How Spending Time with Friends and Family Better Society

Spending time with family and friends can help to produce much needed social change. It is a very common opinion that the advancement of technology has had a negative impact on society, more specifically on teenagers. Many kids and teenagers would rather watch their favorite show, play their favorite video game, or spend time on social media then spend quality time with their family or friends. Not spending time with other people causes kids and teenagers to develop poor social skills. They become disconnected with the real world because of how consumed they are in their technology. Social media specifically causes many teenagers to become insecure of themselves because they develop the habit of comparing themselves to others. On the other hand, technology has done a lot of positive things for society. It has helped education to be more advanced, stimulated health problems, and helped developed technological leaders. Despite the great things technology has done for society, I still believe that the negatives outweigh the positives. I’m not saying that we should stop using technology or keep it for, advancing. I’m saying that as a society we should try to create a more healthy balance of how dependent and how much humans should be using technology.  Humans are becoming very dependent on technology. We need to find a healthy balance of depending on technology while also depending on our own brains. Spending more time with friends and family has the power to enhance this social change. If people start spending more time with their friends and family, it will become contagious. More and more people will see others enjoying each other and hopefully at one point it becomes a trend. If friends and families start to be more active, they will be spending less time on technology which is ultimately a positive thing. As a parent or child, you can encourage each other to go on hikes together,  especially because we have beautiful mountains here in Colorado. You can also play sports together, making something a competition can make being active a lot more enjoyable. You can also simply take your dogs on a walk with your friends or family. Since it’s winter, another great thing to do with your friends or family is going skiing, snowboarding, or sledding. During the cold weather you could even do things with friends or family indoors, without technology. You could bake, cook, or play games. There are endless things you can do without spending money or using technology.  Teenagers and students can still use technology at school and outside of school, they just shouldn’t let it consume their lives. There is more to life than spending all your time on social media or playing video games. Adults also struggle with spending too much time on social media. I have seen parents in public on their phones, not paying attention to their young children. Children learn from their parents, so to some extent, teenagers and kids being obsessed with their technology could be blamed on their parents. Parents need to learn to discipline their kids with their technology at a young age so they don’t become addicted in the future. I have babysat before, and I can see that it’s easy to let a kid play on their phone when they are acting up so they calm down, but we need to be more disciplined than this, because this is when bad habits form. Teens should also encourage each other to spend less time on social media. If you are a teenager and spending time with your friends, you can nicely tell them to put their phones down so you can enjoy each other’s company. If you have good friends, they will respect your opinion and what you believe is right. Overall, if everyone tries to spend less time on social media and technology and more time with friends and family, social will begin to change for the better.