It is hard to go anywhere these days where people aren’t fixated on their little screens of light. Ignoring the world around them, they’re absorbed in the false reality that they hold in their hands.

Cellphones can close people off to the world, but they can also connect to the vast world around them. They provide instant communication and a world at our fingertips.

However, a study led by communications studies professors Scott Campbell and Nojin Kwak suggested, “Frequent cellphone users would be less likely to talk with strangers in public settings due to what Campbell calls the “tele-cocooning” effect, or the tendency of cellphones to reduce interpersonal interactions.”

So what does this mean? Is technology helping or hindering us? 

“The technology itself is not good or bad … it is how it’s used and who it’s used with,” Campbell says. 

Our younger generations are becoming more immersed in technology every day. For example, my cousins, ages five and seven, know how to navigate the web better than I do.

And today’s youth, who now have smartphones as early as five years of age, are becoming more interested in one another’s Facebook pages than they are in spending time on the playground being a kid.

Should we be concerned? Are our kids being deprived of their childhood, or enlightened in a way we were not? With the internet and its almost limitless content, they now have more access to the web than previous generations.

According to the 2010 study, “Generation M²:  Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds,” conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, “Children and teens between ages eight and 18 spend an average of seven hours and 38 minutes daily playing video games, going online and watching TV, and most have no household rules governing how much time they’re allowed to spend doing these things.”

Furthermore, “Studies over the past decade have concluded that a large number of adolescents and teens today are having difficulty identifying emotions in people, thus creating an inability to feel empathy toward others who may be feeling pain, sorrow, anger and other emotions,” according to an article titled “Children and Technology – Should You Be Concerned.”

To me, this is the most concerning issue regarding children and technology. Children are digital natives and it only makes sense that being exposed to so much “screen time” is affecting their brain development and social abilities.

In a video clip titled, “Digital Devices and Children,” Jim Steyer, co-founder of Next Generation emphasizes, “One thing that I think parents really need to think about in this is their own behavior. So, if you’re constantly getting messages on your iPhone or your computer … you’re not modeling behavior for your children.”  

Fixing this is as simple as taking them outside, reading to them and encouraging them to explore nature. 

The world is ever-changing, which means we as people need to learn how to change with it. Technology has undoubtedly infiltrated our lives in positive ways such as staying connected with loved ones, and being able to expand and share our knowledge easier than ever before.

But while this may be true, hidden dangers lurk within, and it is our responsibility to protect the innocence of our children from these dangers and learn to adapt and use the gift of technology as just that: a gift. 

Dinner tables should be full of conversation and laughter, not silent faces buried in glowing light. Stop and be in the moment with the people in it, for every moment is a fleeting one. Look up, be present. You could be missing out on something amazing.