We live in a world where thanks to Internet and social media almost everybody seems to be electronically connected – one can even get in contact with their grandmother in a ‘lost’ village in India. Amazing, right?!
It is great to know that keeping in contact with loved ones is no longer a costly hurdle; a quick text to see how your cousin in Jamaica is doing, a lengthy call with your childhood friend in Greece, or even a romantic relationship between Australia and America, purely based on those late night, early morning Facetime/Viber/Skype…. calls.
How beautiful is it to be able to connect with just a click of a button?!
Looking at social media and the Internet through these lenses makes it seem like a blessing.
However, are we actually using social media to strengthen our connection with the world?
Or are we using social media for exactly the opposite of its intent – to disconnect?
Imagine how many street poles have been hurt by careless humans who aren’t watching their steps while on their phones? However, and on a serious note, have we really opened up our eyes to see how our misuse of social media is devastating millions?
In our offline world we seem to be more and more disconnected from our families, close relatives and friends. Many more people are experiencing the deep feeling of loneliness and depression, not to mention aggression, violence and cyber abuse, all of which are shooting through the roof and causing increased suicide rates. What is even more shocking is that we are by and large simply sitting back and accepting everything that is going on.
When for instance, was the last time you saw an abusive comment and either reported it or stepped in to express your feelings about it? Or have you ever?
We have made sexting and sending nudes so common that it has become ‘normal’ and those who don’t do it are then ‘old fashioned’, ‘stush’, or just plain ‘boring’.
But what are we actually getting out of these ‘exciting’ behaviours? You know, the cheeky text at work, or naughty selfie from the gym changing rooms? Is it just an innocent game or could it possibly be another way to get the attention we so desire, to fill an emptiness inside?
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being intimate with another, in fact, it can be very beautiful! However, in a world where just about every other person, so to speak, has a naked picture on their phone of another person, how intimate are we truly?
Do we even know what intimacy is?
How confident would you be to stand completely 100% transparent (naked, figuratively speaking), without any protection at all – no walls, no guard, no holding back – in front of that person to whom you sent a nude? Why aren’t we making transparency the social norm?
Why aren’t we teaching our children that intimacy is not a sexual act? That intimacy is all about letting another person see you in full, without any protection, the mask/hurts you hide behind and your need to hold back.
Or is that too difficult for us to acknowledge, let alone make it something we talk about and pass down?
Maybe if we are more honest offline with ourselves and others too, we can indeed use social media and the Internet the way they are intended as an extended platform to continue to deepen our connections, friendships, relationships with those close to us and those who may not be . . . yet.
By Viktoria Stoykova, Student, UK
Further Reading:
Technology: Are you Connected?
Crying out for connection: technology and us
Anti-social behaviour
757 Comments
The pull to be on the phone at every opportunity is quite strong as you can see on the London underground in the mornings. No one wants to connect and it has become an acceptable thing to do. It makes me wonder how many people met on the tube in the days gone by and started dating; nowadays they do it all over apps and it’s so cold and impersonal.
A much needed topic to discuss about Viktoria indeed. I find particularly poignant is the responsibility we ALL have to speak up about abuse. We all see, feel and know of it. Most of us tend to do anything we can to avoid it and this is where the ignorance starts…
If we use a device, activity or another person to bring us a sense of connection it will never work. Connecting to ourselves first is required before we connect to others. Anything else is abusive I am learning.
We grow up guarded and then want to protect our children against the world and how it can hurt us. But what we are actually doing is retarding them to live in a way that goes against our natural expression of being open-hearted.
It is so easy to feel or say that it is something that is outside of us, that it is ‘the social media’ ‘the telephone’ or ‘the computers’. We often speak as if we are a slave to these machines and in a way we are but we forget that these machines have no power over us and that it is still, as always the operator that controls the use. We can change our use of internet and social media easily if we truly wanted to, so maybe the real question is why do we use it as we do?
As with everything in life it is not the systems or machines we sue but what we do with them. The internet is a weak substitute for the interconnectedness we have as human beings. If we are in this interconnectedness the internet will be used to evolve and support humanity, when we are not in this interconnectedness it will be abused in many ways and to an extend we could previously not imagine.
It is true we can create an online persona of someone we want to be instead of presenting ourselves warts and all. Is this because we judge others and fear that we will be judged or is it lack of acceptance of ourselves and feeling that we are not good enough.
Or is it both of what you mention here in your comment Julie, and maybe even more at play?
If we were to teach our children that intimacy was not a sexual act and that intimacy was actually a natural part of life and a natural part of expression we would have far less incidents of loneliness and mental health problems.
There is nothing more amazing than looking into the eyes of another or having a totally open and transparent and intimate conversation where nothing is held back – social media just can’t match that and it certainly can’t replace what we are missing so badly from our lives.
I was in a lunch room yesterday at one of my sites and everyone was in there was connected to one thing only and that was their phones, it was very quiet and it made me wonder that a few years back there would have probably been the buzz of conversation and real connection going on. We need to use social media as the great tool it is but not get sucked in and consumed by it at the expense of everything else.
When connecting with someone is reduced to a ‘click’ this reduces the connection to keeping yourself in separation and isolation.
