A new era

Today in class we read "What, Me Care? Young are less Empathetic" which was published by Scientific America. The article discussed how newer generations are beginning to lose empathy due to the lack of being social, overuse of technology, and decrease in reading. Personally, I agree with much that was stated in this article as it does seem to be true that the younger generations are detatching themselves from the world, therefore losing their ability to show empathy. All I have to do is take a look around my school. Of course I'm not saying that the world is filled with cut-throat uncaring people. It just seems that this new era of technology is cutting people back from their ability to understand and show empathy for each other, which is one of humanity's first abilities.

I can agree with the author that the decrease in young adults reading literature has led to the downward scale of empathy, but I think the root of the problem began with technology. In this new technological era, the way humans were designed to interact, care, and show empathy for each other is being crushed. Of course there are some benefits to interacting with the wider world over the internet, as touched upon in the Stanford Daily. However it is often that this isn't the case. The increase of technology and social media has sent the world astray. No longer do people talk face to face and interact with each other as much as before. What seems even more far fetched is internet dating. What happened to meeting that special somebody without the help of a machine? This lack of empathy is growing so much that it can even be classified as some sort of disease.

Unfortunately the younger generation isn't headed towards a very good path either. It is now extremely common to see little kids playing with their parent's smart phone and already, at such a young age, they can work it better than many adults. Already attached to technology, kids will undoubtedly grow up to rely on technology. They will lose their ability to communicate comfortably when faced to speak to their co-workers or their boss in person. As the years pass by, a smaller amount of people are reading fiction. Scientific America revealed that people who read less fiction tend to be less empathetic. Bottom line is that people need to start tuning back in with the real world and perhaps put down that technology and actually be social the correct way. In other words, be more "human".