Are We Together or Just Alone Together?

The world is so fast-paced and at our fingertips now that we no longer need to step outside to live a full social life. Now, people can fall in love, build a career, attend events, and play any kind of games right from their beds. With our phones, laptops, and an internet connection, they are enough to stay “connected” to the world today.

Of course, we all feel is a progress in our world. Everything is faster, easier, and more convenient, there's hardly traffic now, no need for dress codes and the stress of showing up physically. But we rarely stop to ask ourselves this, what would happen in a world where people are slowly preferring to stay indoors avoiding the real world?

It is very fair to say the online world has brought many good things. It has removed barriers that were there in the past. Now shy, disabled or busy people have access to a world they once couldn’t reach. Now, we have long distance relationships thriving well, remote work opportunities created and even for voices to be heard across the world.

The online world have become a support system for countless people but the problem starts when this “support” turns into “substitute” for the sociable and more human-like connections we all once had. If we notice, physical meetups are easier to cancel or replaced with a video call, eye contacts feels weird and silence, uncomfortable.

If this should continue without any action taken against it, the future could become a lonely place even when there are like millions of online connections. Imagine chatting with over 5000 people from your bed, and you look up your device to see an empty room with no one to talk to. Even for introverts, it will get lonelier for them.

At this pace we're going, we may raise generations who only know how to communicate through screens and they will struggle with face-to-face emotions. A world where people are technically connected but emotionally distant. The real danger is not technology itself, but the over dependence we have on it which must stop.

Reclaiming the physical is our way out: We need to be intentional. We don't have to delete our apps, we just have to bridge the gap by looking up over those apps. With the "phone down" rule every now and then, we get to focus better on the person next to us, smile at the person selling something to us, and we chat with neighbours.

One more thing we could do to save us from that lonely future, one I think I really need to do personally, is joining a team, a club or any space that requires physical meetups. I'm not sure which I'll go for yet but it's one of my plans for this year and make it one of my hobbies somehow. The internet is fun and great but let's use it to enhance our lives, not to hide from them.