Technology has become a part of our everyday lives. We have grown reliant on the way our lives have become facilitated by technology. In addition we have become so entrapped to technology, that at times we lose track of time due to our in depth focus in technology. For example, the other day I was watching Netflix on my phone on the train. I look up from my phone and I passed my stop. It is at this moment as I come to realize how a device created by humans has the power to distract us from getting to our destinations. We have become so entrapped into our cell phones that sometimes we forget or just plain out avoid real life socialization with with friends or family. The purpose of cell phones was to make it easier to communicate with one another, but at the end of the day this device has changed our generation and the way we function. From little things as missing my train stop to bigger things as not knowing when to stop using ones cellphone and may grow apart from a significant other, or a baby being raised by the 21st century nanny (cellphones). To conclude I still watch Netflix on my phone and probably always will, but I like to always be aware of my surroundings on the train or overall just how I am especially in New York City and I try to avoid losing track of time while on my smartphone.

I remember when I was younger about the age of 10-13, I would of spend my days playing baseball, tags, hide and seek and so on, but that was partly because as a kid I grew up in the Dominican Republic where at the time, cell phones and TVs  were not the main source of entertainment, instead it was going outside hanging out with your friends and playing sports and games all day long but as I moved to the U.S and grew older I started noticing that here In New York, it was different, there was barely any physical activities to do outside in most part due to the weather but just as much cell phones and TVs were the cause too, it is almost as if people rather text than meet up in person, watch a movie on Netflix  and then text about it rather than going to the movies together. cell phones give us the advantage to connect to others who are far away, yet when we use them we are almost completely disconnected to what’s happening in front of our eyes, it’s almost like everyone it’s on their own private space, away from reality and caged inside an artificial connection to others through a phone.

Have you ever thought that you had a great sense of time, that you can guess the time of day simply by how it looks outside? I thought did! Recently my concept of time has been called into question. Here’s a little back story about my life. I Work in a small Private animal Practice in New York City with no windows, it was raining all day and I stayed in and worked through my day. Hours upon hours have passed, and not once have I stepped out or checked the clock, all I knew was once the last patient is gone, I can go. So, after a crazy day, I checked out my final patient, I gather my things and I’m just glad to be on my way home. I step out my hospital and BAM its darkness. Whoa I must have worked till 8 pm today …makes sense not uncommon at all and it felt as if I worked for that amount of time. As I wondering I shuffle through my bag for my cell phone. Only to see it was 5:50..It’s weird that one can feel so sure about their own concept of time depending on what you are doing. You can feel like you have worked for only a set amount of time and as people we largely use how it looks outside to reference time .My cellphone gave me a reality check and I should probably use a alarm clock from now on because I clearly cannot rely my own assumptions of time.

P.S Another way Time will get all warped for all of us , Its Fall Back! Daylight Savings Time is over and its time to turn the clocks back one hour on November 3rd

One of my mother’s friends, who was a kind quirky lady, had a collection of cool books and gave me one about meditation. What made it fun were these exercises that relaxed you without having to meditate in a quiet room, with your eyes closed sitting indie style! i read a few pages and chose an exercise that seemed like a challenge, one about using the noises around you to come together and make a song, your own personal song.

In other words, listen to my surroundings and accept them instead of hearing individual noises as nuisances. At first, i honestly thought it was stupid. i didn’t enjoy meditating when there was people around or if the lights were not off or even with a candle flickering was pretty distracting. Silence and a pitch black room was a must when i wanted to meditate. I cant remember where i was but i remember what i heard. I was standing in a room and i hear the noise from outside, instantly feeling like this wont work. Cars were beeping and i remember a baby  crying but the sound of the wind blowing through trees was soothing. I chose to start with that. It took a while but once i accepted the noisy cars and the baby’s cry it wasn’t distracting. It became relaxing, the cars beeping were consistent so it became a melody and the baby’s cry was almost an ad lib. It wasn’t until the noisy cars stopped, that i was instantly out of my deep thought. Weird how things that would normally distract me during meditation became essential. It was a unique experience and i use that exercise now every time i hear a nuisance. 

           Digital device change people’s lives. Digital devices are popular in the world because people depend on them. The device that I use on a regular basis is my phone. Cell phones become an important part in our daily lives. I use a phone to chat, make calls, and be on social media. When I use my phone, I totally forget about time and spent more time on it than I expected. As a result, I have less time to do my other work which gives me a headache. At that moment, I get mad at myself why I use phone. In addition, When I do my homework, phone always distract me from studying and waste my time. For example, I get messages and notifications of videos. If I didn’t reply back, the people who messaged me get mad at me because they didn’t get immediate response.  At that time, I feel why phones are created because I cannot manage my time when I have my phone with me. I know that phones are not bad, they are made for to connect world but it just me who spent too much time on it. For managing my time, I have to limit my time so that I don’t messed up my time which is very important in today’s world.

Television is always the main source of my procrastination. If I’m watching a series on Netflix, I will watch multiple episodes and look at the time and notice how it just vanished. Watching Netflix all day definitely doesn’t make me feel good when I reflect back, but it’s addicting. Now I have many assignments to rush through and my day is gone. A lot of these sources of entertainment distract us from the real world and cause us to rely on our devices for entertainment instead of getting our entertainment through experiences. They even distract people with little self control from their responsibilities causing them to neglect their own lives. 

I don’t blame the devices themselves because we, the people produce the entertainment and encourage it. There isn’t enough emphasis on building up your own life. We see all of these celebrities on social media and tv screens and want to be like them but while you’re spending time admiring them, there’s homework left undone, a job you’re running late for and tasks you can’t complete anymore, because you spent too much time on your phone or tv this morning. It is important to know your limits and use them without forgetting about your own life and responsibilities.

One of all the devices that make us being distracted by the things we should be doing in everyday life is the smartphones. I believe, these devices have advantages and disadvantages in our lives. In today’s generation, smartphones are very addictive, especially for teens. Most people are spending a lot of time browsing the internet to have fun and for some reason, to make them relaxed. But somehow, it also makes us lazy. I am not going to lie, it happens to me as well, all the time. For instance, in the real world, we have planned to do our homework tomorrow, yet we are tempted to using our smartphones and realizing that the plan goes to nothing, that we wasted time. Smartphones can affect the appointments we have planned and suddenly turned into lying in bed with smartphones in our hands.

 On the other side, smartphones are pretty much useful, it can make things easier for us to perform and saves us time as well. We can navigate places we want to go even though we do not know how to. We can communicate with other people that are far in our place. Also, it is our source of entertainment when in doubt or when we are stressed. That is how a smartphone can affect our lifestyle.