Social media...

Constantly connected, constantly checking the news or the news feed on all our social media accounts, we are never at rest. What happened to the days of waiting for your friend at a restaurant and looking around at people, at the world and the mother trying to calm her crying baby, or at the couple that is on their first date trying to make conversation with their nervous giggles and laughs or the poor man standing by the entrance asking for change, what happened to watching and living life rather than our cellphones. We are on our cellphones every spare minute of our life. We never watch the sky or the birds or embrace this beautiful world that God has so kindly created. 

Constantly connected, constantly on the move. Looking at our friends travel pictures and envying them or following celebrities and again, envying them. Do we ever feel happy after we look at our phones? Do we ever feel more grateful or at peace?  

Poor eye sight, white hair, stress, depression, ADD, troubled sleep or no sleep at all, poor health and toxic habits, that’s what we have become today. Either we work too much or either we work too little. Balance, what does that mean? This generation and the generation after is going to find it very difficult to be kind to strangers, love unconditionally and be at peace with oneself.

To me, technology affects two areas of our life: our personal lives and our professional lives. Let’s address the first for now.  

Our personal lives.. we meet on tinder, we date on WhatsApp, we send love letters on snapchat, we make our ex jealous on Instagram, we post our accomplishments on Facebook. We sure live a wonderful life. There is nothing wrong with social media as long as it is done in moderation. Once a day is enough to keep up with our social lives on social media. We don’t need to know what our friends that we haven’t spoken to in years are doing. We just need to know what our close loved ones are doing and how we can be a part of their lives. We don’t need to brag and post about how wonderful our life is either, because guess what, if you are having a great time you will forget to post it on social media because you will be too busy enjoying and living in the moment. 

I was a slave to social media once. It was a sick addiction and then I realized I am missing out on my life and one day I will wake up from my long social media sleep and realize that if I had kept my phone down that day when I was waiting for my friend maybe I would have met a new friend or brightened up someone's day with a smile.

Being on your phone all day on social media not only ruins your personal life and the relationship you have with your loved ones that are physically around you but also makes you stupid. You don't learn anything, your attention span becomes close to zero, it reduces your ability to learn anything in future, your language deteriorates, you become stupid just plain stupid. 

So I say keep your phones down every chance that you get. Let it not be the last thing you see  before you go to bed and let it not be the first thing you see in the morning.  

Live, look up from those cursed screens and watch the world around you, be in it, be active in your loved ones life not on social media. Don’t let life pass you by.