Have you ever found yourself having two conversations at once; one in reality and one in virtual reality? I have. These days it almost seems as if getting a cell phone is a right of passage instead of a privilege. If you have ever looked around the hall during passing period you will notice that most of your schoolmates are holding cell phones, exchanging information about how your Biology teacher assigned a four page paper on photosynthesis or how your math teacher had trouble attempting to explain slope-intercept form. Similarly, whenever you walk into your English class you always find your classmates staring at the screen in the front of the classroom attempting to understand the lesson that is being projected on the screen. Unfortunately, most of the time you will witness your classmates heads down staring at the lit up screen and their fingers moving fifty miles an hour trying to finish off the text they need so badly to send to their best friend before they arrive at their next class. Devices such as cell phones and computers have caused teenagers to become too reliant upon technology.

One of the first lessons we learn in junior high and high school is to write our homework and any other information in our planners. My high school is lucky enough to have a student site in which students can access all the information our teachers choose to provide for us. Blackboard, as we like to call it, is very helpful when it comes to forgetting your homework or
checking your grade. Unfortunately, Blackboard has its glitches. The site has a tendency to crash and lose connection frequently; this means that students have no access to the site. Because the site has crashed students believe that they have no way to complete their homework assignments. The next day at school you begin to hear the most common and unintelligent excuse used over and over again. “ I wasn’t able to access Blackboard last night.” Yes, I admit I have used this excuse once or twice. However, we as a society have become so used to instant gratification and having everything at our fingertips that the fact that Blackboard was not working becomes an instant excuse. What we don’t realize is that we have many other sources that we can gather the same information that Blackboard holds for the student. For example: Our planners; schools provide us with these for a reason. We are all capable of writing our assignments down instead relying on the internet to do it for us. Most teachers assign long-term assignments that require research. The first thing that pops into most teenagers heads when they hear the word “research” is internet. Unfortunately, the internet seems to be down, but, what other option do we have? Books! The “old fashioned” research. Again, because we are so used to immediate fulfillment and because the internet has become very common and very simple to use we are starting to know less about our surroundings.
As we begin to recognize less about our environment we begin to communicate less as well. Did you know that about seventy one percent of teenagers owned a phone in the year 2008 and that teenagers between the ages of thirteen and seventeen send about 1,742 texts a month. That is 1,742 times in which they could have started a conversation with their friend instead of texting them. Because of texting, most teenagers find talking to someone on the phone to be very uncomfortable. Texting and emailing allows many messages to be sent, it allows the same message to be sent to more than one person and allows
you to type as much or as little as you would like. This makes asking people important questions quick and simple and you no longer have to remember the question until you see them. Now, because we have two new forms of communication we no longer have personal face to face conversations. But, have you noticed that when you talk to people directly they give you more information and more of a straight answer to whatever you're talking to them about. Teenager’s reliance over technology has further reduced their abilities to communicate effectively to one another.
In conclusion, teenagers reliance upon technology have caused them to become very one minded towards society. Teens can be very demanding and expect everything to be simple. These modes of communication have severely condensed teenagers abilities to talk to each other. If we do not want each of these things to become worse we need to take action on reducing the amount of time teenagers spend using technology. By doing so we as a community can better equip ourselves to have more intimate and meaningful relationships with one another. We will have the ability to carry on conversations and build and maintain true friendships rather than virtual relationships with little to no meaning behind them.