Are you addicted to screens?  Constantly checking your phone and always on it when hanging out with your friends? Then you are like 99 percent of our modern society. Addiction to tablets, ipads and television is something that is really becoming a problem.

     Generation by generation, video games and technology have become more and more common, and so have addictions to these gadgets. Because of this problem that is creating isolation our group has started a cause called See the World Through Your Own Eyes. This is our effort to try and get our younger generation outside more as well as support healthy social interaction.

      Screen addiction among teens has never been more prevalent than it is today, and while little bits of TV, texting, and video games are OK, there is a large number of teens and other young adults who spend a dangerously large amount of time playing video games or looking at screens.

         Catharine Paddock, of Medical News Today published an article stating, “Video game addiction is a global phenomenon and appears to lead to poorer grades in school and serious psychological problems, including depression, anxiety, and social phobia.” ( Paddock).

        Addiction to video games, while rare in some crowds, is actually very serious for high school students around the world. An article by David Bickham focuses on a different aspects of this, stating, ¨The more time that children spend viewing violent programs, the less time they spend with their friends.¨( Jamanetwork.com).

        This research was conducted from a study of 3562 young adults, some who suffered from social isolation and some who do not. Their results suggest that the most harmful programs for children to view are those that contain lots of violence. To summarize, video games and television, especially violent programs, are huge contributors to the rise in social isolation in our modern society.

          While watching TV and playing video games in large quantities are big problems, there is a completely different monster to tackle, and that is the modern day cell phone. These cell phones, while extremely useful and innovative, are causing a huge addiction problem in teens, to be more specific, the addiction and amount of time spent on social media. An article written by Katherine Hobson says, ¨It turns out that people who reported spending the most time on social media – more than two hours a day- had twice the odds of perceived social isolation than those who said they spent a half hour a day.¨ (npr.org).

To help prevent the copious amount of time used on screens you can refer to our Instagram account @ourowneyes. We talk about ways to improve your well-being and keep you informed on the effects of social media and being stuck on your phone. Along with our Instagram, we are designing a logo for our cause and creating stickers to pass out and spread the word to raise awareness for our project. This English project has been an amazing experience for us and our group hopes to continue our efforts to make a change even after the class ends.