Gadgets: Beneficial or distractive?

Gad gets are becoming more and more a part of every person’s life.

People of all ages from different walks of life are becoming dependent on gadgets like laptops, tablets, cellphones – just to mention the most common ones – and seem can’t function at all without these. Observe what keeps people busy in different places: Mostly, texting, playing games, reading, talking, and many other activities they can do with their phones. This is a common scenario that you can see every day at homes, workplaces, schools, inside the vehicles, and on the streets.

Apparently, gadgets are invented for different uses and purposes. It created a need as well as a want to people. Cellphone, as the most common gadget is very useful for communication which is either charged or free through social media. These days, as technology becomes more upgraded, more features of cellphones are enjoyed by users. Students can do research work in their phones, read some books, record presentations, download and save files, and many more especially if it is connected to the internet. Phones are also avenues for entertainment like watching movies and videos, listen to and record music, and play games.

Young people or in technology related term, “digital natives” are the ones who are always hooked into their phones. They are the generation who grew up using the technology with ease and confidence. In the educational setting, students would always find excuses not to study their lessons unless there is an exam because they are so much preoccupied with their phones. Even during class hours, students’ attention are not focused on the lesson as some of them would steal some time to use their phones for a lot of reasons they would give when caught by the teacher. Though sometimes phones are allowed to be used during classes but only for a specific purpose or for an activity where it is needed.

At home, parents would complain about their children being lazy, ir responsible, inattentive, and so on. From the time they wake up until they go to bed, they are with their phones. Some would even pressure their parents to buy them new and latest model of phones. Call it peer pressure or social acceptance or simply just a want. Many of these children don’t just realize the difference between a need and a want or don’t even know what to prioritize. Gone are the days when a family would just watch television and enjoy it, when children would interact with each other through physically active games, and when they could focus more, one task at a time.

These days, children would rather just enjoy games on their phones for long hours without minding what is happening around them. It is just very common to see them doing multi- tasks with different gadgets in front of them: watching television, playing games and listening to music on their phones, and working on laptops or computer.

Technology brings ease to life as it makes work easier and faster. Gadgets are helpful to some degrees but they steal time, focus, interaction, and most of all healthy lifestyle from people especially children. Anything that is too much is not good.

Proper use of these gadgets are just fine but spending most of one’s time, energy, and sometimes resources are not good at all. Reports of accidents and untoward incidents due to gadget use are widespread, yet many don’t give much attention into it. Unless maybe it has a big personal impact on an individual. So the question whether gadgets are beneficial or distractive has obvious answers depending on what each one gives values in life. ( Paid article)