Accepting the Ever-Changing World

The world is rapidly changing, with technology, people, and culture evolving every day. Although we may not be able to recognize it, the world today is extremely different from what it was like when we were born, when our parents were born, when our grandparents were born. While you may not feel the change, at one point, it will come to a point where the current customs may seem unfamiliar to you. Especially with ever-developing technology, this phenomenon is unavoidable.

The teachers in Seoul Foreign School have experienced this first-hand. Mr. Neil Henderson, one of our design teachers, described several aspects of modern culture that he regards as generally hard to accept.

The concept of mobile phones is something that Mr. Henderson “knows how they work and why we use them”, however, he believes they take away the value of face-to-face communication and agreements. For example, before smartphones and the Internet were a thing, to make plans with friends you’d just simply tell them a place and time, and you fulfilled those promises by actually arriving there on time. On the other hand, nowadays, the value of agreements has significantly decreased, especially with the existence of instant communication through texting.

Furthermore, Mr. Henderson described that younger people find it more difficult to leave their smartphones someplace else than does the older generation. Many adults lived through the development of smartphones, so they feel less of an obligation to carry their phones around everywhere. Meanwhile, phones have become such a staple for younger people that it’s almost impossible to do anything without them.

Mr. Henderson described how it’s quite ironic for a design teacher like him to not accept things that came with the rise of the digital age. Whether it be social media influencers, hanging out with friends solely online, or the importance of smartphones, the small things that seem so normal to us are much harder to accept for adults that grew up in a much different culture.

Everything Mr. Henderson discussed is extremely interesting to think about. What seemed so normal to us can seem so irregular to people that weren’t born into such a culture. On a specific note, it is important that we make efforts to detach ourselves from electronics and appreciate the natural, physical world. Like Mr. Henderson said, sometimes being away from the staple in our lives that is technology can be good for us.