Are We Still Friends Outside of Facebook?

As of this writing, this status update of yours truly has already garnered a total of eighty six likes and counting:

“The challenge is how to bring a relationship outside

of FB, IG, and Messenger.”

This post stems from my observation that perhaps, people are more comfortable in communicating with each other through text messaging and through a variety of social media channels, than communicating face to face, or with the physical presence of each other.

It cannot be denied that the advent of technology has made communication accessible and effortless. For as long as there is internet connection, then you can socialize online with anybody, without being bordered and restricted by time and space.

And lest we forget, technology too has made communication easy on the pocket, and sometimes free even.

The downside however to all this, is that technology has made communication very impersonal. I have mentioned this several times before, and will not tire of mentioning it.

Gone are the days when people would call, write letters, and send cards. Almost everything now is digitized, at the expense of human interaction.

Social media platforms have become our comfort zones. All we have to do is press send, like, or tag. I have observed that people become more talkative and expressive when they chat or converse online. And threads become livelier with all those stickers, memes, and pictures.

There seems to be no dead air when two people chat via Facebook messenger for example. But when they bump into each other the next day and come face to face, they struggle in striking a conversation. And the worst part, is that there no effort at all to say even a high or hello on some occasions.

Didn’t the two of you just chat the day or night before? Where are shyness and awkwardness emanating from?

Through the years we have all become accustomed to communicating under the guise of social media, which I believe, has left very minimal space for human physical interaction.

And so the challenge for all of us, is how to bring our relationships beyond our phones, computers, and tablets, and engage ourselves in face to face encounters.

A one hour simple conversation over a cup of coffee or tea, is more worthwhile than a week of online conversations.

Isn't  it a lot nicer to hear words that are spoken instead of just reading them?  And isn't it a lot nicer as well to see actual facial expressions instead of those crazy stickers?

We are friends on Facebook and there is no doubt about that. But outside of it, are we still friends?