How many times have you posted something you thought was completely interesting, funny, or newsworthy on social media, just to have it receive less than five likes? The sad thing about this is you have x number of followers or friends, and only five of them even acknowledged your post. You may feel a bit down, but it’s not your fault. The problem is the normalization of instant communication.

With technology, we now have the ability to communicate with people around the world instantly. We can reach people in remote areas and we can connect and see what’s going on around the world from the point of view of ordinary people. But this technological achievement has done more harm than good. Allow me to explain.

First and foremost, social media and the proliferation of cell phones around the world have made instant gratification the norm, and patience a thing of the past. No longer do we wait anxiously for a letter in the mail from a loved one. No longer do we wait eagerly for phone calls. We can FaceTime, Skype, Oovoo, Facebook, Snapchat, and WhatsApp each other at any given moment. The only thing holding us back is our signal strength or access to wifi. The main issue is that while these tools were made to help us get closer to those we love, it has done the complete opposite.

If you’re browsing through your Facebook feed and you’re constantly seeing posts from relatives and friends, chances are you’re able to keep up with what goes on in their lives without ever having to physically speak to them. You can just scroll through their page and know what they’ve been up to. This behavior becomes normalized, and while many will still claim to prefer person-to-person contact, it’s just way easier to get on Facebook. And who could blame you? Why would you want to sit through a long, boring conversation with someone when you could just look up their profile and see if they’ve done anything interesting lately? There is no surprise, and no desire to know about other’s lives.

We have created a generation of people who will never know what it’s like to not hear from someone they love for a long time. They’ll never know the despair and frustration of using calling cards and trying to make sure you enter the numbers fast so that your minutes aren’t eaten up. They will never know the sense of anticipation that comes from waiting from a physical letter in the mail. They will never know the frustration of fighting for the house phone to talk to a crush while simultaneously making sure no one picked up another receiver in the house to listen in on the conversation.

We have also created a generation that believes that life doesn’t happen unless you record it. Concerts, parades, events, shows, parties, even your food, are all “memorable” moments that you feel you need to record. People forget that life is a noun. To do life, you have to live life. But you can’t be living life if you’re experiencing it through a lens. People forget that the best cameras are their minds. Sure a video will capture exactly what happened, but it can’t encapsulate the entire experience. Memories will include the smells in the air, the invisible energy that excited the crowd, the excitement or fear you were feeling, or the sheer amazement of seeing something new for the first time. By always recording life, you don’t truly enjoy it, and then you spend even more time rewatching the same events that you could’ve remembered better had you been actually experiencing it.

This ties in with my last point: technology, both physical and digital, has made society extremely impersonal. Think of breakups: you’re already thinking about text or e-mail breakups. Think of dates: you’re imagining people asking each other out over text. Think of apologies: you may be conjuring up a list of sad emojis. But what if instead of all that, people would meet face to face? What if a couple on the verge of breaking up met face to face? Perhaps they didn’t stay together, but physically seeing their partner would certainly solidify and facilitate a decision. Asking out someone you like over text is now acceptable, but it takes away from the butterflies you would get when you walked up to your crush and asked them out. And apologies: most would agree that you have to see someone to even get an idea about how sincere they’re being.

I hope you don’t misunderstand me. I think technology is great. But it just seems that the ability to be connected with so many people hinders us from actually making genuine and solid connections. Texting someone you like will never replace talking on the phone. You can hear nervousness, laughter, sensuality, and sadness over the phone. And that will never replace seeing someone in person. Being able to observe a person’s body language, to feel the heat of their body, to smell their scent, to see how the sunlight dances on their face, nothing will ever compare.

Technology just seems to have made people content with not really being physically present. And by doing so, technology has made us content with our self-inflicted isolation. We believe that what we’re doing is completely normal since everyone else does it, but it will never be enough to truly fulfill us. Replying to a sad Facebook post with words of support or emojis will never have the same effect as a hug. While the examples are endless, there is only one message: put down the phone and just live. See the world through the lenses that you were born with. Squint to autofocus. Write poems that make souls dance and love. Cherish the heat of a loved one’s embrace. Map the peaks and valleys of your partner’s face. Enjoy life without a damn filter. I promise you, it looks better without one.