Disconnected in the Digital Age: The Impact of Social Media on Real-World Interactions

In today’s society, social media has revolutionized the way that we connect and communicate with others. Think of how many times you have been out somewhere, and you look over and there is a full group of people who are all sitting together, each one of them on their phones. I know that I have personally seen this more times than I can count, as well as being in a situation like this myself. As social media grows, and technology becomes more prevalent in our lives, it is very apparent that you can see it start to decrease the number of real-world interactions people have with one another. COVID-19 was also a big reason for this since everything became virtual for a good two and a half years, but now that life is back to normal, why are we still letting technology be our main source of communication?

Of course, there are benefits to this, such as being able to connect with people around the world and having access to diverse perspectives, but it also reduces people’s motivation to invest in face-to-face interactions and creating genuine connections. This can result in increased feelings of isolation and loneliness since online interactions can never fully replace real-world connections with other people. It can also cause people to lose their social skills, making them feel uncomfortable and nervous to go out and start meeting new people again. I am someone that thrives off of social interaction, so this has always been something that bothers me. If I could spend all of my time being out in the world and meeting new people every day, I 100% would. My whole life, my family and friends have always referred to me as the social one of the group, so when I see people start to rely more and more on technology to connect with other people, it makes me nervous that when I have kids, they are not going to rely too much on social media and not learn how to build genuine relationships with people face-to-face like we were able to. 

Do you ever find yourself getting lost in your phone so much that you begin feeling disconnected from the real world?