Feeling alone from time to time is normal and can be good if it’s used correctly. Loneliness helps us to be creative, to take the time for self-care and being productive. But a long-term feeling of loneliness is a serious issue. A long termed loneliness will make it harder to make new friends, leading to social awkwardness/anxiety and it could result in depression.
In a survey, conducted by BBC, of more than 55,000 people, 40% of respondents aged 16-24 reported feeling lonely often or very often while there are 27% of people over 75. The Eden Project (2015) figured out that 68% of adults in the UK say they feel lonely often, always or sometimes. And, 83% of 18 to 34-year-olds experience loneliness. More than a quarter of respondents wish they had more friends and a third admit they find it harder to make friends than they did 10 years ago. The survey revealed that adults only spend 3% of their time having social interactions (face-to-face conversation, a phone call or chatting online). 43% of 18 to 34-year-olds wish they had more friends and 15% of young people who say they find it harder to make friends nowadays are ‘too scared’ to talk to people they don’t know.
It’s insane… How can such numbers exist when we live in a time with so many opportunities to connect with each other via all these social media websites? Also, how is it possible that only 3% of the time is spent engaging in social interactions (including social media) while most of us know that the average use of social media is higher than 3%? I’ll try to discuss this matter by pointing out the problems social media is causing in our communication.
One thing probably everybody knows: we see so much great content (though it is probably fake) and we compare it with what we have resulting in a feeling of not being good enough. Thoughts like these might appear: “If only I would be in better shape, worked harder at my job. If only I was worthy then I would have more friends.”. Doubting ourselves means not wanting to be ourselves. Not wanting to be ourselves means not wanting to be seen as ourselves from others. You might still go out but you probably will hide behind another version of yourself. In this way, one will start to feel lonely while interacting with others.
Another effect of the comparing is that we distance ourselves from the people having it ‘all together’. It just makes one who is struggling feel separate and different from that person having a ‘great life’. And, we also start to feel alone in the loneliness as we don’t see anyone else struggling on social media. Thinking that there must be something wrong with ourselves if we can’t enjoy life as others do on social media…
The people sharing this ‘great content’ just show the good parts of their life. It’s like removing all the bad sides of yourself leaving just the good stuff for the gram. Now you have two personalities: the good Insta-you and the real-life-you with both good and bad moments. It’s hard now to separate Insta-you and real-life-you. Everybody knows the upbeat you from Instagram now that’s why you can’t show your unhappy side in real life… Using social media to post and share can result in creating another life and creating another life means to mostly leave the other life behind or having to hide it.
By the way, the best Instagrams are the most lonely. You’ll see activities that photograph well instead of activities that are meaningful. Cause to look good is more important than having a good time on Insta…
Another aspect is the difference between social media and real-life interaction. I would describe social media interaction as a filtered interaction. There are a couple of components missing depending on whether you are chatting, doing a voice or video chat.
While you are (text) chatting you don’t see the other person. There are no facial expressions, gesturing and different tones. Not only that, but you can also hide your feelings behind emojis. When you are upset you can just answer with an “ok :)”. There is also a delay between messages. Sometimes an answer will come after seconds and other times it will take a few hours (Just now I thought about writing “a few days” but that felt too long for me. Isn’t this crazy? We expect others to answer so fast!). This delay between messages can lead you or the other person to forget to answer. A good point of this is that you have more time to answer. You can give a more thoughtful response.
During a voice chat, you have the differences in tones and you shouldn’t have a delay between answers unless you have bad reception. The facial expressions and gesturing are still missing though. And while video chatting you almost have it all. You can’t observe the whole room though.
When you get used to only text chatting, for example, you could find it hard to read emotions in face-to-face talk. Not being used to hearing the different tones leading to not realizing an upset, angry or sad tone. You also might find it hard to formulate sentences in such a short time. Reading the room is part of face-to-face conversations as well which can be hard if you are used to communicate from your own four walls.
We tend to start watching a Youtube video… oh and there is this video which they recommend me and another one. Or the times in the morning in which we start to scroll through the Instagram feed. Aimlessly scrolling and scrolling and scrolling until we finally realize how much time went by.
We take so much content into ourselves but mostly we don’t share it or talk about it. We have such a high content overload and combined with the anonymity of social media we often keep it to ourselves. Not processing the stuff we saw and read. With the anonymity of social media, it is easier to distance ourselves from others. Like the times when you don’t like a picture cause then the person knows. Or not sharing a certain topic you read as you don’t want people to know that you think about that stuff.
And last but not least there is the social media addiction. This is where all of it comes together: the comparing, living a social media life and a real life, filtered communication, content overload and anonymity.
There are so many other things happening: Instead of talking to our friends right next to us we often tend to pick up our phones. Sometimes we flee into the realm of social media instead of dealing with the situation we are in. Having so many friends on Facebook but with how many would we meet for a cup of coffee?
But we can not blame it all on social media. We can use social media for good. We can talk about all different kind of topics with all different kind of people. We can share our experiences and thoughts. We can connect with others to a certain level of intimacy. Interacting with friends is faster. Sharing content… There is so much good that can be done with social media. It’s up to us to use social media in a beneficial way.
I wrote this post to tell you the problems I see which social media can cause in our communication and thinking. Knowing the problem is half the solution. Now you can start to think about it: How do you see it? Do you see these tendencies in your life? What’s your way dealing with it?
I can not give you the answer to solving these problems. There are many ways to solve a problem. For this problem, you could stop using social media which probably cause many other problems. I for myself try to use social media less. Meditating in the morning and evening is a social media detox for me. I usually meditate 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night. I take deep breaths in and exhale. In the morning I think what I want to do that day and at night I think of what I accomplished. These thoughts keep me focused. I am less distracted and I dont have to check my phone that often. Yea, that’s what I am doing. Let me know what kind of problems you see and how you deal with them!
khoala sees the world 