The time for mac and cheese, cranberry sauce and the classic turkey, Thanksgiving is well known for the delightful evening meal. But the mouth-watering foods cause some people to forget the true meaning of this holiday.

The purpose of this holiday is to celebrate the people around us and give thanks to the people who have had an important impact on our lives. This meaning is often drowned out by other factors such as football and cell phones.

Technology is ruining traditions that have stood for centuries. Thanksgiving is meant to be a time for family members to meet up and connect. In order to do that, we must first disconnect.

Phones have become a part of our daily lives; we use them to talk to family members and friends that we may not see every day. However, on Thanksgiving we are usually surrounded by those who love us. So why do we still choose to look at our cellular devices.

How can we connect with those around us if we do not look at them? People constantly text and call people when there are already people around. Or people spend too much time taking pictures.

Technology replaces people having face-to-face interactions. If not the phones, then television causes disconnections considering a lot of families watch football on Thanksgiving.

Rather than sitting at the dinner table and enjoying a meal, people grab their food and plop on the couch switching on the TV. Televisions get in the way of people celebrating this holiday the way it should be celebrated.

The purpose of Thanksgiving is to show gratefulness for those around us, not to simply take a selfie and spend the next two hours picking out the perfect caption for an Instagram post.

The true meaning of Thanksgiving is to reflect upon sacrifice. For one day, we must sacrifice our phones and technology for a few hours to understand a real social interaction.

People must learn to be social rather than live life through social media.

Friends and family from all over the world come together for this one day to celebrate each other not to all sit in a group scrolling through Twitter.

This Thanksgiving – put your phone down.

Shut off the TV.

Look around. Be thankful for others.

Disconnect to truly connect.