Living on a college campus, it can feel impossible to find a moment alone. The dining hall is always packed; a sea of social students in all directions on the main green. For a world where you barely get a moment alone, there should be no reason for anyone to feel alone.
But, for whatever reason, that feeling is constantly lingering.
It’s in the subtlety of the brief pauses before a class starts when there is a small moment of silence; there’s almost an automatic urge to look at your phone to avoid eye contact. With an infinite network of connectivity, how is it that we are becoming more disconnected with one another? This is something that affects almost every college kid at universities everywhere today.
That isn’t to say students don’t hope to create connections; in fact most people want to have new interactions and friends, having a chat that isn’t awkward or forced. Most of us have lost our ability to do these small and almost unnoticeable things that create connections.
Talking to the person next to you in a class, making a passing comment while in a long line, or simply asking a question has become more difficult. These types of interactions are quick, low-risk, and usually go unnoticed or are brushed off as “not a big deal,” however, these simple things can be how connections are formed.
Social media and texting has allowed for more convenient means of connection between two people, based on how and when you want to engage with another person. With these options for communicating remotely, one now has total control over what they would like to communicate and when, and how much time they want to communicate. When social media makes things so much more confident, why try to talk to people in person?
By choosing to communicate online instead of in person, the user has relinquished their social courage and their ability to forge real time human connections. Because of this loss of courage, we are all hesitant to reach out to others due to a fear of rejection. All of these reasons prevent us as a society from developing long-term relationships with all of the amazing people around us; we simply don’t know how to make contact with other people face-to-face anymore. Being on a college campus, this is one of the best places to meet people our age all in one space. It should be easy, but technology has made it difficult.
Everybody wants to have a conversation with another person; however, they all wait for the other person to take the initiative to begin the conversation. We remain silent, each of us presuming the other has no interest in getting to know us.
The impact of these assumptions may not always be obvious day to day, but they are very real. We all have fewer randomly met friends, and there for less geniuine connections. Our campus may appear socially active but can still be emotionally and physically disconnected. Increasingly relying on our circles has made it harder to meet new people as time passes.
This problem has been built on small daily social behaviours, but daily social behaviours also provide an opportunity for change.
Reconnecting or rebuilding connections does not require that you change your entire personality nor does it require the perfect moment to speak up. There are much easier ways to establish connections – doing something you would normally not do or acting on a small social impulse that you would typically brush off – share that compliment in the back of your head, ask someone in the elevator how there day is, or reach out to a classmate to study together.
Those moments don’t need to always produce anything significant and that’s the point. They will help lower the expectations and re-established interaction on a regular basis.
Another key change we all should try to make is avoiding filling every spare second with our phone. In between moments like when you are waiting, walking, or sitting are the best places for spontaneous encounters of other people. When you separate yourself from those interactions you allow your phone to take away any chance for real human conversation.
“Someone has to have the courage to say something. Why not let that someone be you?”
It may feel awkward; it often does. You don’t need to feel confident to break this cycle, all you have to do is make the small choice to talk instead of looking down at your phone.
The social crisis that exists on college campuses isn’t an accident; it has developed from our doing or not doing things over time, in small ways, without being aware that you’re doing so. Overall we can and should modify our social habits. Not necessarily overnight, and not necessarily at every all the time, but small-scale changes in passing moments can help us to acknowledge those around us and begin building new connections.
I love my doom scrolling just as much as the next person, but phones shouldn’t take up more of your day than people. Look up instead of down. Sometimes, it just starts with simply saying “hi.”