The first time I watched this video was about 4 years ago. It came out April 25th, 2014, and has reached over 61 million views. I watch it pretty often to remind myself of the world we live in, and I think everyone should give it a watch. It is called Look Up by Gary Turk. It relates perfectly to just about everything we have ever talked about in this class, and if you have not seen it, I am happy I can share this with you.
The video starts off with stating we have hundreds of friends but yet, we are still lonely. Our phones, laptops, and media we call social are anything but, when we open our computers and it's the door we shut. Have you ever thought of that? We call all these platforms social media, but are they really social when it is us who are isolating ourselves to use them? We have forgotten how to speak to one another and make eye contact we need. Gary has so many amazing lines in this video but one of those are, “Be there for your friends and they’ll be there too, but no one will be if a group message will do”. Group messages via texting have taken over our connections. My friends and I will sit in the same room, and group chat with each other without speaking out loud. We need to just talk to one another, and learn to coexist again. We have all been taught not to talk to strangers, but not all strangers are bad. It is ok to talk to a stranger on your commute to work or school, you are not weird for doing so.
Another point Turk brings up is the fact that small children are going just about everywhere with smartphones, or iPads. We constantly see children out to eat being occupied with games and shows they can watch on one small device. Turk states, “It’s not likely you’ll make worlds greatest dad if you can’t entertain a child without using an iPad”. This line genuinely makes me sad. My younger brother is six years old, and has grown up playing games on all of our phones. I have taught him to go outside and play, but nothing makes him happier than being inside and sitting on the couch with multiple games to choose from on a device.
We have become a generation of idiots, smart phones, and dumb people, as Turk would say. Although I don't believe we are idiots or dumb people, we just have to rely on the internet to give us the answers we are unaware of. Google, Bing, Yelp, and more, are at our fingertips and teaching us more everyday. The only way our smartphones are making us dumb, is the fact we spend more time looking down than realizing what is going on around us. A piece of advice Gary Turk offers us is, “So look up from your phone, shut down the display, take in your surroundings, make the most of today”. This is something we all need to do. We all need to take in our surroundings and make the most of all of our days. We don't live forever so we need to stop wasting our time. Today, I checked my screen time on my iPhone, and in the past week I have spent 15 hours and 54 minutes. That is almost one whole day.
To end this video Turk reminds us, "When your too busy looking down you don't see the chances you miss". Look up from your phones and fill your time with real life connections and interactions. Make your friends feel real, and your family feel loved. Make these eye to eye contact connections and stop group messaging. I am challenging myself this week to decrease my screen time, but giving more people my love, than a like.
I hope you all take 4 minutes and 58 seconds out of your day to watch this video and change in a way. I hope it opens your eyes as much as it opened mine. Watch it more than once and think about every word he says. Look up from your phone and live today!
I haven't seen this video ever in my life, but from the way you described it, I kind of want to watch it now. I totally agree with everything you described about the video. We do in fact feel lonely even though we have hundreds or thousands of friends and followers on social media. I wish we made a national holiday such as "Social Media Shutdown Day", or something along those lines. I think it would help us socialize more as a society. We can dedicate a day to not using our phones and plan to do something with our close friends that we have. I am surprised that isn't a thing yet to be honest. I checked my screen time for this week after I got a notification for it. I actually used 25% less screen time than any other week. I try not to use my phone as much as I am focusing on school a lot for my last year here. I think 25% less usage is actually a lot, compared to most people.
ReplyDeleteThis was a video with an interesting premise. However, I highly doubt that it's the first of its kind when promoting an agenda leaning towards a technologically deterministic dystopia. While I don't disagree with the majority of its observations, I can't help but play the devil's advocate when it comes to their implications.
ReplyDeleteA lack of social skills along with deteriorating attention spans are among the few examples of what people consider detrimental effects of developing technologies. However, what if such changes aren’t inherently bad, as social standards are constantly changing to accommodate them? An average human’s attention span is decreasing at the same rate as their multitasking ability is increasing, and if the workforce can be flexible with how the work environment is shaped, productivity among young professionals can rise exponentially due to the many conveniences that their technological expertise brings. The same can be said of our increasing familiarity with social media: while it draws our attention from our immediate surroundings, it also gives us access to other parts of the world previously inaccessible due to geographical distances.
Coming from an underdeveloped country where people can be just as obnoxious and ignorant despite not having an iphone growing up, I’m sure the US isn’t getting dumber. If anything, you’re just struggling to adapt with a much faster pace of change than ever before seen in history.