There was a wonderful little video making the rounds awhile back depicting a young man meeting a young woman, how they fell in love, and the beautiful life they shared together. Then it snaps back to the young man walking down the street, eyes glued to his phone, as the young woman walks past, thus missing out on the life that could have been.
The moral was that you should stop and smell the roses once in awhile, because you never know what might pass you by.
I've always had mixed feelings about social media, and that video certainly displays the argument against it, or at least against the obsession of it. I honestly believe that used responsibly, social media can be a wonderful networking tool and a great way to keep in touch with friends and family that you otherwise might not be in contact with. Rarely do I witness it being used "responsibly" though, and so despite the wonderful opportunities it provides, I have come to one ultimate conclusion: we just aren't ready for it.
Granted, each new generation sucks up technology like it's the antidote to some lethal plague, but I'm not referring to technical prowess or know-how. I'm referring to emotional maturity, and our ability to separate the world on our screens from reality.
There's a fascinating article on Cracked.com by author David Wong (which I highly suggest you read by clicking here and ignore the fact that it's coming from a comedy website) that basically outlines the way our social programming works from an evolutionary perspective. The gist is that back when we were all monkeys, we lived in groups of only a couple dozen individuals. We therefore evolved the capacity to recognize and sympathize with only that many individuals at once, which is arguably how modern cliques and gangs operate. We only recognize the faces of people we interact with everyday on a regular basis: our family and friends, the people we work with, and the people we share common experiences with. There's a cap on the number of people we can actually care about, essentially. It's why a perfectly wonderful human being who is kind, loving, and compassionate can be deeply sympathetic when their friend undergoes a breakup, but who only has a passing remorse for a horrible tragedy they read about taking place on the other side of the world. It's why people can stand in a grocery store at a slow checkout line and automatically assume the cashier is purposefully not doing their job properly, despite not knowing a single thing about them, unless of course they've also had a similar job - shared experience, and thus shared empathy.
Social media, likewise, gives us access to too much all at once. We're bombarded with more social interaction than we can properly or healthily process. I'm definitely not the first person to comment on the irony of someone who has thousands of friends on Facebook but almost no friends in real life, but the fact that such scenarios exist should be something of a red flag in our current culture. Most of us have not developed the social maturity to differentiate between the relationships that are formed online and the relationships formed in reality.
Online is easy. Typing things to someone takes no effort at all. A perfect example is Facebook when someone's birthday rolls around. Their wall is bombarded by birthday wishes, and it may make them feel loved and appreciated, but at the end of the day each of those birthday wishes took all of five seconds to type, and almost all of them are because of reminders that Facebook itself puts out, requiring almost no effort on the part of the sender. The same goes for "liking" something. A picture with a thousand likes might seem popular, but keep in mind that a single "like" requires only a single mouse click and a mere second of someone's time and interest to acquire.
I've seen people in relationships get upset when an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend of their spouse "likes" something on their partner's page, resulting in fights and accusations of adultery and other misdeeds, all because of a single mouse click. We often mistake the importance and weight of online interaction, giving it far more gravitas than it rightfully deserves.
Online dating is another facet of this discussion that deserves special mention. Curtailing back to the beginning of this article, online dating sites present an interesting dilemma of further complicated social interaction. Websites like Plenty of Fish and Tinder present members with potential matches the way one is presented items on a food menu, to discern and disregard with the single swipe of a finger. People on these sites are often trying to establish meaningful and significant relationships (I should know, as I've been trying them out for a couple months now) and yet the approach taken in establishing those relationships are often shallow and distant. We look at a profile picture, give a thumbs up or thumbs down (often without even reading the accompanying profile) and then move onto the next person without a second's hesitation. I often wonder how many potential "matches" I've passed over just because of the nature of the beast.
And again, it is almost bizarre the weight we sometimes put into the relationships of people we barely know. I've seen people who are jealous or concerned (and I'm not exactly one to talk, as I've also been guilty of this) because they notice someone they've gone on a few dates with is still interacting with other people on dating sites. It makes sense that one might be worried that someone they find interesting might be exploring other potential matches, but as I mentioned, doing so puts far more weight and gravitas into online interaction than need be. It's easy to message someone and exchange a few lines of pleasantries, but that's often where the majority of "relationships" of this manner end. And why? Because real relationships (romantic or not) are more difficult than just typing a few quick words on a message board. They take time and effort, and they require more than a passing interest to maintain. Online interaction is easy to engage in, but an actual relationship/friendship requires time and effort.
And this is why I feel we haven't quite gotten to the point where we can handle this massive influx of online and social media interaction. Within a single generation, the majority of our communications have gone online or into text messages, eliminating the need to meet or even talk to someone; these changes literally took place within the last decade, and I don't think our social capabilities are quite ready for it.
We are a highly adaptive species, but even we can't outrun evolution or human nature, which is becoming increasingly evident in our modern culture. For proof in another area, simply look at the way we consume food. Obesity is now a nationwide epidemic because our bodies have not had the time to adapt to the way we now produce and consume food, nor can we exactly be trusted to monitor and police ourselves to make the best lifestyle decisions to combat the resulting ailments. We will crusade to end gang violence and cancer, but we aren't willing to do much to halt the leading cause of death on this continent (heart disease as a result of lifestyle choices) because it requires too much hard work and individual discipline.
My mom made an interesting comment during a discussion I had with her regarding online dating. She said that in her day, you rarely dated more than one person at a time, and the only interaction you had with them was when you physically saw them in person, or maybe if you called them on the phone. There was no adding on Facebook after the first date, no nights spent wondering why they didn't reply to your text even though you know they read it . . . and that really got me thinking. Much like the food industry has altered the way we approach nutrition before our bodies were able to adapt and catch up, social media has altered the way we approach relationships, friendships, and romance before we've been able to adapt and process these new conventions in a healthy way.
Another great video making the rounds encapsulates this idea perfectly. Two people, a man and woman, talk in voice overs about how all they want is someone to laugh with and love, to hold hands and to just experience life with. Their demands seem so simple and universal, but when they pass each other in person they dismiss one another based on height and bra size. A generation ago you went on several dates before deciding how you truly felt about someone. Nowadays you can dismiss someone entirely based off their profile picture, without them even knowing it. We get bombarded by images and profiles of so many people that there's no way our primitive monkey brains can establish meaningful connections with all of them, and so they remain nothing more than the sum of their pictures - not an actual human being with thoughts, feelings, and emotions, but a representation of one that we can swipe yes-or-no with on our phone.
Are we responsible enough to mature and adapt and to use these new social tools in a healthy and responsible way? I certainly hope so, because it looks like they're here to stay, and already so much of our lives are invested in them.
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