In my household in particular, it seems that sitting around blankly staring into a television isn’t enough anymore. No, instead we blast the TV while instead pouring our attention into our laptops or smart phones.

We are all sitting there. The opportunity to connect as a family and play games or even just talk to each other is right in front of us. Yet we get so involved with whatever device has our attention that we hardly realize when someone is talking to us much less if anyone is still even in the room.

Now I don’t think that I’m talking just about me and my family when I say that sometimes the world of technology can completely engulf our thought processes. Good or bad? Well that’s for whomever is using these electronics to decide.

“Well it (technology) has definitely made life easier,” said Grossmont College student Jacob Watanabe. “It’s made us more productive in ways like school work etc.”

The real problem seems to be not whether it has improved the way we gain knowledge and information, but whether if it has made families more distant from each other.

“We’d be a lot closer and more communicative without technology,” said Watanabe. “My mom just texts me when I’m two rooms away if she needs me to do something instead of yelling or getting up and finding me.”

In my opinion, the advancement in technology is great but family life doesn’t need to suffer. I think that some families honestly just don’t take time out of their day to connect with each other anymore and it really is sad. I’ll admit that our family can get like that but I’ve learned recently that there is a way to stay connected and still enjoy the wonders of technology available today.

Our solution is to have dinner every night with each other with our cell phones and iPods off.

I also think that it is important that the families get along because you never know when technology could fail us and we need to rely on each other again. For example, when the power went out in San Diego a few months ago it was crucial that everyone got together and make it through it. Cell phones had little to no service and everything else was down. It just goes to show that it could happen any day and in times like those, you need people by your side like your family.
Technology is great but we need to stop letting it interfere with more important issues.

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Brauer is news editor of the GC Summit. He may be contacted at [email protected]