QUEZON City, Philippines (September 23) – People join social networking sites to connect and strengthen ties within our relationships. But as we indulge ourselves more in these SNS, the less we care about the real world. People get drowned by the idea of reconnecting in the cyber world, forgetting the real essence of having friends.
As this generation gears up for the digital age and adapts with newest technology, we can now do things that seemed impossible a few decades back. With just one click, the internet can get us virtually to the other side of the world. Distance would not matter anymore in communicating. Wherever people are, as long as they have gadgets that are enabled as well as a working internet connection, the choices are boundless.
More and more people use internet and explore the World Wide Web. And as the numbers dramatically increase, more social networking sites surface. Today, the SNS giants are Facebook with almost billions users, Twitter, Instagram and many more. The list is endless. From the simple act of posting status updates, the features of these sites also evolved into even uploading files, video chats, organizing events and groups, making these sites a one-stop hub for communicating online. These features is only one of the many reasons, people decide to join these SNS.
With just a single click, you can post photo or even a video of official outfit of the day and such. Selfies and groufies even made it into the latest dictionaries as it became the most frequently used word in the net. It is evident that internet have changed people’s lives and way of living. Instead of having photo albums in our homes to preserve memories, people now simply create albums in their SNS profiles and share it with their friends.
The newest technology does not only offers wide variety of useful features but also mobility and accessibility. We are now in the digital age where smartphones and tablet computers are now becoming a necessity. Industries now provide internet enabled smartphones with an extremely cheaper price. The more affordable gadgets become, the more people can buy these technologies.
You can see it everywhere. People browsing and surfing the net in their smartphones and tablet computers. Cities are now even provided with wifi connections by the government because of its significant mark in the daily lives of the citizens. From being a medium of entertainment into a source of information and means of communication, social networking sites dominates the World Wide Web and also the lives of its active users.
But what comes with these great perks are also great drawbacks. People tend to spend more time surfing the net rather than spending quality time with 
their families and friends. They disregard reality and get trapped in their personal isolated world in the internet. Rather than bringing people closer to each other, these SNS create a concealed wall that isolates people by preventing them to meet personally in real time and making people forget the real value of interpersonal relationships. Instead of making people socialize more, SNS bring forth a wall and blurs the ideas of people by tricking them into thinking that connecting online is enough.
Before, people organize get-together events and reunions to catch up with the moments they missed in the lives of their friends, but now that tradition is gradually eradicating as people get engage more online. People are now lazy to interact personally in the real world. The things that we used to value before such as mails from our loved ones abroad are now turned into online mails, losing its essence and value.
Social Networking Sites are a big leap in technology and in the field of communications. But too much of anything can drown your senses. Technology will always be there and will continue to evolve through time. We will always have a spare time to explore through its boundless spaces. But when will we have the time for our own family? When will we kiss and hug our parents rather than sending and tagging them in our posts? When did you last tell your parents and your loved ones personally that you loved them? It has been a while.
People cannot go out without their smartphones, but will go even without saying and kissing your parents good bye. People value technology more than they should, and forgets how to live life the way it should be.
Look up from your smartphones. You may have thousands of friends, but do they really know you? Does going social means, opening your computers and logging in to your account? People would rather choose to look into their friends name on the monitor than to meet them personally and look them in the eyes.
People pretend not to notice the social isolation by seeing only the enormous likes they get in their posts. People post things but leave the emotion. We are becoming slaves of the technology we crafted. Live life the way it should be. Stop ‘socializing’. Start living.
(written by Novin Murillo, edited by Jay Paul Carlos, additional research by Lovely Ann Cruz)
