In this age of constant connectedness, I can call, text, email, Snapchat or send a Facebook message to any one of a couple hundred people at any time. And I have relatively few contacts and Snapchat and Facebook friends in comparison to my peers, and that’s not including other forums of social media, such as Instagram and Twitter.
This technology has so many positive effects in my life. I can keep in touch with friends I met at summer camp who live in other states and countries. I can talk to or use Skype to see my cousins and stay close to them, despite living 800 miles away from each other and visiting in person only a couple of times per year. I know where my friends in California are going to college and where their senior prom was held this year and Facebook kindly informs me of birthdays I might not remember otherwise. These forms of communication clearly benefit cell phone and social media users in many diverse ways. But, where does the constant online connection begin to hinder personal interactions?
Constant connection with other people via technology makes it so easy to get caught up in a digital world of misrepresentations. With social media, only the extremes of times are posted and commented on. People broadcast their funniest moments, most embarrassing pictures of their friends, the grossest thing they saw today, the most delicious piece of food, the pictures of themselves that are the most attractive. Realities are almost always more tame and commonplace than social media depicts.
The connections can become diluted in this way, too, as personas are distorted via social media and others respond accordingly. It’s too easy to comment on photos and posts, to leave exaggerations or interact with people on social media and never see them outside the digital world. In the end, I think most people are guilty of this, myself included. It’s a slippery slope, and it's one that begins naturally as middle school years often bring cell phones or accounts on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
Cell phones and social media aren’t going away, nor should they. They enable productivity and facilitate long-distance connections, but there are other ways to combat the general descent into meaninglessness brought by their growing prevalence in our lives. Actively trying to unplug for periods of time, or when in the company of friends and family, makes these times infinitely more meaningful and special. As these technologies continue to spread, so does our susceptibility to the superficiality they promote. A step back from the digital world lends itself similarly to strengthening personal connections and getting back in touch with reality, and it is worth hours of time spent seemingly connected via cell phones and social media.
