At a restaurant, a family of 4 sits at the corner. Two teenage girls and their parents are ordering food. After finished ordering, girls start using their phones, may be using Facebook or playing games. Their dad also uses his phone while their mom sits there quietly and tries to make conversations. After a while, she gives up and she also starts using her phone.
Are you familiar with the scene mentioned above? Even we could be a part of this scene at least once. Firstly, I have to admit that I am not the kind of person who can live without social media completely, especially in this modern age. However, I do wonder while social media make people who are thousands miles away feels like they are beside each other, it can also be the main reason which make people grow apart at the same time.
People these days are addicted using social media such as Facebook, Instagram, etc. We can find anyone from childhood friends to recent crush on Facebook if they use their own name. We can even stalk one’s activities from their Facebook posts. Because of Facebook, we feel connected again. We can easily know what is happening on other’s side, communicate through messenger or video call as long as we have internet.
At the same time, social media threaten real communications between people. We forget who are beside us in real life. While trying to stay connected with ones from thousands of miles away, we start neglecting people who are always with us ands we are also being overlooked too.
For example, we will make a plan with friends on Facebook. We will meet up outside. When we reach the destination, we will post check-in on Facebook tagging friends using captions like ‘Date with childhood friends’ or ‘Having a great time catching up’. But do we actually chat without using messenger or viber or Instagram? I mean do we actually talk each other like we used to do when there was no internet?
If your answer is Yes, congratulations. You use social media as a tool to connect people. If your answer is No, you should try paying more attention to those who are beside you. Last week, I went out with my friends and we decided to talk without using our phones. Until that day, I am not aware that we could have so much fun talking each other over our favorite food. After that day, we feel like we are more intimate than before by sharing our interest and also our future plans. We had a great time and laughed a lot. It was a great afternoon and we decided to meet up again. That is my real experience.
I know it is so hard not to use social medias and phones during technology age. We get latest information of our class, latest news from media page and so on from Facebook. I agree that we cannot deactivate social media totally and it will be dumb if we do that. Yet, we also should be aware of how much we neglect in real life because our eyes are always on our phones.
So, I want all of you to talk more, laugh more and communicate with each other in real life rather than focusing on our phones, especially with our parents. Even if elders these days also enjoy using phones, that doesn’t mean that they don’t like to talk with us. They will be more than happy to talk with their younger generations. All in all, it is good to keep up to date with modern age but please don’t neglect those who are always beside us. After all, human are more important than technology.
Therefore, you should go on dates with your best friends, friends, boyfriend or girlfriend and family, and pay attention to them. All your social media activities can wait until you get free time. Interacting with people and enjoying your life is more important than counting how many Like you get from a Facebook or Instagram post. So, put down your phones and enjoy your life to the fullest.
Mohinga Matters 