Student voices: It's easy to get hooked on technology

Talk about it

Technology is a drug and it is close to impossible to be sober from all of it in this day in time. We are addicts and constantly being fed our phones, computers, social media and television. It’s unlikely you can even last a day without seeing someone texting, an electronic billboard, TVs in cars, restaurants offering free wifi, things that would seem unimaginable just 20 years ago. It is amazing to me how much can change in just a few years.

I spent time with family last weekend and watched my little cousins play with an iPad. They are a little over a year old and had a blast with it. It seemed pretty normal to me until I thought back to my childhood. I played with a fake vacuum that made popping sounds when I pushed it, I dragged around a doll and did its hair, and I played with fake cows and horses on my farm set. The closest thing to today’s technology that I had was a PC comparable to a brick and a CD ROM. If this is how much of a difference there is growing up in my 16 years, imagine what it will be like in another 16 years. And another after that.

I won’t deny that I am addicted to social media sites, to my phone, to video games and to television. It seems like almost everyone in my generation is, but it is hard not to be with what has evolved. iPads, iPhones, Macs, PCs, GPS and 3D TVs — who knows what could come in the next generation’s time? When I was 13 and got a phone it was a privilege. Now it seems like kids in elementary school have phones and it’s normal to them. Times are changing and it may feel completely foreign and weird to us, but these kids are growing up into a world of technology. Some of the things invented still blow my mind. I don’t know what the future holds, but I can tell you one thing: I never want to hear a kid say “I’m bored” ever again, because there is definitely an app for that.

Kassie Klasen is a student at Rosemount High School. Her column appears every other week.

Tags: high school, opinion, rosemount, commentaries