Technology is something that can’t be categorized in one box. It has many layers that you must slowly unravel through time and experience. Think of it like an endless onion with many layers. Among the multitude of questions that come up when I use technology, I often wonder: does technology make us lonely? It depends on your perspective. I see technology as a haven, a place where I can escape the harsh reality of the world, where I can live in my fantasies, seeing nothing but good. Through technology, I find communities of people who think like me. People who understand who I am, through the lens I allow them to see.
Choosing what social media communities I interact with and what I post makes me feel like I am in control, even though it is online, through a device. My sense of loneliness disappears, even though it might appear to others that I am alone in a room. The outside world is blocked off and happiness is brought to me; something I was unable to get when I was in the real world. Society turned its back on me because I didn’t fit into the norms that they set up for me. What people fail to see is that I don’t lack communication or social skills, I just communicate and express myself differently than them. Technology has created a faster way for humans to communicate. However, people don’t see or try to see another’s point of view. They see only themselves and how something affects them. I guess you can’t blame them because the mind of another can only be accessed by its owner.
When I choose to step out of the view that I hold and see a different picture I begin to see an entirely different story. Others might see a person who won’t open up to anyone, someone who has shut the whole world out, blinded by a screen and the secrets it holds.
From another perspective, they see someone who has completely ignored life. Someone else might see someone who is constantly checking in on what a stranger thought about a post, about how many likes they got. They don’t see the entire story; they only see someone who has been consumed by a screen.
I’ll wonder forever: Does social media truly make you alone? I think the question should be: Are we consumed by social media? In that case, the answer is yes. As a society, we depend on technology. Everything revolves around it. Some might say they don’t depend on tech, but those tend to be the same people who constantly worry about the youth who are deadpanned on a device. They say they don’t care for technology, yet they constantly preach about the topic.
Technology consumes everyone differently, but it all leads back to the culprit they constantly convict.
The issue isn’t whether or not technology makes you feel alone. It’s that the topic of technology will never die down. So many different people, so many generations, and so many cultures all have different opinions. The vicious cycle continues. This leads to the continuation of people being consumed by what we all know as technology. We will forever need technology, and technology will forever need us.
