Modern ‘Friendship’ Is Lonely As Hell

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A wise guy by the name of Aristotle once said that man is by nature a social animal.

How sad to think about it in modern times. At the boom of the 21st century and the technological advances that come with it, we now have the technology necessary to communicate and connect with people who are hundreds, even thousands, of kilometers away. But what does this artificial human connection entail?

We have become more detached than ever. While our eyes are glued to our smartphones and laptops as we “connect” with people that are far from us we ignore the people that are actually there in front of us.

How easily we have undermined the value of human relations. Though a lot of us have so many people on our friend lists that, more often than not, a lot of us still feel friendless. Gone are the times when we considered friends to be companions we depend on, support. Back then, when we had problems friends were people we could talk to, ask for advice and sympathy. Now when we have a problem, we rant about it on social networking sites, desperate for anyone to react to it; sympathy is measured in how many people react with a sad emoji on your post instead of actually talking to you. Now the value of friendship is shallowly degraded to the task of liking our post, our photos, etc.

Times have changed since the last time people considered friends not only as people they are “friends with” on Facebook, or followers on Twitter and Instagram. With just a click of a button, we unfriend or unfollow people as if nothing really mattered; that our relation with that person is only as true as the existence of the word “Friends” on their Facebook walls. We say that we are connected to people all around the world using social networking sites, that we forget how to actually connect with people on a daily basis.

Even as I write this, is it not proof on the decline of actual human relations. Instead of sharing this with another actual person through a conversation, I’m posting it here.