When it comes to social media and cell phones, there are numerous benefits to both.  Social media has brought so many people closer together, and cell phones have revolutionized the way we communicate, research and acquire information.  However, there are some that would say, cell phones and social media have devolved the way we think and communicate.

How It All Started

When I was younger, I remember watching Saturday morning cartoons. Transformers, GI. Joe, The Smurfs, He-Man, and many more. Of course, it never crossed my mind that getting up to change the channel from CBS to NBC would eventually become such a debilitating task. Going from Spiderman to Superfriends was easy, and I didn’t care if I had to get up 1000 times if I needed to.  Nevertheless, advancements in technology happened, and the remote control became a part of my household.  Now, a seemingly innocent 6-7 steps to change the channel turned into a 6-7 minute search for the remote. As a result, I had gotten lazy from the resulting luxury of being able to change from station to station without having to move 1-inch from the plastic slipcovers of my mom’s couch.

Let’s Do a Social Media Snap

If you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past few years, you’d probably still know about Marvel’s 4 Avengers movies. That being said, the last two featured the Mad Titan Thanos. They were called Infinity War and Endgame. In Infinity War, Thanos acquired the power to change existence (total universal population) as we know it by a simple snap of his finger.

Yes, he succeeded.

Pretty cool huh? Not really, especially if you were one of the randomly selected snapees.

Given these fictional points, it would be pretty interesting if one could snap away social media for a month. What would everyone do? No more Facebook, Snapchat, and/or Instagram following. Gone are likes, shares, selfies, tweets and redundantly scrolling through newsfeeds. How much of the time that we got back could be dedicated to actually getting to know someone face to face and over the phone? Or, would we all need to be admitted to the local social media residential inpatient service for overwhelming levels of withdrawal? For some, the answer is yes. Actually, I would say yes for a vast amount of social media users.

 

Why the Snap Though?

In regards to how we interact in relationships, social media has benefited many of us. Moreover, it has increased the chances that we will meet “the one.”

At the same time, social media has also crippled the way we communicate. In a like manner, the remote control (while convenient) has enabled certain levels of laziness and complacency. Daters are now comfortable with spending days, months and thousands of keystrokes DM’ing. Instead of, exchanging phone numbers and actually talking. Consequently, the human element has been removed. The entire dialogue is electronic, impersonal and ineffective for the overall purpose of the interaction — dating.

Furthermore, in many ways, social media has skewed the way we view relationships. You see a photo of “relationship goals” and you have no idea what it took to get to the goal. We often see the end result and don’t know about the failure, sleepless nights, disagreements, breakups, and 4 letter words that were exchanged.

That result is alluring as F__K isn’t it though?

In the same fashion, you see a meme stating, “real men/women [insert task]” and now the seed of undiscussed expectation has been planted. Your next date has to live up to the hype of a meme! (Yes it happens)

In addition, you have a multitude of people sharing counterproductive and convoluted advice. Not to mention, everyone has an opinion (which can be so confusing with so many people talking at the same time)—but how many have been trained to remain unbiased and impartial when giving their perspective and guidance? I’d wager less than 5%.

Forget 30 days. I wish we could permanently snap-away all the above and start from scratch.

The Cell Phone Snap

If I was Thanos I’d use the green time stone, come to a complete time-stop, quickly reverse time 25 years and change the way we use cell phones by severely limiting apps.

I say this because I realize cell phones are necessary. That being said, smartphones and the apps that come with them are a totally different animal.  Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and many more, all have direct messengers.  Together with, the ability to send SMS, MMS and GIF’s, daters have become completely disconnected with each other.

However, there was a time when we weren’t so disconnected.

Innocent laughter about random yet imaginative thoughts of days past and fictitious accounts of days to come. It was all there. I miss that. After hours of conversation, with some hesitation, finally conceding to the overwhelming narcolepsy weighing my eyelids south and shading my brown iris like a lunar eclipse. We agree to end this night, but neither of us wants that to be, so we, decide to play a game of, “count to three.”

“No you hang up,”

“No, you hang up,”

“On 3 hang up.”
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Conversely, you’re holding a cell phone which primary use is to talk. Yet, some daters spend more time texting and DM’ing than they exchange meaningful phone dialogue. For this reason, you have more miscommunication, misunderstandings, misinterpretations of tone, and successful misleading motives than you ever have.

and…

More broken relationship opportunities because we didn’t pick up the phone.

My solution?

Snap the app

At least for a month.