It’s my favourite Sunday ritual.
I wake up in the morning, grab a cup of black coffee and check out Instagram. Or rather, search for #AboutLastNight on it. This simple hashtag is the only thing you need to know who was doing what and where on any Saturday evening.
There are selfies galore along with group shots, food shots, shots of shots and basically every kind of shot you’d expect out of a rocking party.
But if everyone was so busy taking the shots, who was actually doing the talking?
Welcome to the age of social-media socializing.
We no longer meet and talk. Now, we meet and talk on WhatsApp with other people. Sitting in a group is more about taking a picture to be put on Instagram rather than actually having a good time. If you didn’t put up a zillion photographs, did you even have fun? No, you didn’t because you were too busy ‘liking’ things but hey, pretending to have fun on social media ain’t no crime.
If you’re expecting your friends to actually listen to what you’re saying on an evening out, expect a phone camera glaring at you instead. You know, they’re putting up ‘stories’ on their Snapchat. Or, is it Instagram now?
In this selfie-obsessed age of the millennials, as Charlie Puth perfectly put it, we don’t talk anymore!
The idea behind meeting people was supposed to be having conversations.
You’d sit down over a drink or two and talk. Discuss life and all its issues. Thoughts about love, life and everything in between. Career plans, travel plans, plans of every kind.
You’d share a bit of yourself and get to know the other person better. What happened to all of that?
When did talking at a party go out of fashion?
Since social revolutions now come out of ‘trends’ and hashtags, can we make #LetsTalkToOurFriends happen?
BTW, what are your Saturday night plans?
Going for dinner with friends? Spending the night partying? Heading for a house party?Whatever it is, don’t do it.
Why bother hanging out anyway because everyone’s eventually going to be on their phone, right?