“If I had to tell you, what invention I don’t like I would say that I don’t like the phone,” wrote a second grader in Louisiana in response to a school writing prompt. “I don’t like the phone because my panert are on their phone every day. A phone is sometimes a really bad habet. I hate my mom’s phone and I wish she never had one. That is a invention that I don’t like.”
Elementary school teacher Jen Beason, who assigned the writing prompt, posted a photo of the student’s letter to Facebook, where it was shared more than 250,000 times. According to Beason, four different students wrote about this topic.
It’s easy to see where the kids are coming from. Maybe it wasn’t a checked out parent, but there’s a good chance you’ve tried to have an earnest conversation with someone only to find their face glued to a tiny screen. Personally, I have a friend who has mastered the art of staring me straight in the face while still flawlessly responding to messages on his phone, and the result is still deeply unsettling.
Clearly, there are plenty of attention-starved kids who would be happy to see their parents’ phones disappeared in a rapture-like event, but we all have at least one new thing we think humanity was better off without. While I know wireless internet isn’t inherently evil, for instance, I blame underground wifi for taking away the thirty minutes of blissful ignorance I used to look forward to when taking the subway to work.
What invention do you hate? What emotionless immaterial thing do you project your deepest fears and insecurities onto? Sound off in the comments!