Can you remember the last time you went outside and didn’t take a picture of it for Instagram? When was the last time you went out with your peers and did not look at your smartphone, not even once?

Nowadays we seem obsessed with sharing the perfect moment for everybody to see what we’re up to, but as we do that, are we missing the chance to stay in the moment without bothering or worrying about the likes, the comments, the number of people who’ll share your story or photograph, or even your text post about how you’re “out with mates for sushi!”? Why does it matter so much to us to share so many aspects of our lives? Why are we always partaking in this game of “who has the best friends/family/life”?

Let’s begin with something as small (yet huge) as our smartphones; that tiny aluminium or plastic object that we rely on in the daily that does almost everything for us. We can check the weather with it; we can connect with our mates and our families; we can check our e-mails, and, likewise, we can use it for entertainment. This artefact appears to be a dream object which we all need because of how useful it is, yet we seem to be using it for other things that aren’t as productive nor have much use for our daily lives and, this might be taking away precious time that we could be using for countless more productive tasks. Also, as it does almost everything for us, might we be actually losing basic skills that were developed prior to their excessive use?

I will not deny the advances that humans have made regarding technology, nor how beneficial said gadgets can be to us, bringing so many advantages to our lives… yet personally I’m fairly disappointed when it comes to social media and how we are using it.

First off, what am I implying when saying that we aren’t using technology or social media as well as we could? I believe that we have an unhealthy relationship with these gadgets because their primary objective was to connect others but have you ever thought that we might be too connected (as odd as it can seem)? So excessively connected that we are, ironically, disconnected?

Do you remember the time when “texting” a few times a day was perceived as being “addicted” to the old telephones we used to own? In today’s society, it’s not unusual at all to see a person on their phone for a prolonged period of time; parents let their children use their iPads as a way of preventing them from having a tantrum; kids as young as eight years old have their own smartphone and teenagers spend many hours on their phones on the daily.

Texting, texting, texting, and more texting. So many text messages a day… Have you ever felt like if you don’t text somebody at least once a day, the two of you are becoming “distant”? Why is that? Personally, I have been told by a few people that they feel like we’re not “as close as we once were” because we haven’t talked via iMessage, WhatsApp, Viber (whatever application is your favourite) for a couple of days. Why should this mean that I don’t like the person as much anymore? Can’t it just mean that we simply haven’t sent text messages to each other? Why is not texting somebody seen as rude?

Another thing that I consider to be important to think about is regarding other social media platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and such. Many people seem to be obsessed with sharing almost every (if not every) aspect of their lives, many times only showing the best part of their lives, looking for validation of their peers or sometimes even of people they don’t know, all through a meaningless concept called “likes”.

We seek the approval and validation of other people through that “like”, we feel rather uncomfortable or we can even feel down if we don’t get as many likes as we’d like. If we don’t get enough likes, we try to post something that might get more than we previously had, we base a big part of our identity in this fake world called social media. If we aren’t successful on social media, then who are we anyway? Right?

Wrong. Why should it matter which façade we put online when it doesn’t mean anything about how we are as a person in real life? Think about it; you can be whoever you want online, yet outside that bubble, you’re faced with the real world and you are nobody but yourself, and that’s what should matter. Could this problem about trying too hard online be more linked to self-esteem issues, rather than putting the best of yourself – or what might not actually be yourself – just for fun? Humans never learned how to use social media platforms properly, and the outcome of that is what we see; people addicted to it; people lying about themselves online; rising levels of social anxiety due to the lack of face-to-face interaction and/or frustration over such minute matters like not being able to connect because of the servers being down for a while.

Furthermore, many people with whom I’ve talked about this issue seem to get rather offended when they realise that maybe, just maybe they’ve also got a tiny problem with social media addiction but don’t want to accept it.

I’m by no means trying to say that I know better than those who are addicted. I myself still struggle with this response of instantly checking my cell phone when I hear it “ding” and keep using it for a long while after I check what was going on, scrolling endlessly through Instagram and checking whatever YouTube videos might have been uploaded for me to watch later, instead of waiting to do it afterwards; “I have to do it now” (Do I really?).

Maybe it’s time for us to put that cell phone down; grab a book and have a read; go out with mates and leave the phones for later, talk and have rich conversations with them without checking your social media every now and then. I found an old picture I took one time I hung out with friends, I remember talking to them and once I looked up they were all checking their phones and weren’t listening to what I was saying. I waited and didn’t say a thing, none put that thing down and I took that photo to have it for later and show them what was going on. The silence kept going on for a while until one of them started talking about what they were seeing on their phone (needless to say, it was empty content, no material for conversation), and after that can you guess what happened? Nothing, empty conversations.