The Art of Complaining

As soon as I read this assignment, I immediately remembered a segment from the show Family Guy. The main character in the show, Peter Griffin, was a news commentator on a feature called "grinds my gears," where he complained about various topics. I thought it was pretty funny because the act of complaining is very relatable, and it is pretty easy to do. Like in the show Seinfeld, there will be something in the world to grind one's gears on an average day.

As I said, complaining is easy to do, so I had no issues coming up with ideas for this blog assignment; however, narrowing down something happening around me took time. I went from external to internal problems, mental health, racial issues, and finally to technological problems within society. One of the biggest problems I have is with the increased phone use in everyday life. The dependency people have on their phones is unbelievable. Social gatherings consist of everyone sitting on their respective phones on the couch, looking up now and again to communicate. If you want to get to know someone new, it is now done exclusively through Snapchat or text; human contact has been dramatically reduced. The picture I included in today's submission was a candid photo taken of my roommates while watching a movie. It is a perfect depiction of my complaint; they were on their phones, absolutely removed/detached from what was happening around them. Another instance of this happened yesterday afternoon on the quad, a group of my friends went to play spike ball, and after about twenty minutes, everyone was sitting on their phones. I had left mine at home under the assumption we would be active, so I just sat quietly enjoying the weather.

I grew up with limited access to my phone due to my parents putting particular restrictions on my technology access. I was told to spend my time outside interacting with my friends and playing sports. I'd instead go on a walk then spend an hour on TikTok (an application I still have not downloaded). I decided to speak to my roommate's girlfriend about my complaint, she is an avid social media/phone user, and she disagreed wholeheartedly. Her argument was the increased phone use was a consequence of increased connectivity. My rebuttal was that the connectivity when you face people has dramatically changed due to everyone being buried on their devices. I followed that claim up with my lack of knowledge in relevant TikTok dances being the only negative consequence of my actions. I could have her see my side of the coin; however, the reduction of phone use is a complaint I do not see solved very quickly.

In contrast, I also spoke to some of my parent's friends at a family gathering earlier this week and found them to agree with my position wholeheartedly. Their argument was similar to mine regarding their kids, who are always on their phones, who are a part of my age demographic. They had tried to restrict screen time during their adolescent years, but now they can't try to deter that type of behavior.

I began to think of how to depict my complaint in a way to capture people's attention. My phone is shattered, and the average person nowadays can't imagine a life without their phone. I also loved watching the show Punk'd and believed the best course of action would be to play a prank to get the attention of those closest to me. However, switching out phones and convincing them it broke is a lot harder than you may think, and I am not a talented actor. I then remembered an application I used before COVID called Pocket Points which incentivized students to keep their phones locked. After collecting a certain amount of points, tangible rewards such as gift cards could be redeemed. If the large technology companies created internal trackers users to track their screen time, there was an incentive to reduce your time more people would actively try. Although, the innovations and advancements in mobile and web application development seem to propagate the notion of increasing screen time.

To quote Peter Griffin, "Let me tell you what grinds my gears...". In conclusion, the complaint presented today deals with the tremendous use of screen time with those around me, more specifically for those in my peer group. There is a lack of human contact in today's society because everyone is more interested in what is happening on their smartphone. FOMO (fear of missing out) is now widely known because people instead be living the life they see others having then actually lived their own. It's unfortunate because it is harder to find people that want to spend quality time together and enjoy the world around them. I hope some solutions develop soon to address this concern.