The world we live in today has become so digitised that many of us are missing out on the good old ways of living in the real world.
Imagine what happens if there’s no Internet access on your phone for just a day. It feels like you are slipping away into oblivion and losing touch with the world around you.
We have become so attached to social media yet so disconnected from the very things that matter most. Like having real conversations, real relationships premised on real love and making time to care for and about one another.
Social media makes it so easy to make friends yet almost impossible to make ourselves out in real life sometimes (Well sometimes).
I went out to buy smoothie from a vendor on the oxford street, Osu in Accra, Ghana the other day and met someone in the same smoothie place also placing an order. I looked at her a few times because she looked too familiar. I mustered courage unlike my usual self to enquire where I knew her from and she embarrassingly seemed to have no clue who I was. I then pulled a few rabbits and voila! We made each other out. We were good virtual friends from the digital book full of faces called Facebook. After a few laughs and from that day at least we both discovered we were actual humans and not robots.
This episode got me thinking…
We are swept away by 10000 likes and many followers on social media who admire us sometimes for who or what we are not yet neglect the few who know, accept, and care and love us for who we really are.
Best looks on social media have become a measure of happiness and swag. (Hahahahahaha…What you see is not always what you get. Don’t deceive yourself…sometimes the more you look the less you see).
Social Media has become an outlet for many to share their thoughts (like I am humbly doing), educate the world on new technological and scientific discoveries, expose crime and evil, mobilise support for justice, seek support for the needy, show off and also sometimes display all kinds of madness too.
For those who have been carried away by the make-belief social media quick rise to fame lifestyle, moral principles are sacrificed, cultural and family values are ignored and so on leading to the destruction of reputations, crashed relationships and even broken down marriages.
But for those who have mastered the art of using them (Technology and Social Media) are using it to amplify real values and principles and are touching lives, restoring hope, lifting up souls, helping to restore sanity in marriages and relationships and many more.
The illusion of digital human connectivity is leading to real human isolation in many cases. Evident in the fact people prefer to chat with ten friends online than have meaningful conversations with that person sitting right beside them.
Well, just like water and fire, social media and technology can be good servants but at the same time bad masters and I strongly believe that there is more to hope for than to fear.
Look around you and begin to pay attention and appreciate the real people in the real world around you because that is where real life happens.
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