Speak Out : Social Media Loneliness
‘Look Up‘ is a lesson taught to us through a love story, in a world where we continue to find ways to make it easier for us to connect with one another, but always results in us spending more time alone.
The video tells us that we are becoming the generation of smart phone and dump people … and it’s sad! Every day when I get in the subway station, I see hundreds of people looking at their smart phones and the train is in total silence. I remember just 10 years ago, when I was at University, the train was loud of people laughing and talking. Few months ago in Montreal, there’s even a girl who fell in between two wagons of the train and died…why? Because she was looking at her phone. Instead of entering the train, she fell.
I even catch myself sometimes sleeping beside my phone, sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, I even check if I got an email or if someone messaged me on Facebook. So Lame don’t you find? From now on, the phone will stay plugged in the kitchen.
I’m sad that my 6 and 11 years old nieces see us as zombies, always on our smart phones or Ipad. They don’t even play with their Barbies anymore, they each have an Ipad and play games, they have an Instagram profile, they exchange photos on SnapChat…. They think that this is real life!
Any suggestions guys to re-start living our life the real way? I have a few :
1- Friend’s dinner where phones are forbidden. Everyone leaves their phones at the entrance. Conversations, wine and good food on the menu. I’ll do that this weekend with my 4 buddies!
2- Sports day in the country where everyone leaves their phone in the car. Hiking, biking and swimming under the sunshine. (maybe one guy keeps a phone in his backpack in case something happens…)
3- PicNic with all your best friends in the park. Everyone brings something to eat, we all share, music is playing and summer drinks on the table!
4- Half day at the city’s outdoor pool. Watch the cute boys, make new friends, swim and tan. Relax!
There’s soooo many things to do without our phones and Ipads. Leave FB, Instagram and Twitter aside for few hours! Hopefully this video will make you realize that we need to re-start living our life the real way:)
Dave
(video below)
You could have a dinner with friends where everyone puts their phone in a stack face down and the first to check their phone pays for dinner.
One of my favorite things to do with friends is for everyone to put their phones in the middle of the table as soon as we get there. The first one to reach for their phone for any reason (even to check the time) has to pay the entire bill. Makes great conversation and you get to see what friends are co-dependent on their phones.
Einstein said it best , many many years before all of this stuff was even though of.
”I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction , the world will have a generation of idiots ! ”
Well guess what ? It’s here now .
Thanks for sharing
I don’t have a smart phone and when i sit in a room of people everyone usually gets on their phone and its real hard to try to have a convo with someone well they are browsing the web. Look up people
Computers have taking over the world and we will all be slaves by something man created
All too true!I’m 45 now and can remember…life before the widespread use of electronica. I guess this is one of those good thing/bad thing issues…how connected are we really with all these devices?
smart phones are great for tuning out boring people
I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one that felt this way. When I am out in public I am usually the only one not looking at his phone. I have a computer at home, I don’t need to look at my little phone. I feel uncomfortable at times in public. I feel like I should be looking at my phone too. Everyone else is. It makes me sad and yes I get very upset when I am having dinner with someone and they are looking at their phone and not talking to me. It hurts.
Couple of thoughts:
1). When the printing press was invented, people predicted a similar end of the world with people absorbed in their flashy new printed books.
2). It seems that the people who always condemn social media are the ones who have a huge variety of other ways to interact. For lonely gay kids in the middle of no where, being able to interact with compassionate, understanding people a world away is a life saver. We can’t assume that everyone interacts with “nice people” in their everyday lives.
Andy : true, u are right man! 🙂
@ William
WE ALREADY ARE… IT’S CALLED FIAT CURRENCY. LOOK INTO IT.
Social media has been the death of social skills. There is rarely any face to face interaction anymore. Worse yet, we don’t actually speak on our phones as much as send texts and instant messages! People are forgetting how to communicate with one another, just as they are forgetting how to use the English language properly do to all of these abbreviations that are used to make the anonymous texting move more rapidly It is especially bad to see parents with pre-teens who are not enjoying the sunshine but have their noses in their phones and not even participating in family time.
Great ideas and a sound principle, to be sure. Unfortunately, we do not live in Utopia, and the likelihood of meeting other like-minded people in one of the public settings you suggest seems to be slim to none. And yet, if we do not try, we will never know for sure. Applause, applause! Great ideas, & I certainly intend to employ some of them as well. If I am viewed as a control freak because of it, so be it. Someone has to take the lead. It’s as simple as that.
I went to NYC to go out to gay clubs and bars to see if I could meet someone..problem was everyone was so obsessed with their phones there was no longer eye contact to spark the flame. couples at dinner talking or texting but not speaking with each other…down in the subway people almost falling into the tracks all plugged in and tuned out. its happens everywhere not just there..we are losing our souls to programs and the fake belief that these “friends” really know us or care…put down the phone…live! its not in the box but out here….put down the phones!
Smartphones, Facebook, Twitter and social media are not the problem. The problem is too many people being so arrogant, self-absorbed, and self-centered that they canNOT focus on living breathing human beings IN FRONT of them without worrying about who else just HAS to be in touch with them.
There is NOTHING keeping anyone from silencing their iPad, Smartphone, or whatever and leaving it in their purse, coat, backpack, or pocket for an hour, two, or three while with friends or family. No one is a victim or addict to these things unless they choose to be.
Technology only makes it easier for people to do what they’re inclined to do. It doesn’t make people do anything. People are inclined to disconnect from their neighbors personally. Smart phones allow that to be easy. The issue is much more complex. IMHO it’s due to the fact that our evolutionary psychology is wired for a social enviornment drastically different than what we live in. Same reason people in small towns are connected while people in huge cities are lonely.
