After decades of ‘every man for himself,’ we are seeing the fallout. Disconnection. Families shattered. Community is obsolete. Friends are someone who liked your post. Connection used to mean something before technology took over. Connection was genuine and real, not just a symbol on your phone telling you the Wi-Fi is out. Technology has taken the humanness out of connection.

How has it changed humanity?
As a whole we are more self-centered than ever. With selfies, celebrities, plastic surgery and things such as ‘likes’ and subscriptions to follow our walk a day everyday life… it’s quite apparent that things have gone terribly wrong. There are the ideologies that are at the forefront of everyday life unless you have set about avoiding them. Knowing where we are starting from, what can we do to turn this around?

Focus on ourselves but in a conscious healing sort of way. Focus on healing so we can begin to connect with one another again and rebuild communities. There’s a silent epidemic that has been at play for many years now, loneliness.
I talk to a lot of people who tell me they’re happy on their own, I’m one of them but if I’m being honest, it would be great to have other people around or even a partner to share life with. But why don’t we, why don’t I have those things?

I think it’s a matter of finding people who recognize that we’re all different and come from different backgrounds and life experiences. Social media has trained us to shoot off at the mouth about everything and have no mercy about it either. We have lost a lot compassion through social media but I believe with conscious effort, we can regain it. We need to go back to respecting other people’s lives, their opinions and nuances— also without the need to shove it down other people’s throats either.

The catch 22 is that we have access to more information than ever, it’s overwhelming to our nervous systems, we just don’t think of it that way but it is. There has been much debate as to whether or not it has been intentionally designed that way as well. Having access to this much information if used as a tool can be beneficial but the way we have been using it, it has had destructive effects on our ability to interact with human’s face to face, sober or without other substances. With the way that algorithms work, if you have demonstrated that you feel a certain way about a subject, the algorithm brings more to you, placing you in an echo chamber, thus normalizing and inflating your belief beyond the consensus.

So many people are deficient in support from other humans, and the internet has become an easy place to turn to without the fuss of the humanness part of it. On the internet if someone is being too emotional, we can scroll on by. We can’t do that in real life. We feel extra pretty we can post a picture and get attention via likes because our partner didn’t say a word about it this morning. We are bypassing the challenges and nuances of human contact in exchange for sterile internet interactions. Which in turn spotlights real life challenges and conflict within relationships. It’s kind of like sitting in the lazy boy recliner for a year straight then being told to run a marathon. It’s not happening.

We didn’t think when we first got into this kind of technology, how it would take away from one of the most foundational pieces of humanity; connection. We’re living in the fall out. Men won’t want to date because they’re just done. Women don’t want to date because they’re fed up. Sure two people can manage to get together and make a baby but what will that baby be raised in? Broken home and an obsolete family system because we can’t unarm ourselves enough to heal this part of being human. It isn’t a choice to avoid this anymore, our fate as a species depends on it.

Tech has given us a place to unload the things about our lives that no one else sees because we don’t have a witness anymore. It at least gives us the illusion that someone is there and cares. Maybe some of the people do, hopefully they do. I don’t have anything against tech or social media but I can see and have even experienced the harmful side of it. Humanity as a species needs us to figure this out. We need to seek to understand one another again and be compassionate toward one another, have empathy again.

To lash out against someone on the internet because you think what they believe is wrong and stupid is a severe lack of empathy. You’re right, right? That makes one of my original points, self-centered.

The same spark that brought that “idiot” on the internet to life, is the same spark that lives within you. We need to have differences, it’s what creates this colorful world! Instead of de-facing someone and de-humanizing them, why aren’t we finding a way to work together to create a better world? This isn’t the real “enemy.” It isn’t one another. Recognizing that is one step in this process of having compassion and empathy and seeking real connection again.

“Waste no time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” Marcus Aurelius