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Life has become fast-paced.
We all seem to be in a hurry to reach our destinations.
This leaves us with little time for people to pause and greet each other when they come across friends or acquaintances. Why is that?
We are all aware of the reasons — social media leaves less time for personal interaction. Professionally, social media is your multimedia resume, complete with endorsements. It provides you with a platform to build your thought leadership. Personally, however, social media is a way to engage with family and friends, regardless of their current location. It keeps you connected with people you may have otherwise lost contact with.
Social media is steadily but surely affecting the way we communicate. There is no doubt that digital devices have made our lives tremendously easy. However, this has come at the cost of complicating interpersonal interaction, reducing it to quick, impersonal greetings. Do you ever wonder what happened to our conversations with friendly neighbours when we ran into them at the market or at school drop-offs? The impact is far-reaching.; even our children prefer to interact through cellphones, becoming the youngest victims of the digital revolution.
Social media plays a major role in many of our lives; it is something we cannot avoid and, to an extent, we do not wish to either. Every trend has its advantages and disadvantages; however, social media is doing more harm than good because society is losing its ability to communicate on a personal level. No matter how strong digital and social media trends are these days, they should not alter the fact that we can still build strong, long-term relationships with people; every person is a potential door to a new opportunity. Build your network of social and professional contacts, through work or otherwise, as you never know when you may need someone’s support.
John Lennon once said: “When I was five years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I want to be when I grow up, and I wrote ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment; I told them they didn’t understand life.”
People will not be happy resorting to apps and programmed-repliers. Life is fast, but our relationships will start to make sense once we re-dedicate time to live. Our relationships are what create meaning for our lives, resulting in happy, sad, and neutral feelings that make us face the ups and downs of the world.
Social media opens doors to new opportunities and connections as well as brings people closer, yet it does not build personal relationships or long-term relations.
Technologies are invented every single day. As human beings, we tend to gravitate towards the easiest approach to deal with things: one click and your connection with whomever on the other end of the screen is initiated. As a professional person in the market, nothing can beat a strong face-to-face relationship. The truth is that you still have to face others, and if you don’t work on building those skills, you’ll be consumed with fear at those points. As a result, we have to learn how to be ourselves before we walk into a social situation that requires engagement and interaction. With better communication, a better workplace can exist, and vibes are impacted.
Nada Abdallah is Account Manager at Cicero & Bernay Public Relations, an independent PR agency headquartered in Dubai offering new-age public relations consultancy to the UAE and across the MENA region. | www.cbpr.me