To put it frankly, I want to see more people communicating face to face on a more frequent basis. Yes of course most of us will say that we do talk to people face to face everyday. Thats obvious seeing as how most of us have to work, and in most cases work with others. What I mean is with strangers. Is this dangerous? It can be of course. Although common sense is subjective, most people know what nieghborhood not to walk into looking for a new friend.
We can watch a live stream of a sunrise in Norway through our smart phones while laying in bed on the other side of the world. We get up to the minute news, sports, celebrity gossip, and politics at the finger tips of two-thirds of the worlds population. Two-thirds, of the worlds population connected through wireless technology and Gorilla Glass. Yet the majority of us who fall in the two-thirds category, are more disconnected than the other third.
Social Media has in fact played a huge roll in the education of the masses when it comes to us understanding and accepting the variations within us as a species . We have the ability to connect with native people of every country, and learn from them first hand. We have learned much from each other over the last two decades. We have made thousands to hundreds of thousands of friends whom we follow. Many of which we fall in like with.
I have been a social media user from the beginning. I love Social Media. As a person who travels a lot and stays at each location for a few months, I meet a wide range of people. Social media is my connection to those i leave behind. I love meeting new people face to face even more. Talking to random strangers is fun and energising. However I know this is not an easy task for many.
But why?
Why is it so hard for us to step out of our comfort zone? Why do we almost instinctively shy away from a stranger we see who is in need? Most of the time it is in situations where the stranger has dropped an item while carrying a hand full of groceries. Or my personal favourite, holding the door open for the person behind you.
I feel as though too much Social Media may have desensitized many of us to the world outside of Augmented Realities. We pour our hearts out to images and videos of people in need. However if we see it in person we then become the camera person. I saw a photo yesterday of a kid who had spilt his chocolate milk and was crying. His dad was standing above him taking photos of his kid crying. Rather than consoling the child.
Is social media the only one to blame? Of course not. The fear mongering and endless violence that is fed to our youth plays a major part as well.
Do away with Social Media sources and go back to tracking down a person by riding your bike to their house, then to the park, then to another friends house, only to find out that they went out of town? No way, but its ok to have a little more variety.
If you can find it within yourself to sit down with a stranger and have an unbiased conversation about each others life, share it. Talk openly about how your strange encounter made you feel, change you, what new perspective if any, were you awoken too. The purpose is to talk and share your encounters.
Thank you for reading,
NefelIbata