The innovation of loneliness

Don’t you hate when your friend keeps telling the same story over and over but has no idea that they’re doing it? Well, now I’ve found myself in a similar situation where my friend is trying to tell me about their day, but I become instantly disinterested because I know what happened to them already when I read it earlier on Twitter and Facebook.

We’ve read before the many studies linking depression or self-image issues with social media. But what about its effect on our communication skills? Surely now we’re even more connected our communication is better, right? Sherry Turkle’s talk ‘Connected, but alone’ explains that as we expect more from technology we expect less from each other, in terms of what we say, how we say it, and when; in other words: everything that makes up a natural conversation. My main concern is by growing up with all these different elements of social media and communication, how it will affect our communication skills in the long-term.

The following video illustrates what has been named ‘The Innovation of Loneliness’:

It’s a growing issue that we’re all choosing to ignore because we can’t retreat from this digital sphere in which we communicate. We use excuses like, “I don’t have time for a phone call” but really is it just because we’ve become too awkward to hold a conversation where we have to think on the spot?

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OMD UK

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