Let’s Go from WhatsApp to a Real What’s Up In Person

Texting is the new language and it looks like, very soon, we just might forget the fine art of oral conversation. Our fingers will do the talking instead of our mouths and we could just become incapable of having verbal dialogue.

This isn’t some sci-fi scenario I’m painting before you, but a genuine concern about our near future. Technology has certainly made the world a smaller place and it deserves Kudos for that! We can chat and even virtually meet family, friends (and strangers) from all corners of the world, in the blink of an eye and a couple of clicks on a keyboard or display.

However, what happens to family, friends and loved ones who are right in front of our noses? Why have we stopped paying attention to them? What’s with this compulsive obsession for social media chats that makes us ignore conversations in the real world? When will this mania stop and what will it take to end it?

We are so busy on apps like WhatsApp that we are oblivious to ‘what’s up’ with our near and dear ones.

Image courtesy – rawpixel via Pexels.

Maintaining a seamless work-life balance is a race against time. And when we finally do make the time for family and friends or the special people in our lives, that ever-so-valuable time is spent checking random texts from random people, who appear on our group chats. Some of these people may just happen to be there on these groups, we may not even remember why they were even added in the first place; and yet, we spend precious time surfing through Forwards et al as though our lives depended on it.

This, when, in fact, our life does depend (a little or a lot) on our lifelines viz. our family and friends. The same lifelines we take for granted, even when they sit right beside us, expectantly, and rightly so, for some quality time and a little tête-à-tête.

Surfing through social media when we’re alone, catching up on news, reading interesting articles, keeping abreast of current events etc. are constructive ways of spending time… the key word being ‘alone’. When in the presence of company, it would do us well to remember that it’s against social etiquette to reach for your phone, even if in the middle of informal banter.

This being the season of fun and frolic, for a change, let’s choose some human company instead of a gadget and give the virtual world a skip by opting for the real one instead. Click your selfies, by all means, just post them after you have bid your adieus and retired to solitude. Hold hands, hug, talk, and laugh, making emotional contact with dear ones. Leave emoticons for solitary times, when you miss the pleasure of peoples’ company!

So go on and find out ‘what’s up’ with the friend close by with a knock on their door instead of a poke on Facebook.