How anti is Social media

This year in the school system marks a turning point in the world. For the first time there is no child in the schooling system that has not been born in the 21st Century. The last of the 20th Century young people have gone. This is quite a cultural shift. There are a few things that we can say first of all they have been brought up wit the new technology they have always known social media, the Internet and smart phones. This must give a particular world view. We live in a world where there is instant communication at a flick of a switch the world knows where we are and what we are doing. Many wait to see how many likes they get how many people agree with them. But in this world we have forgotten the art of real communication. I witnessed a few years ago two people who were out for a meal and they spend their whole time on their phones not even talking-to each other. Taking photos of there food and expressing how much fun they were having with the other person and yet not even talking to them. The other day I came across this poster and I thought how true. We have let  the computers and the internet take over. I have seen it in other places where people see a place from their phone constantly taking pictures rather than seeing what is all about them. When you look at a view from behind a screen then you only ever see just half of it. We need to see the full picture the full view.

When I was growing up there was no internet and hardly any computers in fact you where given the task of the computer monitor at school and my job was to wheel the computer around from one class to the other. How things have changed that we all have a personal computer and smart phones that you carry around with you which is really like a baby computer. 

The other day I was walking down the road and I bumped into someone who was talking to their people on Facebook live describing what they were doing. Yes they had missed the views and the weather and what was going on around them. It seemed that they were too raped up in their own world to see the world around them. 

Has social media then become anti social media? What could it stop us doing is having real conversations having  real time with people and see people for who they are. It is true that with the dawn of instant communication we have actually become more lonely there are more people who feel that they cannot reach out to others. It is a sad indictment on the world that we are now heading towards a new isolationism where we only see the world and speak to people across our smart phones and computers. So I am proposing a new way. 10 things that we can do to solve this ever increasing social problem:

1. Arrange to met your friends in real time face to face
2. Modify your time on social media
3. Give up Facebook or one social media outlet (I have and it is liberating)
4. Spend one day a week without using your mobile phone
5. Spend one day a week without social media
6. Spend time with family
7. Spend time with friends 
8. Spend time each day in prayer
9. Go for a walk
10. Enjoy life rather than sitting at a screen see the world in all its colour and joy.