And he didn’t move. He kept staring down, completely lost in his own world. The pedestrian crossing signal had changed to indicate that it was safe to cross the road. And yet he didn’t notice. Why? Because he was too busy staring down at Facebook on his phone. This small observation left me pondering the direction in which our society is heading, and it is almost disappointing to think about.
We have all become so consumed with technology and our public appearance that we have started to lose sight of what is really important. We collect “friends” on Facebook, obsessively check for “likes” on Instagram, and try harder than we’d like to admit to gain followers on Twitter and Tumblr. Do all these numbers even mean anything? Sure, you might be popular and that will undeniably help at some point with an election process or a job interview. But what is more interesting to note is that this obsession has detracted from the overall quality of our lives.
I started watching the Netflix original, Black Mirror (totally recommend it by the way; it’s AMAZING) for my writing class. The first episode of Season 3, "Nosedive," is about a society in which people rate their interactions with one another and the higher their rating, the higher their social media score. This forces everyone to be overly polite to each other, even if they really don’t want to be. The episode raises the question: how meaningful are our daily interactions? We can exchange pleasantries and always be surrounded by other people, but that doesn’t reflect how many of those people we are actually close with and understand on a deeper level. It’s possible to feel lonely in a large group of people. And even when we’re with this large group of people, we are always checking our phones to talk to the few people who aren’t there.
Since coming to college, I’ve noticed something quite disheartening; I have a lot of people to say hi to in my residence hall, on the way to class, or at club events. This doesn’t translate into me having a lot of friends. I may have multiple groups of people to study with, to eat with, or to party with, but it is not the same as having one solid group of friends who knows me as well as I know myself. It may have only been a little over two months of school so far, but it’s still hard not to notice other people finding their college best friends and realizing that you may not have yours yet.
In high school, those friendships were formed over time and not strengthened entirely over the internet. They involved staying up late to finish projects, talking on the ride home from a race, stressing over a club advisor, and a multitude of other experiences which involved the simple yet beautiful communication between two individuals. And like that, two friends formed one wonderful friendship.
It doesn’t matter how many friends you have or how busy you are hanging out with different people, but rather the depth of those interpersonal relationships. It is wonderful to have multiple people you can call friends and that you can trust, and it is also perfectly fine to have just one friend you trust with your life. What shouldn’t happen, is that we get caught up in trying to expand our friend circle to add to the collection of different faces on our Instagrams and Snapchats. We need to take a step back from the technology and social media once in awhile to appreciate the genuine joy which meaningful relationships – sans social media – with others can bring.
