How Technology Makes Us Alone and Takes Our Time
The worth of communication is very crucial for people as socialized beings. But in these latter days, we are changing the way of connecting with each other. The usage of technologies makes us always have our phones, laptops, headphones in our hands or bags, trying to be always online and have time for everything. Here we come to the main oxymoron: why are we feeling lonely in our world full of communication 24/7?
People are increasing the pace of life, and it brings changes to the daily routine. We used to wake up earlier and start our days in connection with body and soul-doing exercises, practicing yoga, preparing food together with our family. Now we wake up late, and the first thing we check is our phones with a “fomo” perspective (fear of missing out). That is how we spend our time scrolling through the social media sites and not taking care of our health. That process affects the whole day, especially if the person has no plans – the fifteen minutes in the cellphone could escalate into the whole unproductive day. Also, it does not matter who you are, the youngest member of society, graduated from university or an adult, almost the same situation over all people. Now we also rarely have outdoor activities. All of these things represent people as isolated and lonely beings.
Now consider the way how we are sharing our thoughts and impressions. Instead of the phrase “I want to tell it to my friends now,” we are taking our phones and create a new post on social media, showing our feelings worldwide. It means that our thoughts no more come from the inner world, we want to make an impression on someone or gain new likes on the social media page. It gives the small dose of dopamine and then goes away making us lonely. People who are bloggers and have thousands of subscribers, even they are feeling lonely because of pressure they achieve by sharing the personal information. This publicity also can implicate the person in danger of having a lot of negative comments of the dissatisfied Internet community.
Another change comes with the ability to make new acquaintances. People use social networking to search for someone who has the same view on life as them because it is the easiest way. They become less sociable and lose their abilities to communicate in real life. It means that on the internet when you are trying to get acquainted with another person, you mostly do not ask about her real life and communicate only for familiar for two of our themes. That made this communication more general and egoistic instead of being sincere and friendly. Another problem which appears to us is fear when we need to make a friend in real life. It is hard for children to say “Hi” to someone new in their lives and what comes to the worker who changes his workplace then – depression and anxiety from the first days. That is how technology makes us more self-contained.
Recent researches showed that more we are scrolling through other people accounts, reading negative and even positive comments, less self-confidence and self-love lefts for us. We become addicted to other people lives and worry about their successes and problems more than for own lives. It results in problems with self-esteem and lack of personal life, which made a person, not an individual but merely hiding in his/her hoodie. We are struggling with a lot of lonely people in depression who want to sit in the room and do not leave it even for a walk, not talking about school, university or work. However, human life is about love, peace, and communication. Some will argue that the internet is the place which helped us in finding a positive response on what we are doing in life. It is a fact, but how many people get obsessed with such impressions and could not live without them. Especially, how hard it is in the moment of quick fall down after the pick of popularity.
The social media influence rapidly grows and gives us many possibilities to show who we are, to communicate with people from all over the world and implement many projects. But it is essential to stay in connecting with real life and the relationships which we have here. The main thing in our life is to be an individual and stay real. It is well if the Internet is a tool to demonstrate our skills, but not the thing that makes us lonely and takes away from life.
