So over the weekend I was reading an article from the Huffington Post about how social media is making us lazy in
terms of our friendships and relationships. Social media accounts really burst onto the scene about 10 years ago and
so my childhood and adolescence was relatively unaffected by social media. Yes, I lived in the Stone Age - the days of
simple, plain old phone calls. Nowadays, nearly everyone we know has at least a facebook page, twitter account or
blog. In a country like Sri Lanka where there are more cell phones than people, future generations will have a different
way of communicating. If you think about it, the popularity of smartphones and social media has really changed the
ways in which youth communicate. I know a couple who have a twitter account for their newborn baby – yup, the day
she was born they setup an account for her and her father ‘tweets’ on her behalf. I’m sure there are more couples
like them and that’s a whole other story but my point is, can you imagine when she is 5 or 6 years old? That little girl
will be tweeting and facebooking her every move with her tablet or smartphone rather than being out there and
actually enjoying and ‘living’ the things she is doing.
We’re now having far less face-to-face interaction and as a result we may not know how to communicate properly. I’m sure you have scrolled through your facebook news feed and seen people arguing on statuses or replying to strangers on twitter using offensive language and imagery that we wouldn’t even dream of using in everyday life. I mean I may put up a tweet professing my love for Taylor Swift’s music and someone in the twitter world could make fun of me for it but if I walk around with a Taylor Swift t-shirt on, I highly doubt a random person on the street will stop and criticize me? Is this the world we are living in now? A world where not only are we physically distanced from each other but emotionally as well? A world, where we cannot look another person in the eye and tell them how we feel in a civilized, adult manner? A world where I cannot love Taylor Swift’s music openly?
We’re now having far less face-to-face interaction and as a result we may not know how to communicate properly. I’m sure you have scrolled through your facebook news feed and seen people arguing on statuses or replying to strangers on twitter using offensive language and imagery that we wouldn’t even dream of using in everyday life. I mean I may put up a tweet professing my love for Taylor Swift’s music and someone in the twitter world could make fun of me for it but if I walk around with a Taylor Swift t-shirt on, I highly doubt a random person on the street will stop and criticize me? Is this the world we are living in now? A world where not only are we physically distanced from each other but emotionally as well? A world, where we cannot look another person in the eye and tell them how we feel in a civilized, adult manner? A world where I cannot love Taylor Swift’s music openly?
