How has social media helped us?

While making it easier for us to be in touch, the irony is they are ruining our relationships and making us communicate less.

This week is the 10th anniversary of the Apple iPhone – the phone that practically introduced the smartphone and changed the way we live and work.

Apple’s ascent years ago to become the world’s most valuable company was the start of Microsoft’s decline in terms of its hold on operating systems.

I remember that time, I was attending a conference in the United States, I saw long lines outside stores as people were just excited to see it. At that time, there were already what you would call personal organizers--Blackberry, Palm, Nokia (with Symbians) and Microsoft organizers (which evolved from Windows CE, to Windows Pocket PC, to Windows Mobile, and finally to Windows Phone).

Windows phone used to capture almost a third of the smartphone market. Now, it holds less than two percent with Android and Iphones gaining dominance.

Glued to the screens

Now, everything is almost just a few taps of our fingertips--whether it’s answering email, or getting a dinner appointment, or playing group games, or even paying for something purchased.

There are a lot of criticisms that you can read on the internet – it makes us less smarter, and also less sensitive to everything that is happening around us.

Nowadays, when you get into trains and buses, everybody is not looking or talking to each other, they are just focused on their cell phones, whether it’s listening to music, reading a book, or playing games.

That’s not only happening in public places. Numerous pictures and posts have been taken and posted online that everybody in the family, in a dinner table, is not doing anything else but looking at their phones and tablets. They are purportedly making it easier for us to be in touch, but ironically, they are also now ruining our relationships and making us communicate less.

Artificial interaction

Now, we boast of “thousands” of friends in Facebook, and we are keeping in touch with former classmates or colleagues as never before.

We are chatting with them all the time, and greeting them “happy birthday”, but numerous studies reveal that the irony of it, is that the more online interactions the person has, the more online friends he has, and the more people he chats with, the lonelier he is in terms of “real” people interactions.

Some studies also show that we are becoming narcissistic, and more people are less happy with their lives. As seen online, everybody seems to be having a good time, visiting lots of great restaurants, and travelling to a lot of places. Is anybody working anymore? You don’t know, but social media like Facebook has become our platform where we posts some of our shiniest moments, and boast of what we were able to do , or go, such that when there is so much comparison, most people start to feel they are left out and be constantly reminded of the mundaneness of their lives.

Self-worth

Moreover, an increasing number of people feel pressured to constantly validate their popularity or worth based on the likes that they get from their posts, instead of measuring themselves more on important values like integrity or having long-term goals.

Of course, if Facebook is a gauge, it seems more and more people are having the time of their lives.

But, are we really better off or happier than we were 20 years ago?