It’s no doubt that the world runs on technology. Everywhere I look, a computer, phone or TV screen meets my face. Technology, including phones, is an essential part of our lives we just can’t live without.

Cell phones, or smart phones, help us with basically everything. GPS monitors, books, face-to-face communications are being replaced by smart phones. Remember the last time we wrote letters that weren’t business related? Me neither.

Cell phones and technology drastically affects every single one of us. We’ll text each other even if we’re in the same room. Why not look up and directly talk to one another? It takes less time. It bothers me that we’re so indulged to our phones that we can’t take a moment to put them down and actually listen and give someone our full attention when they’re talking to us. It’s respectful and it shows that we care.

I’m not saying that I don’t use my phone to text or stay connected to the media world. All I’m saying is that I wouldn’t mind dealing without my phone for a while, or leaving it behind when I leave the house. If I accidently forget it, I won’t freak out, the world won’t end- I’ll just deal without it. Smart phones are definitely helping us, but at the same time, they’re destroying us.

I remember playing with Barbie dolls instead of holding a Mini iPad in my hands at the age of five. Everywhere I look, I see five-year-olds playing on iPads instead of dolls, the way we used to before technology took over. Families at restaurants whip out their cell phones rather than talking with one another about their daily lives. We’re all walking around with our heads bowed into our phones. Technology drastically restored our minds by swiftly dancing our thumbs around a phone screen every minute, instead of flipping book pages. Sometimes we wonder why there’s not much communication going on between each other.

Cell phones keep us from interacting with people. Yeah we interact with them via social networks, but what about face-to-face interaction? I don’t mean to say we don’t communicate that way anymore, but when we do, we usually don’t offer our attention to the speaker or we’re rude by having our face stuck to a phone screen while they talk. It’s the little things that affect us the most.

What kind of exmaple do we want to leave behind? Do we want young children to become so intrigued with technology that they forget what toys trains, dolls and play houses look like? If in the future my kids don’t know what toys look like, I’ll know I failed because I didn’t give them all that childhood has to offer.

Technology is for the best, but let’s not forget that some of the best things in life can’t be replaced with electronic devices.