Vasudha Gupta, Class X D
What once used to be a crowded park, full of people of all ages, kids with grandparents, teenagers sitting around and the youth simply enjoying the weather, is now left totally barren, with hardly a soul wandering about. We no longer bother going out and playing with the sun on our hair or let rain stroke our eyelids. Instead of taking the trouble of going out with our friends or family we’d rather sit and text them, while watching a movie.
Smart phones and laptops have already replaced clocks, books, newspapers, magazines, cameras and are now starting to replace our friends and family. It is asked that with the advent of social media which has connected people from all around the world, how can technology make us anti-social? But think about it, every morning when we reach out for our phone and check social media, are we actually interacting with people or is it just another way of distancing ourselves from those living with us? Don’t we simply stare at our phones many a time just to prevent eye-contact or conversation with those around us, just to “appear” busy? Doesn’t this just show that we have become afraid of actual social contact? Afraid of really talking to the same person we’d casually text now and then?
Quoting Dave Eggers from what he wrote in his book ‘The Circle’, “Here though, there are no oppressors. No one’s forcing you to do this. You willingly tie yourself to these leashes. And you willingly become utterly socially autistic. You no longer pick up on basic human communication clues. You’re at a table with three humans, all of whom are looking at you and trying to talk to you, and you’re staring at a screen! Searching for strangers in… Dubai!” I’d like to say that yes, we do meet and communicate with people we wouldn’t have met or communicated with otherwise, but while doing this aren’t we pushing away our actual friends who daily knock at our door and call us out to play and sit with us during dinner?
Now let me be clear, I’m not condemning technology as a whole, it has done wonders for humanity, and not even the sky is the limit for technological advancement but it has stunted our ability of normal speech and day-to-day conversation, filling us with nervousness, making us feel like aliens among our own brethren.
Walking around a public place is like travelling through a sea of cell phones and iPods. No one seems to have their hands free anymore, not even to wave at an old face passing down the street. Today, it’s only typing, emailing, texting, BBMing, iMessaging, Snapchatting, Tweeting, Facebooking, and Skyping each other, talking face-to-face… oh well, that’s ancient history!
Come on, let’s face it, technology is forcing us into an isolated lifestyle. No matter how many followers we may have, we still, in reality, physically remain alone; there is no one outside the screen or beside us. There is no one to whom we can speak and share our feelings face-to-face, eye-to-eye and we all know eyes have the ability to speak things that we won’t be able to frame even in a thousand words; it exhibits emotions that no emoji can ever depict.
Yes, social media is the new way of conversing but that doesn’t mean we have to stop using our voice box, it doesn’t mean we quit talking to people around us and it definitely should not come as an obstacle between us and our close ones, which, believe me, it already has.
C.P. Snow, the author of ‘The Two Cultures & A Second Look: An Expanded Version of The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution’ said “Technology is a queer thing. It brings you gifts with one hand, and stabs you in the back with the other.” While we think we have a lot of friends and well-wishers and that thousands of people follow us, it is only very late that we realize that we have shut out the actual few but loyal and real friends we once had, and that’s when the reality, of our being so anti-social, hits us like a truck.
Talking over the net and in reality does have a lot of difference. In the former, only our minds connect, where what we type is never actually spoken. In the latter, souls connect. All of our five senses combine to give life to those words which come woven straight from our heart to attach themselves to the heart of others and thus having a much greater and stronger impact.
We need to realize and accept that we’re really doing today is trying to look social, having an account on every social media site and our phone in our hands at all times, while in reality, actually and truly being totally anti-social and lonely without having even a single shoulder to ever rest on. Perhaps this realization and acceptance will goad us to reclaim our truly social selves.
