In a recent survey of adults, On average 33 out of 100 adults find themselves alone, with Brazil and Turkey having the highest number of adults feeling alone.
-Survery by statisa
Does technology really make us more alone? Technology has progressed beyond our thoughts in the last couple of decades. Nowadays, it is almost impossible to live without the use of modern technology. Just with the use of smartphones, we can manage our bank accounts, chat with a customer service representative and even pay our bills. We don’t need to go shopping, just order anything online. If we are not going outside to do anything then obviously our face-to-face interaction with our peers is reducing day by day.
Now the question is that “Does technology make us more alone?” With the progress in technology, our person-to-person interaction became less. In this scenario of technological advancement, we did not notice that a deadly epidemic, i-e loneliness, is entering into our society or better to say in the world. We are not saying that solely technology is the reason for loneliness; we are just saying that technology is contributing much to this epidemic. With the use of social media platforms, we are more densely networked than ever, and still, the average of loneliness is increasing at a noticeable speed.
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Technology Makes us more alone
Technology and loneliness are moving side by side. If you are using a Smartphone then think about how many times you text or call your friends to discuss a plan of hanging out in person. We just give them a call or text them to keep in touch with them. We feel more connected with our friends through social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. But are these platforms making us more social or does technology make us more alone? Technology and especially mobile addiction are upgrading the human condition of loneliness. Real human interaction became an endangered resource, after fast-growing social media addiction.
Technology makes us more alone as we are dependent on using our laptops, tablets, and smartphones instead of face-to-face interactions with friends or family. As we are reducing our face-to-face interactions or communication, we are going to forget the use of our basic communication skills. We remain busy all the time on our smartphones. In this era, little kids are not playing with toys rather than they need a phone or tablet for entertainment. Believe me, I don’t want to grow up my children like this.
Technology and Loneliness
It’s our routine to check our favorite apps in short intervals of time, but still, we feel that something is not right. We are not satisfied and feel thirsty and hungry. There is a recently coined term “FOMO” i-e, “fear of missing out” you might have heard from the crypto guys a lot. Basically, this term means if you are busy with some task and didn’t check your social media account for ten minutes then you feel that you are missing something. After that, we start comparing our lives and ourselves with other people and how many likes we get on our Facebook or Instagram photos or other uploads.
Is it really important to see everything on your news feed without paying attention to who is sitting in front of you or who is constantly talking to you? We want to know exactly what is going on in the lives of other people through technology. This fact is really sad that we want to know about other people’s lives without focusing on our own lives, our relationships with people, and our own interactions. Now we feel normal in our lives even living without friends, family, or any real intimacy. This so-called advanced technology that is for our benefit is actually leading us to a risk where we will die one day of loneliness.
With the passage of time, we increase our dependency on technology and we are just giving up everything like having less-term relationships, having less sex, less meeting, and a steady decrease in person-to-person interaction. Loneliness is increasing on a global scale due to internet miss-reality and addiction to video games, social media, and time spent online.
When we play a game online like Fortnite or PUBG (Player Unknown Battlegrounds) without using our genuine name, there is no gain of information or real brain food. Another problem is that we don’t aware of our loneliness and we feel like we are connected with the world and this is more terrible.
Loneliness is considered more dangerous than a sedentary lifestyle, smoking, obesity, anxiety, depression, and working too much. Loneliness not only lowers life expectancy but also reduces the quality of life. Loneliness is dangerous for us on a biological and cardiological level and increases the risk of other things such as mental health vulnerabilities, dangerous behaviors, and suicide.
We invented the internet for the welfare and benefit of humanity but didn’t think that it might lead us to poorer mental health. With the advent of the internet in our lives, there is a number of reasons to believe that the quality of our lives has decreased. Loneliness is the signal that you are suffering from a lack of connection, just as thirst is the indication of your dehydration.
Does technology make us more alone facts?
Now we start realizing that our health is at stake due to the fatal mobile addiction and fake internet. Technology and loneliness is the topic that is now beginning to come to light. We know that technology and loneliness have some connection. Technology is contributing to our increasing loneliness. At the same time, we can’t live without technology. You can read more about how technology has changed our lives.
The point of thinking is that are we able to find some ways that can reduce our loneliness and at the same time we can also use technology. If we don’t start changing our behavior towards technology, we will become very alone in a short period of time. By using more and more technology, we are destroying our personal as well as social relationships. The addiction to checking our social media news feed after every five minutes is the worse thing.
It’s our time to change our routine a little bit and become less dependent on technology. We have to start meeting with our old friends, making plans for in-person hangouts, and giving time to our family. Enjoying the company of your friends, family and loved ones around you is requisite. It’s our mistake to push technology so much in our lives and we ourselves should solve this problem. Technology is not a bad thing, but we have to control it so that it cannot tear us apart as a society.
