Thoughts and experiences of life and mental health

Technological communication Part 21

Technological communication destroys social communication.

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I miss the days when we would sit at the dinner table as a family, the days when we got excited to tell someone about an exhilarating development but had to wait till we saw them again, waiting made the excitement more palpable.

If we had a crush, we wrote them a letter and poured our perfume unto the letter.

Sat outside on Sundays, where did those days go that we spoke to each other and comprehended what conversations were.

Nowadays, if we want to know what is transpiring in someone's life, we enter social media, with one simple click, we catch their whole life displayed, displayed as this flawless life for all to witness, the way we want the world to see us, not who we are, but the way we want them to see us.

We rarely visit each other, we simply pick up a device and communicate, message, call, video call. The messages on our phones with one another are more intimate than the actual bond we have face to face.

No one knows how to communicate with one another anymore. If we get together, we are more like silence between strangers. When we do communicate with one another on our devices, we chatter as if we've known each other for years.

Once we meet someone we fancy, we don't ask them to go on a date anymore, we ask them for their number or a social tag, getting to know one another on social media.

Now we have a situation where two people know everything there is to know about one another, but we have no idea of who that person actually is.

We decide that we move in together. A few months down the line when we actually start knowing each other, we realize that this is not what we wanted, or this is not the person I thought them to be. The relationship becomes just another statistic on the walls of social media.

We don't understand the meaning of family time anymore, each one on its own. The majority of them are watching TV, using their phones in the kitchen, or using their devices in the bedroom. We have forgotten what being social means, forgotten what affection is.

We have forgotten what it is to have a conversation with one another, what going to the mall on a Saturday as a family conveys.

We are numb, confused, and anti-social, and we forgot what being human is.

I suppose it's time that we start living again, going out with friends and family. Instead of messaging or calling them, rather head over and see them. Instead of watching tv, rather learn a new hobby. Instead of ordering takeaways, rather cook, or go with the family to a restaurant and sit down.

Instead of asking the person that you fancy for a number, rather ask them out on a date.

Technology has changed most of our lives for the better, I agree, but I believe in the sense of being social, technology forced us to go backward and not forward.