We live now in a virtual world network. So many people spend their time on various social networking sites on the Internet, such as Facebook, Path, Instagram, and so on. These various sites are the main source of information. It is not even an exaggeration to say that these sites are now the main educational media for so many people in the world today.
With the help of websites in this virtual world, people feel that they are brought closer to one another. They feel close to friends and family, even though they are separated by distance and time. Social and political activists even use these sites to spread their mission and views. However, is the relationship created through these virtual world sites a quality relationship?
Social Shallow
We often see people gathered in a place, but they are busy alone with their respective phones. They are together, but not together. They are both near and far. Their bodies are in the same place. However, their minds were thousands, even hundreds of thousands of kilometers apart.
The community in the everyday world is separated, when precisely the community in the virtual world grows. People are more comfortable with computer screens than with the faces of their friends, or their families. Communication becomes so shallow because it is limited to a few sentences on a computer screen or cellphone which often creates misunderstandings. Gestures and facial expressions, which are an important part of human communication, are now being forgotten.
Sites in this virtual world, which are also referred to as social networks, are a form of separating relationships. They create pseudo relationships that destroy true human relationships. They break the relationship between humans. They make human relationships superficial and, often, full of falsehoods and lies.
What is created then is a disconnect between humans. True communication is replaced by false and pseudo communication. Indifference was created. People are more busy chasing the latest gossip, than thinking about the challenges of life together.
People then experience switching issues continuously. People are more busy editing the latest food photos, than working together to reduce poverty and injustice in different parts of the world. People are more hooked on the latest electronic goods, than on the wars and suffering their neighbors are suffering. People are displaced from the essentials of life and are led like goats into the realm of ignorance and banishment in the form of unlimited consumption.
Solidarity has become an almost extinct word. Society experiences atomization and distraction without stopping. True communities to drive change are divided. Communities of gossip and consumer goods worshipers thrive, like mushrooms in the rainy season. If solidarity dies, then cooperation between people to overcome various challenges together will also eventually die.
New problems were created. The social gap between the rich and the poor in various parts of the world is now getting bigger. The greedy corporate movement in various parts of the world now seems out of control. Imperceptibly, humankind is now moving happily and foolishly towards its destruction, without even realizing it.
Decided to Connect
When communication patterns between humans become superficial and false, then humans who develop in such communication patterns will become superficial and false. Therefore, existing communication patterns must be changed. In the context of the crowd of social networking sites with information suppression and falsification, we need to cut ourselves off from all of that, so that we can build true communication. We need to cut the network precisely to build a true network.
Breaking away from deceptive and superfluous social networks keeps us away from the situation. Distance will encourage deeper reflection and analysis. From here will be created wisdom. Wisdom helps us critically sort the various available information, and make the best decisions out of all the possibilities.
In the end, wouldn't life be so empty and shallow, if it was filled with unlimited consumption and news full of lies?
