Call Your Friends Instead of Stalking Them on Social Media
Social media shouldn’t replace a phone conversation or seeing someone in person
Lately, I’ve been finding myself saying no to plans with friends more often. A majority of the reasoning behind that is because I’ve been spending a lot of time with family, attending major life events, and have been generally busy with my usual day-to-day commitments (which mostly includes work and marathon training).
Then, if and when my schedule actually does free up, all I want to do is relax. I don’t feel like squeezing in any new plans or catching up, I just want to spend time with myself — which I know sounds horrible, but frankly, it’s the truth. And ironically, the time that I spend “alone” entails stalking other people on social media.
In our current day and age, social media has given us the grand luxury of knowing exactly what people are up to without actually speaking to them. Or if we do ask someone, “How was your weekend?”, there’s no mystery or anticipation of their answer because we’ve likely already watched their Instagram story or saw the latest update on their social feed — We’re constantly in the know as long as people are continuing to give us insight into their lives.
However, the problem with that is we’re becoming increasingly reliant on those updates and much lazier in actually reaching out to our friends to check on how they’re really doing.
But, social media only allows us to see what the person on the other ends wants to us to see — It only shows us how other people want to portray themselves. And that’s absolutely no excuse for us to do our due diligence as friends by making an effort to have a real life conversation with them.
It’s becoming more common for many of us to avoid reaching out to people due to the fact that we are already “caught up” based on what we see online. I, myself, am guilty of putting off a phone call or text because I think that I already know the whole story when the truth is, I probably don’t.
We need to start calling our friends again instead of stalking them on social media.
We need to see our friends in person as opposed to liking their photos online. We need to quit taking shortcuts in our friendships and remember that we still need to physically and emotionally show up for our friends in order for it to be a real, functioning relationship.
Social media shouldn’t replace a phone conversation or seeing someone in-person. It’s not a substitute for getting information first-hand or keeping in touch.
So, stop being lazy, pick up the phone, and let your friends know that you still genuinely care about what’s going on in their lives, regardless of how much they post (or don’t post) on social media.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this article, check out “The Importance of Human Interaction in the Age of Technology”
