The Scandinavian

Not long ago a video of a guy with a clever rhyme scheme went viral on YouTube. As the title suggests, Look Up points out how the modern society spends an excessive amount of time looking down at their smartphones and it encourages us to put down the tablets and be present in the moment.

 

 

Gary Turk's words really got me thinking... How much time in my life have I wasted scrolling through Facebook? How many potentially important moments have I missed out on reading a tweet about someone's inability to "even"? How many moments have I ruined by wanting to instagram them before they even happen?

 

As most people in my generation, I am affected by social media daily, in one way or another. There's no denying it- we are the media hooked generation (a term I much prefer to selfie generation, or generation of smart phones and dumb people). Personally, I check Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat pretty much daily. However, I am not ashamed of it, and depsite what Gary Turk's Look Up seems to be suggesting, I don't think anyone else should be either. The problem only arises when we allow these new medias to take over our day.

 

When we stop paying attention to our English professor, when we ignore the people we are sitting next to, when we waste hours scrolling through pointless updates and statuses and become anxious when going three hours without checking Twitter- THAT's when we need to take a step back and evaluate the amount of time we spend looking down at our phones.