A Real Concern

I have some serious thoughts to share. These thoughts are about human connection. The social connection. Something that has been deeply intrinsic and necessary towards our own nature and existence.

Haven’t we become more comfortable behind the screens than in front of faces and live physical presence? Do you feel we are becoming dependent and to an extent subconsciously controlled by social apps and media? I have found myself checking WhatsApp again and again every few minutes for absolutely no sensible reason; even when I’m doing some important work. Isn’t it limiting? Do these apps actually make us more capable to tackle with human connections? Or do they somewhere cripple our daily lives?

Imagine a world where the sci-fi stuff about the end of the world and planet Earth shown by the Hollywood comes true? We might not have the epic special effects but let’s just say we do face an end. An ultimate end; where you, the reader, as an individual, was absolutely alone with your cell phone in your bedroom or washroom or classroom or office room minutes before the beginning of the end.

And you are still alone seconds after the beginning of the end began. You did not realize what hit the world, or you.

Or your friends. or your family members.

And you still haven’t begun doubting if one of those stereotypical Hollywood movies portraying mass destruction has actually come true.

What would you do?

Would you turn to your collection of iphones, ipads and Macbooks to save yourself and find meaning in those clueless moments of your life? The google playstore may be? Some new downloadable app?

Or would you rather have mental and visual flashes of your loved ones? Would you wish you were with any or all of them during those last moments of the world?

 

 

We are living in an age where we don’t question our mindsets and mind-frames anymore because everything in the society and the world around us has been made to seem too organized, formalized and systematized. There is hardly any natural element left in our modern-day lives, apart from the fact, that most of us are mentally tired and depressed at a very very young age already. We don’t question our belief systems and value systems anymore. We don’t question the causes behind the effects because we are obsessed with the effects. We want results. Not the journey. Fame? Money? Not the hard work. Not the knowledge.

One of the things that affects me, is that it’s becoming harder to get people and friends realize this. Everybody is so stuck and caught up in their own routines, that they don’t realize, that the only way to find connection is to get beyond cell phones and Facebook. Beyond. Not without them.

The issue that bugs me is that the society around me has become somewhat helpless. It knows it is doing unproductive and meaningless stuff at times and yet it has gone into some kind of an acceptance of the present times.

We have become much more complacent using the social media that we have been using these days, than what we would have probably become not using them as much as we do.

 

Why are we always checking our phones? In different instances, I have noticed people on the streets checking their phones every now and then as if suddenly something important showed up on the screens and they had to check it. But they did that just because much like everyone else, they have become dependent on the reflexive habit of checking the phone for some or the other notification every now and then. I have done similar stupid things too. But I’m glad I observe myself and my behaviour.

 

I am realizing that most of it is so meaningless. There is definitely more substance to a real meet than just texts.

 

I have not been able to work out little meet-up plans with many of my friends several times, but I still believe we need to walk down the road and just see each other more often. We don’t necessarily have to sit in a restaurant or find a bar or a cafe to make the meeting more ‘normal’ in social terms. Just sit on the staircase and chat. Take a walk without any predetermined destination and just talk. Contemplate.

We better start facing faces more often that just screens and pixels.

We better start hearing the lyrics once again than just mindlessly raise our hands up in the air in front of some huge celebrity DJ concert’s stage amidst a lost crowd which is doing the same mindless shit all the time believing that it’s the coolest thing in the world to attend over-the-top celebrity DJ concerts. I love EDM. Nothing against these events. But how often do we ask fundamental questions to ourselves such as “Why do I go crazy about these concerts when all I do is just raise my hands up and somehow manage to pretend to dance?”

There are hardly any WHYs on our minds. More of emojis, may be?

We are becoming increasingly clouded, clueless, purposeless and hopeless towards our own lives. Trust me it sucks. To find yourself lost amidst the insane mediocrity of social media. It really is sick.

Don’t you notice people are gradually realizing that they now miss the 90s?

Ever thought why?

There was something calmer and natural back in those days. Life was less chaotic. Feeling good about oneself and having self-esteem was our default state. Meeting with friends was just a casual effortless thing.

Now? Obsession. With poses. Photos. Videos. Music. Porn. Pouts. Cleavages. Sex-comedy.. Insult-comedy. Sarcasm. Pop stars. International celebrities who don’t even know the individual in you and wouldn’t even care. Politics. Religion. Beliefs. Apps. Rebel culture. Anarchy.

Have you noticed how suddenly it has become difficult to meet friends? Social gatherings have become more about dress codes, etiquettes, subtle mannerisms and formalities. The notion of ‘chilling’ has changed. You are not chilling smartly enough until you have photographic evidence showing you and your friends holding alcoholic and trendy energy drinks, or smoking, or clubbing.

Everything that probably shouldn’t have changed, has changed.

Meeting now is more restricted by rigid time-restrained plans. Everyone unintentionally pretends as if everyone is in a rush but no one really knows what for. Money may be?

Money is a reality we will not be able to deny in the current system of debts, banking and economies. So yes we got to rush for money. But what else? I think there’s more to Life and Humans than just Money.

People find it hard to find time to meet someone who stays a few blocks away.

People tend to ignore those who are not strangers, when walking on the road. Do you question yourself when you do that? Isn’t it weird? Do you have any convincing answers?

I have done these things. And I’m fortunate enough to have asked myself certain questions that have awakened me. Awakened me to the fact that I can still connect to my dear ones in a better way than just Whatsapp or Snapchat or Facebook. I don’t have to use hashtags or picture tags all the time.

What is social media and news media these days?

The news is predominantly about crime and negativity, the politically correct debates and endless arguments, the never ending corruption.

Social media is nothing but on one hand, the glittery sides of people who are somehow trying to find their way out of the daily boring painful lonely moments of their lives by posting stuff about their hangouts, happening events, clubs and parties. Trying to ‘fit in’.

Trying to be in the race in order to be perceived as ‘normal’ and socially active enough. events that seem cool and happening to the society and the different levels of the modern-day demography.

On the other hand, the social media has become a flourishing ground for negativising every fucking aspect of human life. every individual seems to have been epicly betrayed by Life and some other human in matters of love and what not. People are posting stuff that is over-loaded with beautiful and hard-hitting realistic quotes that make all of us go ” Oh wow! That is reaalllllyyy true man! Hold on a second let me just share it on my timeline for others to see. Oh and why not use the quote as my status on WhatsApp? “.

And very few of us actually take those emotional and realistic stuff seriously. If we understood or could empathize with even 10 per cent of what the original authors of those quotes felt, we would probably solve most of our problems in life. We think we get the point. But we don’t. We hardly do.

The point I want to make is, I have realized, that we, as a tech-savvy generation in the disguise of over-the-top pride towards technological boom and in the illusion that we are actually connected all the time –

are wasting too much of our valuable time every single day on things and routines that have no relevance whatsoever.

Its okay and understandable that sharing, liking and posting is meant to be what it literally is. But really getting into a cycle of negativising the whole social media is something else. So much negative stuff on Facebook.

Let’s not drown away in the chaos. Let’s get complacent in the social media mediocrity that only seems to be rich only because it is colorful and novel every minute, but isn’t.

Precisely, I think, we all should develop a habit of rethinking, reconsidering, questioning and introspecting what we do on the Internet and off it. How much of a real connection do we actually have offline. Why we post or share the stuff that we post/share online. It is easy to share things by a few clicks here and there but how much of it is relevant to us? That’s what we need to ask ourselves.