Until death do us part…
Both the greatest revolutionary creation, and the world’s biggest detriment. Social media: Contemporary society’s worst fear.
Nomophobia: The phobia of being out of cellular phone contact. A fear that is ever present, and steadily growing within mainstream society. With this in mind, I wish to address the question of whether technology has taken a step too far. Is social media taking over our lives? Will death be the only thing that parts us from it?
The term nomophobia was coined in 2008, and is an abbreviation of no-mobile-phone-phobia. It describes the feelings of anxiety and stress one experiences upon losing or being away from their mobile phone. That feeling as your searching around your room, rummaging through your memories, scouring for the last place you left it. We’ve all felt it. The fear. When was the last time you turned your mobile phone off? A study showed that more than one in two of us will never switch off our phones, and that 58% of men and 47% of women suffer from this phobia.
Gone are the days of experiencing things in the moment, instead we obsess over getting the perfect picture, and we watch our experiences through tiny screens. We are so busy ensuring we have endless video recordings to look back on, we forget to look at what’s actually right in front of us. ‘I don’t remember seeing the concert, but at least I have videos to prove that I did’ a common phrase spouted by many. No longer do we hold up lighters, instead we hold our phone cameras up high, so our followers can see, even when we can’t. These days, I find myself counting down the minutes until I can see my favourite artists live in concert, only to spend the whole gig taking videos that I’ll never watch back. I have to tell myself to put my phone away and experience the moment. Social media has come too far: we are jeopardising our own experiences in order to preserve memories that we won’t even remember, because we spent the entire time glued to our phones.
Will we ever part from social media? I doubt it. Social media statistics show that in 2019, there were 3.5 billion social media users; that’s 45% of the world’s population, and this number is continuously rising. With numerous inventions of new technology and apps, social media is only becoming more accessible and more popular. Though it certainly encourages an element of repression, it can also be considered that social media does have a positive impact on the world we live in. With 45% of the world’s population having an online presence, social media allows us to connect to people we would never have access to otherwise. It incites togetherness as we form communities based on common interests, such as the hatred of Trump, and the love of avocados. Social media allows for a (digital) world of good, as it aids in the creation, foundation, and solidification of romantic relationships, as well as friendships. It also helps us all stay up to date with world news and informs us when there’s something we could be missing out on, like a good Netflix show or a new song.
Stalkers, though… I’m looking at You, Joe Goldberg. With the presence of social media comes the potential for social media stalkers, catfishes, and other online dangers. As the popular Netflix show, You, highlights, it is all too easy to find out all you could want to know about someone, from their digital footprint alone. The show follows protagonist Joe Goldberg as he obsesses over Beck, an attractive woman who makes the mistake of holding eye contact with him. Through social media alone, the show depicts how Joe discovers Beck’s address, her local brunch spot, her place of work and more. Though extreme, it does paint a clear picture of the looming dangers of social media, not only does it control our lives, but it also puts them at risk.
Is social media taking over our lives? I’m inclined to say yes. Rarely is a person seen without a phone in their hand: socialising online, while ignoring the people sitting right in front of them. We are so addicted to our phones that we’ve fashioned a national phobia of losing them. Our lives are series of tweets and uploads and we’re seemingly only able to enjoy real experiences if everyone else knows about it too. Will death be the only thing that parts us from social media? Again, I’m inclined to say yes. The rising popularity of social media is definitely not stopping any time soon. There has been a widespread normalisation of the digital, to the extent that those who do not conform to the online world are shunned from the real world. We’re living in a digital age, where it is easier to find out a stranger’s postcode than it is to shake someone’s hand, and that is pretty terrifying.
