Social
media has been developing extremely rapidly within fast few years. It has
brought us dozens and dozens of very useful ‘things’. People started
communicating daily while being miles away from each other, moreover, now
people can even see each other while being miles away. It’s almost like a dream
come true. If we start, we can name a lot of positive outcomes that social
media has brought, however...
I
was on a vacation with my family in Egypt. There was a restaurant where we had
breakfasts, lunches and dinners. When you are with a child, you have a little
time to look at others, but once I happened to sit there alone, so I started
observing people (as a sociologist, I love spotting other people and their
actions). There was a young couple sitting next to me. They looked like being
on a honeymoon, but the whole time I was observing, they were staring at their
phones and apparently reading some ‘amazingly interesting’ information. What is
the point of being together if meanwhile ‘being alone with the phone’? I looked around and
there were more people doing the same: couples, friends, families… ‘being alone
together’.
Then
I started taking photos (I’m posting some here and apologise in advance for crappy quality). As I mentioned before, I like
taking photos, but this was a different type of photography. I mainly had to
shoot with my cell phone (since big photo camera would look suspicious) and had
to pretend that I was just taking photos of scenery around me. At first I was
trying to be careful so they wouldn’t notice me, but then I realized, they
didn’t even see me. I was there, in front of them, taking their breakfast
photos and they didn’t even care, moreover, they didn’t even notice.
And that’s
when I realised, social media is not the means of communication or something
that made our lives easier, this is an illness, an addiction, an obsession…
Few
months ago I stopped using Facebook (unless I get a message from someone),
following Instagram or Twitter. At first it was hard. Suddenly, I had nothing to
do when I was waiting for something or someone, or every time I liked
something, I wanted to post it, wanted to write a status about it, wanted to
upload a photo and then get comments, likes… But later I started appreciating
everything around me more than before. For example, if I liked something,
instead of uploading the photo on Instagram, I would continue enjoying it. Or
if I had some free time, instead of reading useless information on Facebook, I
stared reading books…
The
scariest part of social media is not safety or security, is not NOT having
privacy, but rather is social isolation, addiction, inexistence of real life,
real friends, even real love.
My
mom showed me this video couple weeks ago - http://sfglobe.com/?id=686.
I think it is an amazing short clip that everyone should watch. As it’s said in
the video, stop reading, close your computer and go out, have your life.
I
wrote this article in hope that it will attract at least 1 person’s attention
and make him/her think about severity of the problem. If I do achieve it, I’ll
consider my mission accomplished.
Good luck to me and to all of you!!!
P.s.
preparing this article took my:
·
94 minutes on research and writing;
·
13 minutes on spying and taking photo;
·
4 minutes on distraction (Facebook and different
videos while doing research).
·
Total 111 minutes (I probably could have done
something more valuable during this time, but I think my mission is pretty
important as well). J
