We were waiting for our orders in a restaurant in El Nido when all of a sudden we were staring at her quietly as she taps away on her iPad. Then she noticed us.
“Uhm… Okay… I don’t want to be the anti-social here.” and she puts her iPad inside the bag. We all laughed how she delivered that line then all verbal conversations started from there. And we all lived happily ever after 12:01 AM.
Many times I would check my phone and by some unknown sociological force I end up being absorbed in my social-media-life that I forget to live life on where my physical body is.
In travel, I get to meet a lot of people – real physical living people. I get to have this time limited chance to get to know them and try to extract where my next big destination would be from their experience. But what if she was there and I was on Facebook? What if she was doing this weird chirping sound and I was on Twitter? What if she instantly walks away and I was on Instagram? I think I just lost my chance and I know I just earned some douchebag points.
It’s not only when I travel do I experience this/them. Many times I see this happening in reunions, gatherings, weddings and at the dinner table. I bet some of you may be reading this now while you’re physically in front of someone else.
Let me give you a lesson on information duration.
In social media what your friends or your “friends” post now will probably still be there later or tomorrow or next year! Facebook even made a Year in Review to summarize it for you. You can read it in as much time as you want.
In real life, you only have this limited time to get to know the people you are with. Some of them are in a hurry, so you only have 2-3 minutes. Some of them are just there for coffee/dinner, so that’s only a little more than an hour. And some you get to travel with, that’s around 2-3 days average. You do not have as much time as you want and each fleeting moment you can never go back.
I’m not saying that doing social media during real-life social events is a bad thing. (I do blogging, so I do it all the time.)Â Focusing mostly on social media during real-life social events for me is unacceptable. You know that you are on my unacceptable range when you go back home and you think more of what happened on your Facebook wall than what happened on the real life event itself.
Actually, I’m guilty of this that’s why sometimes I no longer bring my camera or phone when I go out. Now, I live mostly in real life so at the end of the day I could post an awesome Twitter status.
Being with friends, shaking hands, hugging, hearing how unique their laughs are and dining out can never be substituted by the terms LOL or XOXO. Â So if you ever see me staring quietly at you and you’re on your phone/tab, think that maybe I’m saying “Control yourself. Do not let social media control you.”
Disconnect to connect.
If you think I’m wrong about this or a portion of this tell me in the comments below. Maybe I’ll change my mind.
I certainly agree with you Josiah. This is the primary reason I’m not getting an iphone/tablet. Sure these things can help us a lot during travel, but at the same time, It would be hard to disconnect from our social media life.
Agree! Gadgets are really helpful but are also really distracting. I’m still a work in progress on not getting warped at my phone but I’m getting better at it. 🙂
A couple of years ago, I noticed that having convenient social media apps online all the time constantly tempt me to post about everything I can think of at every moment. I hated myself haha. I became one of those people who I hated for not having a life other than their social media life. So I stopped opening them while at work (where I wanted to rant every second) to avoid posting minute after minute. Now I rarely post, and it didn’t kill me at all.
However, my travel buddy (the Hobo who is a social media hater), thinks of me as a ‘slave to social media’ in spite of not being one in its true definition. Heck, I only post selfies once a month. Every time we’re on a trip, I hear him grunting when I take so much time adding filters to some photo to be posted in Instagram. Haha. I can’t help but share things that I think are really worth sharing ASAP! XD
Tumpak! Minsan kapag lumalabas ako, pinapatay ko muna ‘yung phone ko para hindi ako ma-temp na tignan every minute to check kung may nagtext. 🙂
Nice reflection, and realization! Let me add that I have seen people at (supposedly) romantic dates, yet tapping their time away. Even parents (esp children) doing this during their Sunday lunch outs.
But when my friends/family do this in front of my royal highness, I tell them so and threaten them I’d walk out (esp if am footing the bill hehe)!