Social Media is driving us apart, so how can we use it to bring us closer together?

There has been a lot of talk recently about how social media is driving us farther apart. I don’t think that is so surprising to think about either. If you look in any restaurant, subway car, or Starbucks, you see people hunched over their phones consuming content.

The crazy thing is, they still do this when there are people sitting at the same table with them. We somehow became addicted to that dopamine rush when a new like, comment or friend request come in for platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. But what we forgot how to do was interact and speak with the people that are around us in real life.

I think as a society we all realize this is an issue, but the harder question is, how do we solve it? Well I’m pretty excited that this conversation is now happening and people are starting to take notice and implement solutions.

If you didn’t hear, Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg actually announced changes they plan to implement on Facebook over the coming months to bring us closer together. They realized that they have created a platform to drive us farther apart, but they also realize that their platform can bring people closer together if used in the right way.

They are shifting the focus of Facebook from promoting brands and sponsored content back to interacting closer with the people in your life. I find this amazing and inspiring, a multi-billion organization that actually cares about the common good!

I’m not sure where Facebook’s changes will go, but I do want to tell you how I believe we can use social media to form closer communities and some tips on what I have done in my life to reduce that dopamine rush.

Both Facebook and Instagram are powerful tools, with their platform we can connect with anyone in the world. I truly believe that given the right amount of work, you could connect with anyone on the planet through social media. But it also gives us access to finding other like minded people that would not have been possible otherwise.

I’m a big fan of Facebook groups. I’m in several of them including professional networking groups, drone photography groups, and Acro Yoga groups. Facebook has given us the platform to connect with other like minded people in real life and this is where I think we need to shift the focus.

If we use social media to form stronger communities and create valuable content for the people in those communities, I think we are going to see a shift away from people being so locked into their smart phones to people that actually start interacting with others around them again.

But this doesn’t mean it is not going to take a lot of work to reduce our current addiction. I was thinking about this during my yoga class today. This 75 minute yoga class that I have been doing consistently over the past month and a half may be the best social media break up utility in my life.

It is because it gives me a period of time in my day that I don’t have my phone and I have to focus on something else. I have to focus on the yoga class and as long as I keep my thoughts present, I stop thinking so much about the world outside and focus on the world in that room.

So I’m going to leave this here and expand up this idea in future posts. But I do believe we have a serious epidemic here and we need to address the issues before it is too late.