The Effects of Social Media on Relationships | Mayurakshi Ghosal | TEDxYouth@DAA

hey guys can you just all help me out of here I'll help me out here a little I wanted to post something on my snapchat story so could you all just smile there let me just put a cute filter okay and it's posted okay so let me tell you all the story I spent all of last summer in India where I didn't have access to the Internet at all without internet I had a great time with my cousins and my grandparents but I lost contact with all my friends and I lost all my snapchats cheeks as well so for those of you who don't use snapchat it's basically an app where people chat through pictures a snapchat streak is a number that appears next to the name of a person with whom you share a snap or an image every 24 hours and this number increases with the amount of days that you have sent a snap to one another but if one of you forgets to send a snap or just doesn't send a snap at all within 24 hours the new and your friend lose the streak and you guys have to start over because a lot of snapchat users maintain so many streaks it's become easier for many of them to do this faster for every single day by just sending a plain black screen to all of the people they maintain streaks with now back to my story so on the first day of school I was very excited to meet everyone especially my best friend whom I hadn't texted or seen in two months but a few days into school I started to realize that my best friend had another group of friends and I felt like she didn't really want to talk to me anymore and why did this happen it was because we had in texted each other in two months and she texted other people more than me so they became her best friends she was also kind of annoyed that I lost a hundred day snap streak that we had at this point I started to realize that our friendship was nothing but sending black screens to each other for a hundred days just to keep a streak going let me give you an example of what our conversation looked like so let's say on Sunday I woke up and around 10:00 a.m. I sent her this and then a few hours went by and she opened my snap and she replied with this and then the next day morning I woke up and the first thing I did was check my phone and I decided to reply with this and then she probably got bored of our conversation so she decided to change it up a little and she replied with this and this was basically the only conversation that we had for a hundred days I also started to realize that our past hangouts were only of us taking tons of pictures to post on Instagram and texting our other friends about just how much fun we were having Instagram is another social media platform where people share photos and videos with their followers the followers are the people who are able to view and like the photos of the people who post so when I realized that my best friend and I spent so much time just clicking pictures and then choosing which one to post and then looking at how much how many likes each photo got I was really shocked because even though we were together all this time we really didn't know each other very well so I did some research on this and I found out that I wasn't the only one that there were other teens in a similar situation an article by Business Insider said that streaks were a proof of friendship Peter Santa Anna an 18 year old living in Honolulu said if you lose your streak you lose your friendship Katie Clark another teenager told Business Insider on snapchat streaks develop a level of friendship between people the longer your snap streak is the better friends you are and a fellow sophomore at DAA told me I have 21 streaks but I only chat with a few of them on an everyday basis after some more research I came across an article by Virginia Tech University wherein Shalini Mishra the leader of the tech team the leader of the research team said even without active use the presence of mobile technologies has the potential to divert individuals from face-to-face actions thereby undermining the depth and character of these connections so I'm sure I was able to make sense of this completely I was motivated to share my thoughts on meaningful and superficial relationships and how social media can really have a huge impact on friendships apps such as social media apps such as snapchat and Instagram could be a great way to keep in touch with friends and friends and family but over dependence on these could lead many people especially teenagers to unknowingly build relationships that are meaningless let me give you a few examples of superficial relationships we have a hundred day streak together we're best friends we don't have a streak we're not really that close I've even heard stories where teens cry because a high number streak was lost or all of their streaks were lost sometimes moving on from snapchat people want to be friends with a person only because the photos they post on Instagram are aesthetic and not because of their overall personality not because they're funny sweet kind or smart and I find this to be a very big problem so why do people value texting so much why is it so addictive and why is it considered better than talking texting releases a chemical in our body called dopamine this is the pleasure chemical that makes us happier there's the same chemical that is released in our body when we fall in love according to Fisher @al and this is why texting is so addictive and it gives us so much pleasure also as Huffington Post writes talking is considered an old-folks thing by many teens and texting is considered to be quicker and more efficient and for these reasons we tend to get addicted to texting and social media which ruins our relationships and causes us to build superficial friendships and stead of meaningful ones now what do I mean when I say a meaningful relationship it's basically a kind of bond that is very special it's a kind of bond that you can share with only a few people like your best friend or your really close friends now I'll ask you some questions that I got from an online newspaper called elite daily and if your answer is definitely a yes for all of these then you and your friends definitely share a meaningful bond with one another here goes the questions when you hang out do you spend most of your time together doing something worthwhile or talking about something worthwhile do you feel comfortable asking them for help and will they actually help you talk to them frequently not just a few times a year do you consider yourself to have a higher level of closeness with this person then you have with all of the other people you interact with and lastly is face-to-face interaction your main form of communication if your answer was an O or even a maybe then here are some ways to make your relationship more meaningful way number one forget your phone - a hangout eliminate any excuses to bring your phone along for example meet at someone's house so communication doesn't become a problem bring a Polaroid camera with you with which you could take pictures so you don't have to use your phone use a landline at your friend's whorehouse to call your driver your parents while picking you up in this way you'll actually be able to spend some quality time with your friends instead of your smartphone way number two if completely being off the phone is too hard then take baby steps set a limited time for your phone when you're hanging out with your friends and help each other out in this way number three engage yourselves in other activities like cooking or baking or going for a walk or jog together anything that doesn't involve your phone or any other social media apps this will also help you and your friends make some memories together because imagine if the only memory of you and your friend being together was when both of you were on your phones we're number four lose all of the streaks that you keep just for the sake of having a streak rather than for the sake of friendship or conversation ask yourself if you really know the person with whom you have highest cheeks and if you would like to know someone with whom you don't share a streak and lastly way number five get to know your friends better and by knowing I don't mean who stalk them on social media or which angle they look best in while taking a photo or at which time of the day they send streaks I mean that's good to know but go beyond get to know their family better get to know their likes and dislikes their favorite pastimes remember that these tips are the building blocks of a relationship and they can't be done overnight they take time to implement and if you and your friends really commit to following them for at least a month or two then you'll definitely be able to get into a habit of following them thereafter and hopefully be able to bring some depth to your relationship overall it's completely ok to use apps such as snapchat and Instagram but if you get too attached to these it could ruin your relationships especially your friendships by changing your habits now you can stop social media from taking control over your life before it's too late thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 89,196

Rating: 4.8834953 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Technology, Community, Friendship, Identity, Media, Relationships, Social Media

Id: LYl4BdBabl4

Length: 10min 14sec (614 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 29 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/theprophet359]

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