I have seen a few blog posts and facebook statuses this last week which advocates spending less time on or giving up social media and chat apps on your phone. I have read and understood and related to all of their reasons for saying so but I'm not convinced.
 |
| Picture by Ryan McGuire. |
I would argue that things were not all that different before smartphones. Before we had smartphones, we were just as isolated and bad at face-to-face communication, we just had other mediums to escape to. We had our noses stuck in magazines, our earphones plugged into Walkmans and our eyes glued to our televisions.
Before tablets, notebooks and laptops, we were browsing chatrooms and websites on our PC's and we didn't necessarily spend less time online. I recall that as a teenager, my mother had a hard time getting me to agree to go out of the house. I rather wanted to spend my time with my online friends or lie on my bed talking to my girl friends on the telephone. Now, at least, a parent can drag their reluctant teenagers along with the prospect that they can bring along their friends inside their phones.
I believe that if someone is outgoing and likes people and social interaction, they will go out, interact with people and socialise without letting their phones get in the way but for the introverts who would not have been communicating up a storm out in the "real world" anyway, I say let them type away at their phones if that is how they make friends.
Contrary to what others are saying, social media and chat apps bring me closer to my family and I actually speak more to them than I probably would have without. I can share an inspirational quote or a cute picture with them and quickly send an "I miss you" when my I'm thinking of them.
It is true that there was an incident the other day where I was so glued to my phone while walking down an aisle in the shops the other day that I nearly knocked a shelf over but I was quickly checking in on how my friend's pregnancy ultrasound had gone. Even if I had sent all the cans on the shelf flying, it would have been worth seeing the tiny white blimp on the black blurry ultrasound picture.
This does not excuse bad manners. We still need to look people in the eye when speaking to them and acknowledge their presence but just because we keep in touch with our friends, wish them happy birthdays and share funny pictures online, does not mean our love and friendships are not real or that we'll lose the ability to communicate.
Disclaimer: I do not disregard research on the effect of social media and smartphones on society and have no supporting data or statistics to back up my opinions. All of the views in this post are my own and merely opinions based on my own experiences and observations.
