Nowadays social networks actually prevent people from being social and networking
It was a few weeks ago that I took a family trip in the Netherlands and Belgium. My mother is very passionate about traveling and seeing as much as possible. For this trip she chose many cities and made me dream about a new road trip adventure. Unfortunately, while making our regular before trip research, it turned out that it would be more expensive to rent a car than to just take the train.
While still in Brussels I saw a video on youtube about the online generation. The message was loud and clear: “Look up!” and start communicating the old way not through all the gadgets. It did open my eyes a bit, but still. It’s not the first video of this kind I’ve seen. There is also the one that shows how our social media life actually makes us lonely or the one called “I forgot my phone“. I keep saying it’s hard to talk to people again. If you attempt to start a conversation with a stranger that is around my age, I might be totally ignored or just look like a weirdo. So I thought to myself how would this even be possible, to look up when everybody is busy with all their online stuff. Even at work when we sometimes take a break from our laptops, I have colleagues who keep checking up Facebook on their phones. Never mind… The thing is I know it’s hard. It is our society, our generation or however you want to call it, but that is just a bad excuse. If we, as individuals, don’t step up against it, nothing will ever change.
It was on a Tuesday that we took the train to Harlem. I was tired and thought about listening to music. I chose a seat away from my parents. The train had wifi so I started surfing online. Suddenly a girl with her dog got on the train. They were looking for a seat and we made eye contact. She looked at me and asked if it would be ok for them to sit in front of me. I said yes, caressed the cute dog a bit and returned to my news feed. As I was scrolling I thought this would be a perfect moment to “look up”. This girl was busy taking care of the dog and wouldn’t listen to music or anything else. I choose to put down my earphones and lock my phone. Then I started asking her about the dog. I don’t know what breed of dog it was but it was very young and was crying because he didn’t like the train. We started talking. I am going to admit it, it was not easy and it was nice that she kept also asking various things. It was something new to me but I did enjoy it a lot. Even my parents jumped into our conversation. It was nothing big. We were just getting to know each other. She is a half American half Dutch woman who grew up in the States but moved to the Netherlands to study. Her dog was named Olive and her sister has a boyfriend who is from Romania. So she knew a bit about my country. Not sure why I am sharing this info about her, but let me ask you: what were the possibilities that there was a Romanian person around in her life? She got off the train 2 stations before our stop.
Time flew while we were talking. I really enjoyed the conversation and was thinking that I would have loved to get to know her better. It was my first time in a very long period that I actually met a stranger on my own. It felt amazing. I was so proud of myself that I took the courage to let go and get back to the basics.
I wanted to also try this in Romania but, unlike the girl on the train, the girl in front of me didn’t feel like talking. She said one or two things and then took out her laptop and watched a movie. I am not discouraged, I will keep pursuing it but I choose to share this with you because I really did learn a lot out of it.
In the end I want to leave you with some thoughts.
- Communication happens when we look into each other’s eyes not into a screen
- Whenever you meet someone new you just have to be yourself
- Start small for example: Visit your parents and/or grandparents and turn off your phone/ipad/laptop etc
- The adventures we remember are those we take offline
Challenge: Tomorrow morning when you wake up forget about your phone. Instead do all your morning routine and check it only when you leave the house.
Trust me sometimes less is more.
Get out and live!
And now that you are here, check also this infographic about social media and your health.
Cool! thats just my case of making friends :)) some of them for life! the first thing is to have the eye contact and smile!!!!
I agree on that 🙂 many of us seem to be to stressed nowadays and forget to smile.
Great to be reminded Stefania. Thank you. We certainly need to learn how to filter the useful stuff from the junk food information. Thanks 🙂
Thanks Paddy for the nice words.