The pettiness that people exhibit on social media is extreme.
The lack of privacy and the overexposure, and the issues that plague our Facebook or Twitter accounts, all have become so extreme that violence and even death or suicide can be linked to social media. It seems like the more clothes you take off, the more likely it is that you get a “like” or a conversation.
The word “selfie” has been coined by this generation. It is self-focused and loses sight of the bigger things in life. We are already in the zombie apocalypse. The zombies are you and I, running around tagging pictures and posting things online, without even taking the time to see what the other person may actually think or feel. A “like” sums everything up, a re-tweet is the depth of our intimacy, and a true connection in this day and age requires a cell phone.
The social media world is irrelevant to the progress of a college student, or the day-to-day events that take place. As college students, we must find time to put down our tabs, cells and laptops and look around.
To do that involves taking a 24-hour challenge. So here are seven simple steps to reconnect to the world around you:
- Go off the grid
Go 24 hours without Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and other popular avenues of social media. Yes, you will live. The first part of reconnecting is to talk to your friends and family without using social media. Instead of sending a text or message, give the person you haven’t spoken to in forever a ring. If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, instead of tagging their pictures online, print one up and start a new photo album.
- Leave your cell phone at home
Will you die without your cell phone? No. You may be too young to remember, but I can recall a time when if you wanted to call someone you had to be at home or on a pay phone. As part of the 24 hours challenge, I challenge you to find a pay phone. They are almost non-existent in a world where even a homeless person will at least own a cell phone.
- Write someone a handwritten letter or note
When is the last time you checked your mail or got a handwritten letter from someone? When is the last time you sent a note to a friend that you have in class or see during passing? Try it out. As a child, I remember that people hardly emailed one another and typically sent “snail mail” to each another. Give it a try. Write in cursive, even.
- CALL someone from a landline
I remember that everyone used to have a landline, and these days, typically the owner of landline is someone’s grandmother. If you can’t stand the thought of being away from your phone for that long, leave it in your backpack or car when at school, at least. Give it a try, I promise that you can live through it.
- Take a walk around, and through, the BC campus
When I write or say this line, I don’t mean the daily hike from class to class, I mean on a day off, come to the campus, with a friend, family member, or pet. Actually take a walk. Map out your path, especially with all the construction going on, and stick to it if you want to. As a child one of my fondest memories was when my grandmother took me through the campus for a walk, where she wasn’t holding a tablet or cell phone. We talked, I asked tons of questions, and everything seemed magical. You can get an entirely different perspective of your campus by partaking in the joys of simple landscape. Feel the nature around you.
- Go on a lunch picnic with at least one person that you haven’t seen this month
Make the time for someone that matters in your life. If you can’t do a lunch picnic, grab some breakfast or dinner, and still eat outdoors. There are far too many days that pass and are spent inside eating at establishments. While on your picnic, the reconnection with the person you are with will be a level of intimacy not available for purchase, and definitely lacking in a tech-crazed world.
- Turn it off
Put down your tablet, hide your laptop, and shut the TV off. The worst part of the tech crazy world we live in is that there are so many forms of communication that we forget the intimacy of a person-to-person interaction. Read a book, and make it a physical novel that isn’t on your nook or Kindle. Pick up the good old paperback copy, since technology has run away with e-readers, the print copy is extremely inexpensive.
The challenge is really to see if you can move past the technology boom, reclaim the essence of nature, and explore the levels of intimacy that are ever so lacking in our personal relations with one another.