November 15, 2016
Halle Thornton
Late for class once again, I power-walked down the spine so I could make it before the professor locked the door and—BAM.
A girl on her iPhone, too busy tweeting to look up to see where she is walking, runs right into me as her coffee flies everywhere, including right down my shirt.
Happy Monday to me. I figured she would have enough common sense to pay attention to where she was walking. Sadly, I gave her too much confidence, and I was let down.
I’ve been hit, swiped and almost run over by people on long boards who use their phones on too many different occasions. I’ve given up trying to move out of their way.
But this is a larger issue than spilling coffee on someone or running into a student on the sidewalk. Students need to start focusing on their studies when in class instead of re-tweeting Kim Kardashian’s most recent photo.
Students don’t talk about what exciting adventure they went on over the weekend; now, it is about how many likes, re-tweets and shares we get.
Although technology is arguably making life easier on our generation, it will ultimately lead to our demise.
According to Time Magazine, the average person checks their phone 46 times a day.
On average, a person will also check social media 17 times a day, according to Digital Trends. That’s almost once per hour, and the number is probably higher for college students.
Many students check social media when their timelines have not been updated; they scroll through the same posts that they saw only five minutes ago when they checked their feed the first time.
Incentives such as Pocket Points, an app that rewards you with free food if you stay off of your phone during class, are being used to make students learn.
Professors also make students put their cell phones at the front of the classroom when they walk in, so that they are not tempted to check their phones during class.
Instead of taking notes, students are busy searching cats in birthday hats on YouTube.
Not only is social media distracting to the few students who go to class to learn, but it is putting people in danger, even if they are not the ones constantly on their phones.
Pokemon Go has over 15 million players. Drivers who play the game are not paying attention to the road, and instead are trying to catch them all.
Over 110,000 car accidents have been reported as a result of Pokemon Go, according to the American Medical Association. And the numbers are continuing to grow.
This is on top of all the accidents caused by texting and driving. The National Safety Council released that 1 out of 4 car accidents are caused by texting and driving.
That’s 333,000 accidents a year caused by cell phone use while operating a motor vehicle.
As a college student, I am no stranger to social media, but I know when and where social media is acceptable to use. Catching a Charizard while driving to school is unacceptable.
Put down your phone, even if to avoid walking into me. I’m certainly not going to budge.