Are Genuine Friends What They Used To Be?

With the advent of social media, friends aren’t what they used to be. Everyone has a million friends on social media and they spend all day checking on them, but no one really communicates.

No one really takes the time to make a human connection because friends aren’t what they used to be. It is a like here and there or a share of a social media post. There’s very little if any interaction between friends on social media. After all, no one can be bothered with that time-consuming task.

People say they care about others, but they don’t show it. Communication is supposed to be alive and well, but it isn’t. Many claim to be loving and enlightened, but they are so unconscious when it comes to their friends. Friends aren’t what they used to be.

We all act as if we don’t do this, as we reach for our phones to check our social media accounts. Yes, hold on a minute please because I need to like this post. I need to retweet something or share something. Now, what were you saying about friends aren’t what they used to be?

We Can’t Put That Phone Down

Well, you know we are busy these days. We’ve can’t put that phone down. Of course, there’s the politics that we have to follow constantly should something new be said that we might miss. It doesn’t matter if there is no value in what we do. It is something we do because we’re on autopilot.

It is difficult to communicate. After all, a text message takes so much effort. Even a long-distance phone call is so hard to do because you’ve actually got to get your phone with unlimited talk time to dial the number. Friends aren’t what they used to be.

You do realize that those emojis take a lot of time to search and find the right one. I mean, that’s a lot of effort. What happens, after all, if you post the wrong emoji? Will your social media friends still like you?

Social Media & Boundaries & Friends

Plus, these days social media is about obliterating the normal boundaries of civilization and sharing everything that most don’t need to see. It is about saturating what we share with pictures of ourselves and the food we eat because no one out there has ever seen that before. No one out there has ever eaten food in a restaurant or at home before. We definitely need to share these things.

We’re reducing our basic connections and interactions to nothing more than an unconscious like or share on social media. There’s no heart-to-heart connection because friends aren’t what they used to be. They are just another follower, another tick on the number of connections we have.

I fear that we will wake up one of these days and we will be nothing more than a pixel on the screen or an emoji. Symbols will overtake basic communication. We’ll see each other as nothing more than an unconscious connection and we will lose ourselves in the process.

Social Media And Poor Communication Among Friends

Frankly, I’m tired of social media and poor communication and connections between people who claim to be friends. Friends aren’t what they used to be.

I miss the friends that would correspond and connect. I miss the friends that would not be too busy for you by degrading your friendship with a like and nothing more. What are we doing to each other? Is this what we all wish from civilization and humanity?

It isn’t even social media, either, because far too often people just don’t take the time to connect. They take others for granted and take on airs about themselves. I find that so sad. It breaks my heart to see it happen.

Maybe each and every one of us needs to take a hard look at ourselves and see how we are contributing to this. Let us not continue this thread. Let us not treat one another this way. It is demeaning and dehumanizing.

Maybe friends aren’t what they used to be, but surely we can stop this. Surely we can reverse it. If we created it, we can also change and create something new and better and more human. We can become more conscious if we so desire.

You Travel Not Alone

With this topic, I realize there are some that are true friends. This poem by Laura Corbeth reminds me of this.