OMG LOL!

Like many people in today's society, I am way too dependent on my technology. I always have my laptop or my phone ready and willing to surf the internet or play a game. Everywhere in the current society people are depending more and more on technology, everything is connected and everything is on just a few devices. However exciting each new advancement is,we are forgetting how to do a lot of important things, like spelling properly and writing in cursive. 

Society is forgetting the simple things like writing letters and giving people a call instead of a text. Our youth especially is forgetting how to put a sentence together with punctuation and without using, "LOL," and, "OMG!" what does this say about the future? If everybody is connected to their smart phone, how would one function without it if one never has before? 

I used to love the idea of having a cell phone as a kid, I could talk to people whenever I want, and I no longer had to use the home phone to call my friends. I thought having a cell phone would mean a new level of independence! When in reality it is more of burden than anything. I remember as a kid there was no pressure to always talk to people, or Facebook or tumbler to get distracted with. In school we would have to take real notes by hand instead of typing everything out, we hand wrote things and there was an exchange of paper with real conversation involved.

The more and more connected to technology we get, the more and more impersonal we are getting. It seems rare to speak face to face with somebody, and if you are with somebody they're on their phone the whole time. We are so dependent on technology for everything from keeping your calender to playing video games, to socializing. We have completely online classes that involve absolutely no interaction required at all, and the classes we do actually attend all use spell check and calculators. Socializing with people is happening less and less, and when it does it is awkward, with nothing to say because everything, even relationships are so web based. I meet people all of the time who don't even know how to write a check or do long division without a calculator. 

I often wonder if technology is a good thing, or if it has been doing more harm than good? Of course there are benefits to technology, like modern medicine and different sustainable sources of energy, but is that enough for us to just forget to teach our kids how to write in cursive? Or use punctuation? Or for people to be nearly incapable of doing things technology free? Is it more important for society to advance technologically but forget how to be a community?

We chalk it all up to evolution, "We are just accumulating more knowledge," But is it really learning if we forget how to do the basics?