It seems in the not too far off future we will look back on this time and equate it to a fundamental shift in how we consume information. Right now is the time in which traditional news agencies are falling; most people get their news from social media on their mobile device. We have these devices on our person at nearly all times, meaning we have access to, and thus consume, news and information constantly. It has changed how we live our lives. Now, information rarely comes from credible sources, links and titles are crafted only to acquire ad revenue, figures and statistics are not vetted before being disseminated, and the difference between fact and opinion is no longer recognized or cared about. Our critical thinking skills are eroding. Our technology and its power to spread information is changing our society in ways we don’t understand.

It can be a bleak picture. But we still have a choice. We can still impact how the future will unfold for our children. I’ve been less vigilant recently, and I can already feel the old trained habits coming back: I pick up my phone more often, I keep it in my pocket when walking from room to room instead of leaving it in one spot, I check it more frequently at lunch and before bed. I think it’s important for our health to put in safeguards on our technology usage. As the weekend arrives I will return to my personal practice of refraining from using my phone in the hour after waking up and the hour before bed. I encourage others to do the same, at a minimum.

We have serious problems to solve in our society and we have the ability to figure them out and solve them, but it will require everything we’ve got. It will require all our energy and focus, all of our bandwidth. We don’t have stores of it to spare on mindless media consumption. In order to change the world, we need to be present and empathetic and focused. In the not too far off future, we will have conquered our pathological dependency on technology, and we will have realized how close we were to the brink.