It is a great opportunity to avoid connection with ourselves as in a click no one is asking you to connect with them. So much more then avoiding the outside connections are we not avoiding the disconnection in ourselves?
This really is a huge problem of our time, so many children growing up disconnected from real life.
I sometimes hesitate responding to negative comments as I dont want to bring the other writer more attention and fuel it further. However if we do not speak out against the destructive use of the internet we condone it and allow it to fester and grow.
We think we are connected when we can boast about how many likes we get on our Facebook page, but what is our communication like with those in our daily lives, who we live with from day to day. We are so caught up in social media trying to fill the emptiness we feel inside from lack of true loving connection, one that brings with it an honesty and intimacy that we all long for in sharing with another.
Probably no accident here that the word ‘screen’ means a ‘protective barrier’, considering we use these devices to hide behind instead of allowing ourselves to be fully transparent with the world.
When we see something that doesn’t feel right, even if we don’t understand why it doesn’t feel right, do we speak up? My sense and experience is that we don’t. Yet what is the outplay of many people seeing things and not speaking up? Well, I would hazard a guess that it is the world we see today. In our own small way, we contributed to what we see by not speaking up about the small things in our lives that let things go and had a ripple effect on a bigger scale.
Viktoria, this is a great question; ‘are we using social media for exactly the opposite of its intent – to disconnect? ‘ From what I observe I would say yes we use it to disconnect. I observe that as a population we spend we a lot of time on our phones rather than connecting with each other. Waiting at bus stops, waiting in cues in the past may have been time to chat to people, it seems to now a be a time to look at our phones instead.
It is so true that we have distorted what it means to be intimate and transparent, exposing how we have disconnected from living from our joy-full essence.
There is no way that social media is used for intimacy – quite the opposite. If I consider someone’s facebook page this is always going to be a presentation of the good life. Our favourite moments shared for all to see which gives a picture of who we want to be, rather than anything true, balanced etc. And when we are ‘friends’ we think we know each other better. The flip side is the messaging and the awful language and abuse that is so normal and commonplace. This seeps out into the offline world and its truly disgusting to feel / hear it.
It is a great cause for concern when you see teenagers sitting in a row each transfixed to the small screen in front of their nose with no interaction with those sitting next to them.
Contact or connection – there is in fact a vast difference between the two, yet we seem to think and champion that we are more connected these days, as such advancing as a civilisation as a result of technology. Yet let’s be honest are we really? Are we freer from wars, slavery, abuse, suicide, segregation religious or otherwise and we could go on? Are we in connection to each other in the true sense of the word where we are uniting, joining, coming together in a unified way to discuss and work on a way we can live with greater harmony in our lives that supports us all to live who we are? And yes technology has the potential to be a platform to offer this possibility but we need to live this for ourselves first otherwise it becomes yet another avenue where we can exercise our choice to escape, abuse and disregard the opportunity to connect to the love we are, and share this quality with others.
Our use of social media merely heightens our lack of connection with those around us offline and so we use it as a distraction from this disconnection with us and others- until we address that offline our online presence will be nothing more than that disconnection. Once we do online and offline can both be about connecting and supporting each other to deepen in how we relate.
I did some work on the weekend with a young guy and each time we got in the van his phone would come out and he was lost in it, there was no interaction, I asked him a few questions which he answered, but he wouldn’t engage in conversation as his phone was far more important. I wondered how young people of today can have any true connection with such a distraction keeping them from it.
Lovely put that if we are more honest offline with ourselves and others too, we can indeed use social media to continue to deepen our connections, friendships, relationships with those close to us and those who may not be . . . I will take that with me even more consciously in my off- and online communications. Because indeed that is a very loving way of using social media – it should be the only way as it would bring a big change to how the way it is used now with all its negative side-effects.
‘Do we even know what intimacy is? ‘ There is so much that tells us what Intimacy is and most leads us astray. To feel the honesty of loving and tender openness is delicious, and we can have this with everyone, so why would we keep it for one person?
Yes intimacy has become a word reserved for closest friends or ‘intimate’ partners, yet what is offered here, and I have experienced with some of my friends, is that you can choose to live that way with everyone without it being sexual in any way. In fact, the intimacy is the honesty we so desperately crave and miss in relationships in general.
Hi Viktoria, I love what you wrote about intimacy. This is what is missing online. To have it all or be all of you online you need to have it offline. You sum it up well — “Maybe if we are more honest offline with ourselves and others too, we can indeed use social media and the Internet the way they are intended as an extended platform to continue to deepen our connections, friendships, relationships with those close to us and those who may not be . . . yet.”
“When for instance, was the last time you saw an abusive comment and either reported it or stepped in to express your feelings about it?” – To me, this comment says it all, because as long as we all stand by and never challenge what is expressed by others as being harmful, hurtful and unloving, then in essence we are actually supporting this behaviour by default by allowing it to occur as if it is the norm that it should never ever be.
Transparency is so simple, really just being ourselves, but how many of us feel absolutely alien when we go out into our world feeling loving, tender, graceful and joyful? How quickly do we feel the stern looks, jealously, judgement and even disapproval from others? It takes some very deep loving choices to be made within to hold our transparency in today’s world. But a way of living that absolutely needs to be seen, as there is too little of it and if we are going to in any way change the world we live in, very needed.