This week, I want to touch on what technology has done to our society.

The advancements made over the last few years have greatly impacted how we interact with the people and situations surrounding us.

For the purposes of this column, I’m going to focus on cellphones.

New and improved cellphones have made it that we can totally avoid face-to-face conversations with people if we don’t feel like truly talking to anyone.

With different apps like Facebook Messenger, Instagram and even simpler options like having our email on our phones, has made it so much easier to avoid people.

Another major area of improvement is the cameras on these phones.
There are some phones out there now that have multiple camera lenses to give people the ability to capture video and photos like never before.

There is both a positive side and negative side to these new improvements.

The positive side is that with these enhancements, it is easier to make and keep memories readily available to look back on.

I myself have a few photos of my trip to Europe on my phone so I didn’t have to haul my big camera out and the quality isn’t far off from my big Canon camera.

I think everyone can appreciate when life gets made a little easier and technology is definitely playing a role in doing that.

However, there is also one big negative to this that I want to touch on.
With the upgrades to cameras in phones over the years, I’ve found people no longer immerse themselves in the moments anymore.

While on my trip through Europe, everywhere I went, I saw more people looking through a lens on their phones than just simply looking with their eyes.

I understand that capturing the moments a person has in a certain place is important but truly enjoying the time spent in that place should be more important than spending all their time trying to get the perfect photo or video.

There is nowhere this is more obvious than at sporting events around the world.

The most recent evidence of this would be at a Toronto Blue Jays baseball game last week.

The Blue Jays have one of the highest rated young players in the sport right now named Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

During his first ever at bat, cameras from around the stadium caught most people watching through there phones instead of just taking in the moment and fully enjoying it.

To me, this is one of the saddest sights in sports.

It shows that getting the most likes on their photo or video, or having that proof you were there is more important than just living the experience.

When I go to different live sports events, I take a couple photos before the game starts and then put my phone away until intermissions or half times because I want to be fully engaged in what I’m watching.

Let’s leave the video and photo taking to the media members who are paid to do it.

Let’s enjoy the games and experiences we paid to have.
Let’s put our phones down and enjoy life.