"I'd rather, give up, like, a kidney than my phone. How did you manage before?" (Henley). This is how 16 year old Philippa Grogan replied when the Guardian’s journalist Jon Henley asked him questions about his cell phone. It is not new to think that teenagers are rebellious, disrespectful, and impulsive. For centuries, adolescents have been thought of as rebellious disrespectful rule-breakers; even the Greek philosopher Plato was once heard complaining, "[teenagers] have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise." Many people relate these bad mannors and disrespectful behaviors to phones. If this is true it poses a problem because in the past decade more people than ever are becoming accustomed to purchasing smartphones. The popularity of smartphones today has made them a popular accessory for teens; especially when parents need a way to talk to their children. Adolescents use their smartphones for more than just contacting their parents; teenagers use social media like facebook, instagram, and snapchat as a way to communicate and socialize with their peers. In adolescence, teens are going through vital changes that follow them into adulthood; their brains and bodies mature. Technology is affecting the adolescent population due to the way it changes critical thinking, independence, our connection to the world around us; social and brain development; and the way we access information. 

One way that technology is affecting the adolescent generation is by changing the plasticity in our brains. Plasticity is the way in which our brains grow and change after experiencing different things. This means that when we are receiving new information or experiencing an unfamiliar situation it is becoming encoded in our brains by the changes in the strength of connections between neurons. A study conducted by Jan Scholz took a group of people and began training them to be jugglers over the course of several months. They scanned the adults’ brains before they learned how to juggle and then scanned them again three months later. The study showed “the white matter in the adults’ brains changed as they learned how to juggle over a period of several months” (East). If learning how to juggle can change the structure of the brain than technology and time spent on social media could also be affecting the way our brains grow and develop. 

Because we are constantly receiving and processing new information we are becoming more and more distracted. We are no longer retaining information in ways that are efficient and help us to remember it. Research has found that millennials are becoming more forgetful than senior citizens, therefore, technology has a very huge impact on our memory. Carolyn Gregoire, Senior health and science writer at The Huffington Post states, “Technology definitely has an effect on our memory. What happens is that to move information from your conscious mind (what’s known as the working memory) into your long-term memory requires a process of memory consolidation that hinges on attentiveness. You think about the information or rehearse it in your mind in order to form a strong memory of it, and in order to connect it to other things that you remember” (Gregoire). Being distracted and constantly taking in new information causes us to push new information into our conscious mind and then back out again. This is not an efficient way to retain information, therefore, we are becoming forgetful in our everyday lives. 

Not only is technology changing the way our brains function in instructional and new settings, but it is also affecting the social aspect of our brains. While connecting to people through social media and other online sources is a social act it cannot replace the physical interactions we need in our lives. For instance, when walking down the sidewalk or in the hallway of a high school most of the students are looking down at their phones not caring to speak to those around them.   This constant need to stay connected to social media is not only causing a decrease of social interaction but it is also causing a rise in anxiety. The Wall Street Journal released an article called Is Technology Making People Less Sociable, which proved, “In one study, we monitored anxiety levels of smartphone users when we wouldn’t let them use their phones, and found that the heavy smartphone users showed increased anxiety after only 10 minutes and that anxiety continued to increase across the hourlong study. Moderate users showed some anxiety, while light users showed none” (Rosen). Our social and emotional health is put at risk when we rely on social media and technology as our main source of communication. Hampton strongly exemplifies the risk of social interactions by explaining, “Psychologists define social capital, or the benefit we derive from social interactions, in two ways: bonding and the more superficial bridging. Research shows that virtual-world friends provide mostly bridging social capital, while real-world friends provide bonding social capital” (Rosen). A world of virtual and electronical communication leaves us without real bonding and a social capital. 

When in public it is now normal and almost expected to avoid certain social interactions by looking at * phones. While walking down the sidewalk people avoid making eye contact with one another by looking on their phones. We even use our phones while having a nice dinner at a restaurant. Instead of simply standing in a line, walking down the sidewalk, or getting groceries we now have to occupy ourselves with technology. This inability to be in the moment affects the thoughtfulness and depth found in our social interactions with those around us. Carolyn Gregoire also agrees by stating, “I think there are some indications that this kind of culture of constant distraction and interruption undermines not only the attentiveness that leads to deep thoughts, but also the attentiveness that leads to deep connections with other people” (Gregoire). We no longer enjoy the moment but rather we feel the need to look at and examine other people’s lives through social media at the expense of losing our own life moments. Because we are constantly distracted and inattentive our relationships lack empathy and are becoming more and more shallow. 

We have become so dependent on technology that we have lost our independence in the most simple aspects of life. We no longer see the need to memorize a phone number, solve math problems in our heads, call our family and friends or go visit them in person, tell time by the hands on a clock, use physical books to research a topic, or think through situations thoroughly (Komando). Instead of memorizing a phone number we now have a whole book of contacts on our phone making every number available at our fingertips. Instead of visiting our family we believe it is of equal value to text or call them. We no longer have to think situations through in our lives because most of the time our problems are only a google search away from accumulating all of the answers. Rather than taking in the challenges and simple everyday interactions we choose to let technology do these things for us. 

Critical thinking is being lost to technology every day. For example, if I am given the choice to research a topic from my phone or laptop or go to the library to complete the research I will always choose technology because it is faster and more efficient for me. This could be bad because instead of diving into a book and truly soaking up the research, many times we skim the surface of the internet for information and do not retain it. Because technology holds so much knowledge it seems as though we are having to think less and less. Jim Taylor, a professor at the University of San Francisco nicely presents his worry about how technology is affecting the way children think “There is also little doubt that all of the new technologies, led by the Internet, are shaping the way we think in ways obvious and subtle, deliberate and unintentional, and advantageous and detrimental” (Taylor). He also states, “The uncertain reality is that, with this new technological frontier in its infancy and developments emerging at a rapid pace, we have neither the benefit of historical hindsight nor the time to ponder or examine the value and cost of these advancements in terms of how it influences our children’s ability to think” (Taylor). Because the world has never experienced these types of technological advances, there are no historical experiences to compare the current technological advances. We have no idea how these advances will fully impact the minds of our generation. 

Even the way we read is being affected by technology. The main source of obtaining information has changed over history; from walls in caves, to scrolls, to books, to libraries, and now the internet. Because we have the ability to read almost anything from the internet, books are becoming less popular. This also causes a decrease in critical thinking because when reading a book there is no interrupted text. Everything that is being read has to be processed and thought through, however, when researching or reading a book on the internet one is open to many more distractions and “watered-down” material. Taylor refers to this as, “Book reading is like scuba diving in which the diver is submerged in a quiet, visually restricted, slow-paced setting with few distractions and, as a result, is required to focus narrowly and think deeply on the limited information that is available to them” (Taylor). *** Taylor goes on to explain that using the internet to research and read is like jet skiing because it causes people to become distracted and only skim through information rather than diving in. Technology causes reading to become less engaging and produces lower amounts of reflection. 

Adolescents are affected by technology in many ways, such as, the way it changes critical thinking, independence, our connection to the world around us; social and brain development; and the way we access information. All of these factors impact the day to day lives of most people but specifically the younger generation. We no longer have to interrupt literature for ourselves, instead, we can search for a version of the literature online that has already been analyzed. Our independence is taken away by the simplest of tasks like memorizing a phone number or actually putting in the effort to go visit our friends and family. However small these tasks may seem they are all important to our lives. Even the way our brain grows and develops is being changed and affected by technology. Given the option, we no longer choose to go to the library or research a topic using books because we have the easier option of researching through the internet. As technology continues to grow the affects it has on each generation will continue to heighten as well.
