Reconnect!

I was watching a commercial on television this evening. It said: "Travel! Reconnect with your family!"
Some anger welled up within me. I responded: "why are we disconnected in the first place?"

That's a simple question with no easy answer.

I had a pretty interactive family growing up. It seemed that as times got harder we could spend less and less time with each other. We were all just so busy trying to survive.

A good portion of people claim that cellphones are the cause of the family becoming distant and people becoming so anti-social. I didn't get a cellphone until I was an adult, and for me, it actually increased my social capabilities. I remember an age with little use of cellphones when I was a teenager, and we all mostly didn't talk to one another unless we knew each other. We sat in awkward silence, avoiding eye contact while reading a book or something. When around friends, we certainly had plenty of moments where we did our own thing and just enjoyed the presence of one another in silence, so that picture of teens just playing on their phones around each other? Perfectly normal looking to me! Before it was "the cellphone's fault", mind you, it was "all television's fault" or "beware of video games". There was even a time when people warned of the phone call disrupting proper social etiquette.

So, at a time when social media and cellphones connect us more than ever, why has the family drifted apart? Is it really technology's fault we've lost touch with one another? Or is it a generation or two of overworked and underpaid parents having little time for their children?

The loss of the middle class family has a much larger impact than some may realize.