In today’s day and age, it’s hard to meet people. Everyone is always so caught up in themselves that we too often shut out chances to meet other people. With relationships or friends, we often stay within our comfort zone and immediately retreat the second we feel a hint of discomfort. The truth is it’s hard to go beyond your immediate world and group of friends. I know that I do that sometimes.
We’re too scared that people will judge us or think we’re stupid that we miss out on chances to expand our outlooks and meet new people. If there is anything that has truly suffered from the younger generations abilities to interact with others, it’s relationships. I don’t know about you but I have definitely struggled trying to meet people and actually maintaining relationships pasts an initial introduction.
You walk to class and people are either looking down constantly or have headphones in their ears. You go to class and everyone sits with their friends and doesn’t interact with anyone else unless your professor forces you against your will to speak to people you don’t know. You go out to get food or to the store and the only people who actually talk to strangers are the employees. Now granted I am at fault for doing all of these things too. I know that I stick with myself when I’m alone or am attached to my friends when in a group. But the fact of the matter is this has become the social norm.
When we hang out with each other, we spend half the time scrolling through our Instagram feed or trying to take the perfect selfie with the perfect lighting. We forget about forming true and real connections with the people around us. And it only seems to be getting worse.
When you look back and think about your fondest memories, it's the days when you stayed up all night talking about random things with your best friend. It's the spontaneous trips you took with your friends. It's the times you laughed until you cried with your loved ones. It's not the countless hours you spent sitting behind a tiny screen on social media.
Social media and technology is both a blessing and a curse. One one side it does help people interact with each other in certain ways. In others, it prevents us from just having genuine conversations. We can't even go to dinner without sitting on our phones instead of actually speaking to each other.
I know that putting my phone down and focusing on relationships instead of my phone and the image I'm putting out on social media is something that I need to work on. Something that we all need to work on. I want to remember these times for the people I'm with, not the pictures I'm posting.
