Do you remember the time, when the first handy cell phones got common? Do you remember the reactions from people when in the public transportation service (Bus, Train, Tram etc.) others phoned and talked about private things? I remember them quite well. And this was not a long time ago. Let’s speak of 20 years. Here and there, where people got aware of other persons talking on their phone, signs of quiet indignation came up. People complained like „look, how serious and important this person must take itself to talk about private stuff in the public“. As cell phones became more and more popular, and even greatest opponents possessed one, these public outrages became increasingly rare. We didn’t really pay attention anymore if in public people tell their partners on the phone what they ate today. And at the same time, as we adopted and multiplied this behavior, we gave up parts of our privacy for the amenity of being able to communicate with close persons, whenever we are now enabled to do so.
Throughout human history, privacy has been a rare phenomenon. Only in a few civilzations the phenomenon of privacy appeared, and there mostly for the illustrious and wealthy. An important condition for the development of privacy was the increasing reduction of population poverty. Especially after the time of the WW2, the economies of the Western world began to thrive and people were able to live independently and away from their families. Nowadays, the almost total absence of privacy can only be found at a few indigenous people.
In the meantime, arrived in the age of digitization, we have been experiencing for more than ten years now, how the rapid development and distribution of social media platforms such as Facebook influence our social interactions with each other. For a big part of our time, that communication happens now online through such platforms.
And that finally leads me to my thoughts and questions. With all these platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and yes, even Steemit, people increasingly tend to „update their status“ with self-portraits, funny pictures etc, constantly informing their peer-group and others what they are doing right now.
I am far from critically evaluating this behavior, respectively judging people (even if I use the term "drowning" in my title). Of course, I also do selfies occasionally. At these times it would be a pretty abnormal to never have done it, no? However, I wonder if we as a society are not socially impoverishing by some behavior patterns.
This seems paradoxical: social impoverishment, where we seem to communicate more with each other than ever before? However, the key question for me is whether the quality of communication and, concomitantly, that of our social relationships is affected by the fact that we spend most of our time communicating online with each other. What did we (non-digital-natives) do earlier in the time where we now communicate online and inform our peer groups about our status and our daily routine? Did we educate ourselves more, read a book, did we watch a movie with our partner, did we go out? Have we invested more quality time in ourselves and our social relationships? Is narcissism (essentially anti-social-behavior) an inclination that lives in all of us, and where the degree of it determines if it is "healthy" or not? Do social media platforms and additional applications on our communication tools even encourage this anti-social behavior? I have not found definite answers on that myself, only assumptions, and I would be very interested to hear opinions on that.