Alone in the Crowd
When the scientists, engineers and computer geniuses first thought of inventing the internet or social networking sites specifically, or even cellular phones, I bet they planned to make the world more connected. But then, like most brilliant inventions, this idea backfired in some ways. Yes, people can happily talk or chat with their parent or better/worse half whenever they want to, but somewhere down the line, we all became lonelier. How, you ask, when we can reach out to every close person we need at the tips of our fingers? How can people be the loneliest now, when the world is more connected than ever before?
Azmina, 16, thinks it's because technology acts like a barrier of sorts. “Because having your best friend sitting next to you, comforting you after a break-up and you whining over it on Facebook are not the same. If you're upset, you'd rather want someone to be right beside you, holding your hand, or giving you a hug; there's that physical aspect.”
Pouring your heart out on the phone will do only little to solve that problem. Because of technology, people don't usually feel the need to come over or meet in person since you're just a phone call away. And there lies the problem. A “hope you get better” text can never replace the warmth and love of a physical assurance.
According to Shayaan, 15, “We've forgotten about actual human contact. Because on the internet, we don't experience the level of intimacy we would normally feel while having a face to face conversation with the other person. So, it's harder to have deep relationships. We feel lonely after a while because we have no true friends. We got so used to the internet and the social network that we grew further away from reality and actual relationships.”
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. 
Aniba, 16, says people are lonelier because they have less friends now, less people who they think can truly understand them, less people they actually feel connected to. “That's because the networking sites are allowing newer ways and murkier methods that pose a threat to trust. Look around you; don't you see the kinds of things folks post nowadays? People are just at each others' throats!” Social networking is, in a way, allowing that to happen. “Maybe technology isn't being used the way it was intended to be,” Aniba continues, “You're busy trying to 'socialise' through your phone rather than interacting with the person who is sitting right next to you. How can you possibly have upfront interaction, after your communication device is snatched away from you and you can't remember the last time you sat down with your family to, well, just talk? We have gotten so used to virtual interaction that when we don't have technology to support us, we just get lonely.”
A study from 2010 showed that when users were passively consumed with social networking sites, there was a decline in communication between friends and family, and increased depression and loneliness. If this continues to grow, where will we end up in a few decades? We will never know how it feels to play hide-and-seek with our cousins outside, being raised together with the mud and rain and puddle jumping.
It could be the absence of the anticipation that used to bubble inside when someone gets a letter after a whole month, like Shaon, 24, points out -- something that we don't feel any more. Since we have whomever we want at our finger tips, when someone does not reply to a certain text message in time, we fuss over it. When people we want to see online are not, we don't know where to go. “Social networking just consumed us.” Since messages on Facebook or WhatsApp are so much easier and faster to get, their content, however heartfelt, might have lost their value. A letter, on the other hand, was so rare, people just became more attached and they appreciated that means of communication.
I'm not saying that communication being much easier now is bad. It's great, to be honest. We explore, share and see so much, talk so easily. But I still believe, like some actual studies have seen, that it deprives us of a deeper human attachment that we could normally get if it weren't so overwhelming. But then again, it might be just an opportunity cost because, who can live without communication devices or the glorious internet nowadays?
Author Jonathan Safran Foer said, “Technology celebrates connectedness. But encourages retreat. Each step 'forward' has made it easier, just a little, to avoid emotional work of being present, to convey information rather than humanity.”
Each Facebook user spends on average 15 hours and 33 minutes a month on the site.
One in every nine people on earth is on Facebook (this number is calculated by dividing the planet's 6.94 billion people by Facebook’s 750 million users).
Comments