A Text Message to Our Generation
Text messages connect the new generation. We text every day, from an “I love you” to just pure gibberish. It’s a new form of communication that the new generation has grown up on. Relationships begin and end, secrets are told, and breakdowns are shared just through a screen. The tiny black box we call a ‘cell phone’ feels like our world. Random thoughts to intellectual conversations, typed letter to letter by our thumbs.
Maybe it’s not a completely good thing to have everyone and everything at our fingertips, but maybe it can help us. To contradict the ones who bash all this modern technology, the texts or messages you send on social media have an impact.
Us as a society get through to people with the endless amounts of texts and captions and tweets we share, by sharing love, inspiration, and information. We meet new people and explore new platforms that get us where we never would have expected to be.
As a human growing in this new age, I have definitely seen all the highs and lows of this new technology. I have been on dates or out with friends who when spending time away from their cell phone get major anxiety.
This constant information of what people are up to can start to make the youth insecure, I have seen it and have personally felt this way. We start to lose the ability to properly communicate and can’t even look each other in the eye but will stare at still eyes through a screen. Everyone has felt the feeling of slight hurt as we send a text and we watch the bubbles appear and disappear because we judge the morals of someone on how fast they reply to a simple passage.
Large insecurities come from this tiny box that holds so much power over our conscience. There are so many sides and debates on this topic and even I question my own views. However, there is truly so much beauty as we try to better this technology-based era. I have seen how humans become more welcoming and empathetic just by being exposed to new life stories and other’s ideologies. More representation has appeared for the normal flawed human instead of the Hollywood stereotype. In times of crisis we come together and help strangers get back up on their feet just by sending one tweet out to the world. I have seen the pure laughs of happiness of people who deserve it, tears of joy from a beautiful life event, and the peaceful force of protests of injustice.
It is such a unique time, to see strangers become lovers, friends, or even business associates, all from finding each other online. I believe that the quote “love at first sight” starts to change as we evolve. We spot a human online and do as much as we can to just see them and understand them. It is exciting to reach far and wide to connect the pure soul of humanity and know that someone out there, even as far out as Australia, is just like us. We suffer with pain but the idea of a simple text message changing someone’s day, or even week, proves to hopefully everyone that technology can’t be all that terrible.
We will have to accept it, as it is now basically a part of us, but I don’t doubt for a second this generation won’t make it for the good. We can’t always be waiting for a text back, and sometimes we may just have to run to the house and see the bare face of the one that means something to us. We must remember to see real emotions in someone’s eyes, face to face, but that doesn’t mean you can’t relish in the picture-taking and sharing the most vulnerable parts of your day.
Finding a balance is the challenge, but the one thing I am sure of in this mess of a world is that the youth will rise to change in this new era and spread love with confidence.
So as you debate reaching in your pocket to send a compliment to your friends while feeling judged by anyone, even a family member, don’t hesitate to as this community of youth is our family too, even if it is online.
