![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/confessionsofanadmissionsmistake\/files\/2017\/10\/Summer-300x169.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Senior year of high school, I made the radical decision to delete Facebook off my phone. I unfollowed people on Instagram and\u00a0 exclusively started following dogs. I never figured out how twitter worked so that was fine. The impetus for all this was college decisions. Ironic given where I am now I suppose but I remember feeling like each Facebook post declaring \u201c______ class of 2020!!! #soblessed\u201d was wrecking my sanity.<\/p>\n
Since then, with sanity readjusted, I have re downloaded Facebook. I can justify it by saying that I use it for interacting and connecting with people I meet but in reality, I spend more of my time looking at Harvard\u2019s Meme and Tourist Haiku pages.<\/p>\n
I worry however, that the next generation of kiddos will not have the same kind of self awareness when it comes to their technology. I have seen groups of fifth graders walk through a Children\u2019s museum where I worked completely glued to their phones, experiencing the world through Snapchat filters, and taking social inventory through likes and heart reacts.<\/p>\n
Yet far from the usual condemnation, my experience inclines me towards existential concern. Because Facebook didn\u2019t become the ubiquitous monolith it is at present until middle school, I can ground some of my notions of normalcy outside the realm social media. I fear that the next generation won\u2019t have that advantage.<\/p>\n
As I have gotten older, I\u2019ve started to think more about how technological development shapes the way I perceive the world. Before getting a cellphone, and in particular a smartphone, I recall being far less concerned with immediacy of response. Now, getting left on \u201cread\u201d is the equivalent of getting stood up on a date.<\/p>\n
The boundaries between technology and reality is rapidly dissolving and the Internet of Things is only speeding up this process.<\/p>\n
The ubiquity of cellphone usage moves us even further to having \u201cthe world at our fingertips.\u201d Given that the cellphone has become the universal remote of the future in addition to our primary mode of social interaction (arguably) there is reason to think about the potential ramifications on the collective social psyche.<\/p>\n
The last great existential crisis happened after the world wars. From that we got the Postwar literature that would define the century\u2014Kurt Vonnegut,\u00a0Albert Camus,\u00a0The Razor\u2019s Edge<\/em>\u2014redefining themselves in attempt to find meaning and identity.<\/p>\n It\u2019s probably a romanticized notion of the past, but I am compelled to believe that what so profoundly informed the world views of these great figures beyond whatever innate talent they possessed was the cultural norm of reading books.<\/p>\n While books are obviously not the end all for existential solvency, there was far more effort and time spent enjoying literature\u2026.time I now believe we spend mindlessly scrolling through Facebook. I\u2019m not merely being facetious either. According to Pew Research, 27 percent of US adults did not read a single book within the last year. (https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/smart-news\/27-percent-american-adults-didnt-read-single-book-last-year-180957029\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n