uninterrupted interactions. As people are distanced from technology, connections with other human beings will strengthen.

Technology is so loved because of instant gratification it offers, which today’s generation of impatience values highly.

Instead of allowing this to happen, take a step back and disconnect from technology. Allow yourself to discover all that you have been missing.