Ps. How much dick do we get via our smart phones vs real interaction? I wonder how that answer varies among people.
When I go out with friends, I am going out for some personal interaction. You know, talking, laughing, having a drink together. I leave my phone in the car. The other night I was out with seven friends, all were on their phone. Checking their grinder, growler, what ever, checking out the stats of those men in the bar they found on line. I got up and left. It took them fifteen minutes to realize that I was not at the table. I got the first call as to where I was. Then two more calls. They couldn’t even say something to each other that was gone. There is a time and place for all this technology, but human interaction is far more fun then pressing a button.
So true and so sad.
The Internet (smart phones or desktops) has encouraged guys to be shallow and not even talk to guys who don’t post pictures. I’m old enough to remember when you had to take a chance and meet.
People no longer interact with one another directly, many times I’ve been in a restaurant, even if two people are seated next to eachother, they don’t speak, they text………… pathetic!!! Need I say more?
I have a nice smartphone, but I only pull it out to occupy me if no one else is around… even then it’s a quick look and back to observing the world around me. It’s a handy tool, but I could go back to a flip phone (or less) and be just fine.
wow so true i’m a late comer to the techno world and am amazed how fast I became wrapped up in it.Dean
The very reason I refuse to even own a smartphone and I dont use Facebook or any of those other sites.
Guess i should be glad i dont have a smart phone. As far as social media goes i may check facebook once a week, if that, but its not a go to for me.
I’m back to the point where I’m going to get a watch so I don’t need to look at my smart phone for the time.
Hunter005, I couldn’t have said what you say in your first paragraph any better. I teach 5th grade…if anyone wants to see how badly social media is damaging the next generation, just walk into an American classroom…and it doesn’t have to be in cities…my classroom is in a town with about 3,000 people and 80% of them are considered low socioeconomic…these kids are some of the most plugged in and self_centered I have ever seen.
I do a one day a week with no electronics, that’s includes tv, radio, cell phone,computer.
I have a few friends that have joined me on this. it great we go out, talk have some drinks. go hiking, get away from the world, That doesn’t mean we don’t have our phone with us in case there is an emergency. but no one allowed to texted or make any phone calls on the day we choose
Worst coffeedate I ever had, I was working hard to be charming to a guy who was live tweeting all of the amusing things I said instead of talking to me.
I finally had enough, took out my phone and sent him the following text: #putdownthefuckingphone. Then I left. Hope he paid for my cupcake and tea.
I do not facebook, tweet, instagram or any of that nonsense. I use the internet to find sex, like god intended. And I have a strict no phones on dates rule.
This really has gotten out of hand, it is not just trying to meet someone or have a friend to “Go out” and enjoy conversation with. But now the “On-line Public Schools”.
It is not bad enough we are becoming zombies as adults with being connected. But now our children from K-12 now can “OPT-Out” of going to a standard school for “On-Line” Schools.
What does this say about our society and Socialization Skills learned at an early age. I shutter to think what will happen in 12 years when all these kids graduate and are out in the real world.
I am all for home schooling, and for students that have “disabilities” learning that way but Damn! When is this shit going to End!! Don’t get me wrong Technology gives me a hard on, but there is a point where society as a whole should intervene.
I fear that we will become like seen in some Sci-Fi movies, with limited interaction, no real contact, no real sex, or social skills. Even basic writing with a pencil/pen paper a lot of young people can not do, but give them a phone or a computer and they can type faster in code then you can speak.
Am I the only one that sees the large implications of all this?
When we go out we have a rule all phones are placed in the center of the table the first person who touches their phone has to pay for everything.
Lik
e Albert Einstein once said. I am afraid that technology will surpass our ability to interact with each other one day. Or something close to that.
I agree, communication is up personality is down to zero.
Companionship and interactions seem to be at zilch.
What a shame, and the younger generation thinks this is how things are to be.
Most of the time it has to do with social awkwardness. Nowadays people can’t stare or look at someone else in public without putting them on the spot and people getting annoyed at people staring at them. And so people heron their phones. It also has a my to do with boredom! We now have the world on our finer tips! Everything u could possibly need we can find it on our phones. And someone mentioned here something about newspapers or book seen as the same way? Well, the difference between a smart phone and a paper you have to read is that with a smart phone your mind doesn’t really get smarter(I guess it spends what ur looking at) but mindless dribble is more likely that they’re watching. With printed text ur mind opens cause ur imagination opens u have no choice!
That was fantastic. That should go viral. So True !!!
I Saw a guy literally walk into a telephone pole, because he was texting !!
UnReal !!!!!
Spent this past weekend on a campout for men who are HIV+, here in the Hill Country of Texas. The location of the campgrounds is located out where service is spotty at best and the only WiFi is a satellite Internet, again spotty at best with close to 150 guys there. The first full day was rather fun to watch others as they’re attempting to hold their phones in all kinda of directions to get a signal. By dinnertime on the first full day, the majority of guys had put their phones and devices away and began talking with each other and by the end of the weekend, MANY new face to face friendships had been formed. Sure, I had my iPhone and a tablet, but the phone was used as a camera and the tablet had music loaded to play at the campsite.
Social media is the Soma from Brave New World for a Brave New World. By focusing on the 3 x 5 front of blue, we don’t have to address the economic inequality, joblessness, hopeless. racism, ignorance, and violence in our reality but, can, instead, avoid facing our own powerlessness to change these realities. If we saw them, we could. But, we don’t because it means work so we won’t. Better Soma for the many than having the veritas of the few deal with them. Vive social media.
Yeah, and before smartphones everyone was being anti-social with magazines and newspapers. This isn’t a new phenomenon. If anything, we’re MORE connected now because instead of reading the news I’m connecting with friends and family I don’t get to see as often as I’d like.