By Farah Radzuan
Technology is designed to make our life easier, to help us in dealing with so many things in our daily life. As you can see many machines have been invented to help us work efficiently. By one touch, you can make a purchase, pay your bills, bridge the gap with family members and friends. However, as we can see, we live in a world where people value their “virtual life” more, compared to their own “real life”.
People nowadays spend most of their time with their smartphones and social media. They choose to connect with strangers in their social media account rather than talking to the person who is sitting next to them in public transport. Yes, I agree that sometimes we just want to get connected with our family members who live far away from us, perhaps we have found our long lost friend. But do you ever think about the person next to you who is near to you where you can have face-to-face interactions? Without you realising it, technology has been misused and we let our time being wasted with our smartphones and social network.
We always forget that technology also has the button for us to turn off. The people who know how to treasure their time will notice about it and when it can be used. By unplugging our smartphones, tablets, laptops we can enjoy our moments with our family during the weekend. The kids will learn how to socialise and play with their friends, talking to their parents and siblings. They will enjoy their “kids world” that they deserve to get.
It is a normal thing when people on vacation exploring new things, they will take selfies to make memories. In previous days, we use digital camera to capture, but now people use their smartphones to record everything. The problem is that they are not just recording but they start to share their moments on social media such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, eventually they have to deal with notification that popped-up because someone has made a comment on their photo. By viewing the nature, we can also  release our stress. So, they miss enjoying the view and moments because of the distractions that have  occurred.
Next, without all of us realising social media is also stealing our precious time and has turned our day to become unproductive. Have you ever experienced, when you saw a video on Facebook and you watched it but ended up with you keep scrolling down and watching another video? You already spent an hour or even more over there.
You become addicted with your social media account from day to day, and you think that social media is more interesting than your own real life. Sometimes by powering down your social media, you can reduce your addiction towards it and you can control yourself.
Without social media, you can make your day more productive, you can help your mom cooking in the kitchen, you can make a revision for the upcoming test if you are still studying. You also don’t have to bother who like your posts on Instagram, favourite your tweets on twitter, comment on your photos on Facebook.
It will be so hard and you need to struggle to control yourself in the beginning. You may start to power down for one period of time each day first, such as when you are having your lunch, dinner and family time. I am not suggesting you to throw away your smartphones or delete all of your social media accounts, but you have to try to keep it balanced by disconnecting those accounts once in a while.
Trust me, you will be surprised how productive your life can be. Good luck!***