Social to Sosyal

From What the eyes cannot see

I have come across this question for quite some time now, “The various avenues in technological advances of today like the availability of SMS, social networking, chat, e-mail and video calling are getting us more and more connected with each other – almost real time. But does this truly bring us closer as a family, as a community and as a nation?”

When I was younger, socializing meant you would have to take that bold step in talking to a complete stranger, mostly are my neighbours anyway. The people I played with and grew up with were our neighbours to whom either by choice or by chance we got to know and got comfortable with. Biking, flying the kite, playing Filipino games, even the not so Filipino games like chinese garter, basketball, baseball to name a few were the most sought after means of past time as it accommodates large crowds. We used to be 14 strong in my neighbourhood.

However today’s kids, just like the ad for The Yellow Pages seem to let their “fingers do the walking”. Instead of going out and really experiencing the world, they get stifled by the magic of technology that they no longer get to explore and take risks. Risks like the many times I got chased by dogs just because we were trying to get to our friends house for a game of basketball. It’s this type of social interaction and exploration that is lacking today; this superposes the 4 corners of your laptop screen! So it truly is Blackberry’s and Apple’s and Microsoft’s and all the parents in the world who buy these for their kids - fault why the children of generation Y seem to be less altruistic and more self-centred. Less of EQ and more of IQ. Maybe that is just my opinion.

So, with lesser emotional intelligence, does this information age bring us closer? I highly doubt that. We don’t even bother to talk to our immediate environs as we are too busy fiddling with that Ipad or checking for wi-fi connections on our phones. It’s like we are living in our own internet-connected bubble, our “Hi’s” and “Hello’s” are no longer spoken words, and our smiles are no longer physical signs of warmth but emoticons that we put in our chat screens. The word “close” (a word used to define level of affiliation) was meant to encompass the emotional, physical and social relationship – not the technological closeness between FB posts!

Bringing this closer to you, my dear reader, when was the last time you offered help to a stranger? Or said “Hi” to a stranger in the elevator? Or did you even see these around you? Or maybe you were to busy playing with your phone?

In the words of Albert Einstein (c/o Google), “It is appallingly obvious our technology has exceeded our humanity.”