Lost Connection A couple of nights ago, my friends invited me out to our favorite outdoor restaurant on the planet. We were surrounded by all the love in the world and latte art. I couldn’t imagine a better time, until I looked around and noticed the reflection of Instagram and Twitter gracing their youthful faces. The hues of blue brought me back to the reality of our little paradise. The table was silent and I realized that we were no longer communicating. I wondered if anyone had noticed. I counted the seconds, and eventually the minutes, until their online conversations were broken when our waiter brought out a tray of assorted cheeses and fruits. We had lost connection. Not with our LTE or our wifi, but with our conversation. In our technology
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One reason could be that our real life relationships are ending because of social media. According to Lee Rainie, director of internet, science and technology at Pew Research Center, 15% of adults ended their real life relationships because of a negative experience. We can no longer receive a continued positive relationship with someone we ended a relationship with, which is just one of the negative effects of social media on our in person relationships. Social Media addiction can also ruin our relationships with our real life friends. Social media addiction has become so widespread that there is even a measurable level of Facebook called the Beige Facebook addiction scale. Furthermore, 70 million Facebook users spent 233 million hours in April of 2009, according to Nielsen Online. Not to say that everyone around us who is on their phone is addicted to social media, but there is something to say when the majority of the public uses their phones on dates and social outings. In my family personally, we have had to create a rule where whomever touches their phone during dinner must wash the entirety of the dishes because of our social media usage. Issues facing social media users can also include losing out on face to face conversations. According to Bernard Guerney Jr., creator of the National Institute of Relationship Enhancement, online connections help us avoid face to face issues. This means that we are losing out on an opportunity to face some uncomfortable situation that may help us with our relationships later on in life. We are missing connections in person when we avoid experiencing them all together. Love letters could be sent out in hand written notes, and now they can be sent with a few emojis and an acronym. Besides missing out on real life awkward conditions, we can also be influenced to do things in social situations we
One reason could be that our real life relationships are ending because of social media. According to Lee Rainie, director of internet, science and technology at Pew Research Center, 15% of adults ended their real life relationships because of a negative experience. We can no longer receive a continued positive relationship with someone we ended a relationship with, which is just one of the negative effects of social media on our in person relationships. Social Media addiction can also ruin our relationships with our real life friends. Social media addiction has become so widespread that there is even a measurable level of Facebook called the Beige Facebook addiction scale. Furthermore, 70 million Facebook users spent 233 million hours in April of 2009, according to Nielsen Online. Not to say that everyone around us who is on their phone is addicted to social media, but there is something to say when the majority of the public uses their phones on dates and social outings. In my family personally, we have had to create a rule where whomever touches their phone during dinner must wash the entirety of the dishes because of our social media usage. Issues facing social media users can also include losing out on face to face conversations. According to Bernard Guerney Jr., creator of the National Institute of Relationship Enhancement, online connections help us avoid face to face issues. This means that we are losing out on an opportunity to face some uncomfortable situation that may help us with our relationships later on in life. We are missing connections in person when we avoid experiencing them all together. Love letters could be sent out in hand written notes, and now they can be sent with a few emojis and an acronym. Besides missing out on real life awkward conditions, we can also be influenced to do things in social situations we