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By Scott Mims | Community Columnist

One trend I keep seeing in popular videos and articles is that most people seem to think that the times before the Internet, smartphones and social media were better than present day.

Whether we’re blinded by a sense of nostalgia or just longing for a simpler time, I don’t know if the argument that the world is better off without modern technology always holds up. I certainly think it does in some instances, but I believe most people would be reluctant to give up their modern conveniences.

Prior to 2020, my life was relatively low tech. I was still holding onto my flip phone, I only had one social media account that I seldom used, and I considered myself better off for it. Then, all of a sudden, I couldn’t keep a flip phone that worked, and in 2019 I ventured back into journalism. Considering that a big part of my job was social media and web publishing, I switched to a smartphone and I had to get multiple social media accounts just to be able to do my job properly.

Now, I’m not saying that I was computer illiterate before—I had used computers and various forms of software in high school, college and in my career. But when I graduated from the University of Montevallo in 2004, social media sites like Facebook were only beginning to grow in popularity. And, the iPhone was not invented until three years later. There’s nothing like technology to make you feel old!

Those of us who grew up in the decades prior to the 2000s knew a world with corded phones, stationary computers (if we had them at all) and face-to-face conversations. Instead of spending an evening scrolling Facebook, my grandparents sat outside on the patio on summer evenings when we would talk, eat watermelons or peaches, and listen to the frog chorus from the nearby pond. Us kids would wander the neighborhood until the sun went down.

Contrast that image with today’s typical family sitting around while each person has their individual phone, and face-to-face interaction seems like a thing of the past. All this while we engage in arguments with people we’ve never met and try to change their minds while getting stressed out for no reason. Me? No thank you. I do not choose to use social media to air my political beliefs or pursue pointless arguments.

I do use Facebook and Instagram to share my family’s experiences in the outdoors, which I think is a good use of these tools. And social media is also part of my freelance career. But you have to know when to stop scrolling—and therein lies the problem. Most people are too addicted to their phones to ever put them down.

When it comes to technology, I believe a healthy dose of perspective is in order.