Social media is a virtual form of interaction and is nothing compared to reality. Nothing!
By virtual I mean things that are not real. Here is a perfect example; you're playing a computer war game you experience excitement, frustration and tension, but you can never be injured.
Because of this convenience our real world interaction became a difficult task to grasp.
Meeting people face to face is hard. It requires too much facial expressions, body language, too many emotions.
Devices we use for virtual interaction do not require cognitive or emotional involvement like the real life does. It makes our interaction so much easier, doesn't it? We friend people on social media and like their activity on a daily basis, but when we meet them in reality we avoid saying hello. Worse, we pretend we don't see them.
You meet someone sad in person, you sympathize with them, you experience the sadness with them. Your body language, your touch, your facial expression all speak the truth. We forget how to interact in reality and choose to hide our emotions behind technology.
If you text a friend "Hi" and receive silence in response. You get paranoid, you check that the message was delivered and read. Your immediate thought process is that your friend is ignoring me, he or she is mad at you, does not want to speak to you, when in reality your friend is;
Read your message while driving and can not immediately answer.
Work. You know how we never have enough time to get all our work/ homework done? Your friends will finish her work without interruptions and get back to you.
The rest of life. Yes, people have fun too and likewise, you should have fun without texting too!
Our children need to understand the difference between face-to-face interaction and a virtual one.
It is important to talk about synchronized communication. Synchronized communication is communication that enables intensive interaction, immediate clarification, and discussion among all participants. When we interact face-to-face we know when to keep the pause and when to speak. We know if the other person is silent after you said something , then he or she is processing that information. In virtual communication synchronized communication is not possible.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has warned about the potential for negative effects of social media in young kids and teens, including cyber-bullying and "Facebook depression." But the same risks may be true for adults, across generations.
All this technology and social media it's addictive, triggers more sadness and less well-being, makes us compare our lives to other's which is mentally unhealthy, leads to jealousy, we keep coming back to social media thinking it will help.
It’s called ‘The Power of Provocateur’, and the inimitable Teyana Taylor shows us how it’s done, in the tempting allure of the yellow Anna set from the new season collection.