By Julia Fernandes

Recently on Quora, I came across something very interesting. A man who attended a party had this to say:

In his words: “Most of the girls and boys were busy in clicking selfies. Girls were talking less and pouting more. One of my friends took a lot of selfies with virtually everyone in that party, did not talk much to anyone and the next day, I saw a 20 plus pics of the party on his Facebook page with this caption, “Had a lot of fun at the party last night”.

Now, I have a question to ask here, what fun? Is only taking selfies and posting them online considered as fun? What about human touch and interaction?

This trend of taking a lot of selfies during public gatherings, ignoring human interaction and then living in fake nostalgia later on disgusts me the most.”

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I have noticed this trend myself. Whenever I visit the outdoors with my folks, it’s not even two minutes and cell phones are fished out with the order: Let’s click selfies. When I see the pics next day on social media, I am amused because there is no story behind that moment; no memory, no fun…nothing at all! Just a click…

Between deleting my social media accounts frequently, honestly speaking, over the years I have struggled to find the right balance between the real world and the virtual world trying my best not to allow the latter to take over the former.

Life in the ‘90s had its own charm. We were happier, peaceful, and less indulged in the lives of strangers. Everything was more private. From vacations to new homes to heartbreak, every milestone we experienced was personal and not for public consumption.

If somebody was really interested in you, they would reach out to you, contact you and get to know you personally. Today, I see a trend of people trying more to figure you inside out rather than make the effort of knowing you personally. When we had issues, we resolved them by talking one-on-one. Today, we put cryptic posts, status, stories (even am guilty of doing this).

In a supposedly social world, we may have lost the ability to communicate in a healthy and direct way. Life before social media held a sense of privacy and peacefulness that most people today don’t have.

Here are some deep soul searching questions to ask:

Are we getting addicted to likes, emojis, and comments?

Are we looking for validation from people we have never even met in real life?

Are we guilty of sharing our problems, successes and personal events with the public hoping to draw somebody’s attention?

Do we fall in love with a person’s public persona?

Do we end up in one sided conversations or delusional affections?

Meeting somebody in person, hearing a person’s voice, or even a video call or writing a letter (postal services are dead in my area), one to one conversations are my preferred modes of interaction. Atleast, it gives you a sense of Touch of reality.

No matter how many friends or followers you have, in the end, all that matters is a real shoulder to lean and cry on, a real person to love and be loved in return.

Unless you are a public figure and you need social media to promote your work or business, I believe, I might be able to regain the peace, simplicity, realism and charm of the 90s life back at the press of a DELETE button.

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