When I graduated from high school in the mid 1990s the internet was a brand-new concept. Now, thirty years later, we as a society could not fathom what our world would be like without it.

But is having all of this technology in the palms of our hands worth it, or is it causing more of a hinderance to the way we function as social beings?

The majority of APSU students are half my age or younger. They have most likely never known a world without cell phones and computers and all the amazing things that they are now capable of.

Just imagine where that technology will be in another thirty years from now, and that generation will wonder how we survived with our primitive equipment that we currently have.

There was a time when students had to actually go to the library and use what is called the Dewey Decimal System to locate a book or any reference and research materials for school projects or papers. Encyclopedias and other books containing specific information would have to be updated every other year or so just to keep the information relevant.

Now, all a person has to do is pull a phone out of their pocket and just type whatever they are looking for. Isn’t technology wonderful?

A person now holds more computing technology in their hand, than they had during the first Apollo mission to the moon. How did we become so advanced in such a short time, and at what cost?

It is great that we can have instant access to a vast universe of information, and a way to connect with friends and family from the past, but it seems that it is also disconnecting us on a personal level.

Many people will stop what they’re doing to answer a call or a text, while at work or in a classroom, as they feel it may be more important than what is currently happening around them.

People can be sitting in the same room or even at the dinner table together and not say a word to each other, because they have their faces buried in their phones. That personal connection between people appears to be vanishing.

I have seen people almost get hit by cars because they are so focused on their hand-held device and were completely oblivious to their surroundings.

This information age seems to be connecting us to so much knowledge but disconnecting us from human companionship.

Don’t get me wrong, it is great that we can learn so much and have this much access to endless information, but we need to learn to be able to reconnect with people again as well. There must be some kind of balance.