Are smartphones making us lonely?

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If you haven’t noticed people have been using their cellphones more lately, you might be too busy using your cellphone to notice. Bus stops are just as quiet as the library. Many students walk around campus with their headphones in while simultaneously looking at their phones. This type of behavior may be increasingly common, but is it the kind of world we want for ourselves?

There is likely a link between this impulsive social media use and declining states of interpersonal communication. According to a recent study at the University of Michigan, empathy among college students has been in a steady decline since 2000. Sara Konrath, the leading researcher in the study, believes that this trend has to do with the growing dependence on social media for communication rather than face to face conversations.

During her TED talk, “ Connected, but Alone,” expert, Sherry Turkle, argues that this is a problem worth addressing. As a professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT, Turkle noticed an increasing social disconnect alongside the growing technological connection we are experiencing through social media and texting. To Sherry, the root of the issue seems to stem from a lack of control.

“The thing that matters most to people is control over where they put their attention,” said Turkle.

Why sit in awkward silence at a bus stop when you can check your Facebook, Twitter, text messages, or email?

Rather than dealing with solitude, connecting through phones and computers enables us to lose the self-conscious anxiety felt during loneliness or face to face conversation. Social media erases the worry of stutters, pauses, or silences during a conversation, but these little interpersonal faults are how we truly get to know each other.

“Being alone feels like a problem that needs to be solved,” said Turkle.

Through social media, we can edit and perfect a digital representation of ourselves. We can view our online self through the eyes of someone else by just clicking on our page. But this isn’t actually who we are. By committing too much time and energy to this “representation,” we may lose our ability to self-reflect on our true identity.

For so many of us, the art of conversation is being neglected for the sake of “connecting” through social media, which is leading to more disconnection. We never learn how to reach out to others around us for conversation, or how to be alone.  The ability to “just be” has been replaced by impulsive phone use. By trying to escape loneliness, we create a vicious cycle of feeling alone.

For some, looking down at the small screen in our palm is an escape from reality. We are lonely and desperate for intimacy, while at the same time fearful. We have little control in our lives. Focusing on our phones is an attempt to assert control over the uncontrollable.

 We have  become less concerned with the lives of others because we are so infatuated with our own social networks. A University of Michigan study shows that today’s college students show 40% less empathy than students from the 1980’s and 1990’s. How can we care about someone less fortunate when we’re too busy checking our Facebook and Twitter accounts? The future of interpersonal communication could truly be at risk if this trend continues.

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