I Can’t Talk - I’m Doomscrolling

In a world full of constant communication, it’s never been harder to talk to my friends. Before you read on, think about something for a minute: when was the last time you had a real conversation with a peer? I don’t mean “Have you done the math homework yet?” or even “Where’s your shirt from?” I mean an actual conversation with real substance and authenticity. If you answered that it’s been a while, I have a theory as to why that might be.

We use our phones, and social media more specifically, to hide from our peers. You know those POV videos of someone pretending to be walking by a group of people their age and scrolling on the weather app for no apparent reason? Yeah. Basically that. We, as a generation, have become so cosmically self-conscious that we use our phones as a sort of shield, protecting ourselves from others.

I am, without a doubt, guilty of this social misdirection. I often whip out my phone and start aimlessly scrolling through TikTok, less because I want to and more because there is a group of kids my age somewhere in my general vicinity. Somehow, it feels safer to be buried in the depths of my phone than to acknowledge another person. Teenagers have always been an insecure group, and social media has only heightened this. We, as a society, have decided that something didn’t happen unless it was posted about. We only show off the finest moments in our lives, or at the very least, the most heavily posed for. The truth is, those images that we decide to post tend to be captured in the rare moments we’re not glued to our phones.

In 2018, Common Sense Media released a study that said only 32% of teens wanted to communicate with their friends in person. This statistic is compared with the same study conducted 6 years earlier, in 2012, in which 49% of teens said they would rather communicate with their friends in person. Just imagine how much further this number has decreased in the 7 years since 2018, with the rise in social media. We’ve become so dependent on communicating through our screens that when we have to communicate in real time, we tend to freeze. In a face-to-face conversation, there’s no time to analyze every word choice or pretend not to hear what someone said in order to think about what the perfect response is, the way you can over text. Our phones are preventing us from experiencing real human connection. Just imagine how much further this number has decreased in the 7 years since 2018, with the rise in social media use.

We’ve become so dependent on communicating through our screens that when we have to communicate in real time, we tend to freeze. In a face-to-face conversation, there’s no time to analyze every word choice or pretend not to hear what someone said in order to think about what the perfect response is, the way you can over text. Our phones are preventing us from experiencing real human connection. We’re forgetting how to act in the real world. Even when we do hear each other's voices, it tends to be through voice notes instead of calling one another - just another way to have the perfectly calculated response.

What will happen when the day comes that we’ve matured enough to realize real social interaction isn’t all that bad? Will we be kicking ourselves for spending the majority of our youth on our phones? Will we look back on our teenage years with regret for all the time lost?

It’s easy to get sucked in; phones, and social media more specifically, are designed to be addictive. Whether you’re on your phone to take a break, for practical use, or to hide from others, it’s hard to break out of the habit. Everything on social media is controlled, and it’s changed our perspective on things. On social media, if you’re bored by a video, you scroll, and it’s gone. On social media, people have usually either chosen their words meticulously or they’ve re-recorded the video countless times before deeming it post-worthy. In the real world, that’s not the case. You can’t just walk away from a boring conversation, and you don’t have the same amount of time to choose your words that the influencers on your For You Page do. We’ve become convinced that any pause or stumble in a conversation is something to be ashamed of and something to avoid. We’ve lost the ability to have real, raw conversations.

The thing about social media is that it tricks us into thinking we actually do know things about each other. The other day, my friend went to the Bryant Park winter market, but I only knew this through Instagram. I didn’t ask her about it; I didn’t learn anything from her. Yet, I knew she’d experienced this. But guess what, so did everyone else who looked at her page. We don’t ask about things, for the most part, because we assume that if someone posted about something, it must’ve been a good experience, and that’s all we need to know.

It’s easy to get sucked into a way of being that doesn't take much effort or responsibility. It’s easy to hide and shrink away from real connections. It’s easy to feel scared or like you’re being judged. But there’s no need to take the easy route. Actually, I think we’d all feel better if we tried to talk to each other.