It’s my friend’s birthday. I see their Facebook wall smeared with “Happy Birthday,” posts while their twitter feed is chirping with more, “Happy Birthday,” tweets and the occasional photo. Wanting to be different I post on their wall the normal “Happy Birthday,” and ask what they plan on doing.
Nothing. They’re not doing a thing with their friends or family
A few good friends are in an argument and it’s becoming a vicious texting war.It’s harder to put emotion and feelings into words some of the phrases get misinterpreted and the conflict escalates. I ask one of them if they’ve talked about this in person.
Nope, they haven’t even tried.
A classmate died, tragically taken too soon. I see their social media feed flooded with heartfelt messages and photo’s flooded to try and celebrate his/her life and keep their memory alive.
A month later hardly anyone even mentions their name.
We pretend to care about each other online because it’s effortless and there’s an immediate reward. It’s easy to get 10 likes for your message about cancer awareness or 20 retweets from an article about how someone overcame their drug addiction. It makes us feel good inside to know that we made a difference in someone’s life and it only took 5 seconds to make someone smile or help share the knowledge we have about the world. It’s also easier to tell a loved one or friend how we really feel about something over a text or email. This way we don’t have to deal with their feelings and can go about our day without any emotional attachment or care towards whatever we just sent.
This has to stop. We are losing our empathy for one another while creating fake personas that we sell to the world. Yet, when it’s time to take action or have, “the talk” with someone, we don’t know what to do and become distraught with confusion and anxiety. Dealing with people shouldn’t be a problem in our lives. As the younger generations turn to phones and the Internet there becomes a gap in social skills toward each other. Sadly, this problem has grown to affect the older generations as they too become engrossed with their online lives.
This isn’t a simple fix because there are too many deep-rooted flaws in our societies and us as individuals to simply say “I’ll stop being fake,” or “Instead of doing _____ I’ll do ____.”
Everyone is different and we all have our own ways of socializing and caring. However, what we can at least do is hold each other accountable when we decide to hide behind our screens of sympathy and deal with our problems in person. Instead of saying “Happy Birthday,” to someone you barely know on social media, don’t say anything because chances are you don’t care about them and they don’t care about you. If it’s a good friend give them a phone call inviting them to a birthday lunch or a movie. If someone you hardly knew died and you have friends who were close to the individual, don’t light a candle or make a small memorial about the person and post it on Instagram. Try clearing your schedule to make sure your friends are okay and help them through the grieving. This applies to everything in life; a break-up, a fight, a wedding, sharing of emotions, protesting, sharing of ideas and ideals, even saying hello.
Do it in person, not online. People will start to notice and the connections that are made will be stronger and more real than anything that can be done behind a screen.
