The Next Best Thing

Sometimes at school I feel like I'm literally the only person there that doesn't own an iPhone. I'm very grateful that my problems aren't worse than this, but it often feels like I'm left out. I'm not trying to complain about lacking an iPhone or iPod Touch and in no way am I angry or trying to bash those who have these products. I'm simply observing what I tend to see at school. And I understand that, of course, not everyone has one of these Apple products and my intention in writing this is not to accuse my fellow peers of being spoiled or anything like that. However, being one who doesn't own an iPhone, I noticed, particularly among my group of friends last year, that life often circled around a technological device. For instance, one time during lunch we all arrived at our usual "hang out spot" and everyone took out their iPod touches or iPhones right away. All at one time there was a YouTube video being played out loud, multiple Words with Friends games going on, and everyone's heads were tilted downward at their individual screens. Without one of these Apple products or a similar Smartphone, I was somewhat left out of it all in a sense.

I'm not trying to feel sorry for myself, but instead just trying to understand everyone's desire of getting the next best thing. I'm guilty of it too and that's because I, along with everyone else I know is American. It seems as though it could be an American value to go out of one's way to just get the new thing. We seem to really value getting what we want now. A camp counselor of mine a few years ago told us a story of how when he was in Africa, he was originally confused by how it took hours to simply get a hamburger because the way people view time there is different from us.

Along with doing things faster, however, we also just like to get the new big thing, whether it be a Scooter when we were seven or an iPad 2 for our birthdays coming up. On one hand I feel that we need to be able to live our busy lives in an organized way, and getting things done quickly is a good methodology. On the other hand though, actually going places and meeting people face-to-face can be important in my mind as well. Doing things non-virtually feels a bit more substantial to me sometimes. For example, why would someone text a person back and forth for a really long time when they could instead arrange to meet and have an actual conversation in person. This is how it was done before the age of technology, during a time that some speculate the people were happier. According to an article titled “10 Reasons Why Our Ancestors Were Healthier Than Us” from healthcave.com, “The distractions we have coming at us all the time aren’t helping us live a calmer life. Gadgets contribute to stress and fatigue…” So, perhaps it is better to take a break from our handheld lives stop stressing ourselves out over getting the next best thing. But maybe we should still keep up with what everyone else is doing so we don’t get left in the lurch and instead be social in that regard.