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by Kate Lewis for fluxo
People are uncomfortable—far more uncomfortable than they used to be—going out into society, their cities, and being around strangers. Why? There are probably a lot of reasons why but, other than the pandemic, it’s my belief that technology has played the biggest role in hindering our social skills.
The ironic thing is a lot of apps that have been launched in the last few years were made with the intention (ish) of bringing people together. The best and quickest example of that is dating apps. The original issue dating apps were trying to solve was the struggle of meeting people—the apps were a new and easy way to connect with potential romantic interests. There was good intention behind the invention, but this “solution” created a newer, bigger problem.
People lost the ability to connect in person, face to face, in real time. And now, young people despise dating apps—they want to meet people out in the wild, not from behind a screen. But Gen Z is now bad at being social, as sad as that sounds. We were largely raised on screens and digital ways of communicating, and then a pandemic disrupted formative social years. We want to meet people the old-school way, but that means we have to learn some old-school skills.
But instead of honing in on the art of meeting and speaking to new people in public, companies just keep creating new apps with different avenues of connecting that never end up really making an impact, at least not on a large scale.
So apps like Tinder, Bumble, Hinge—they were created with the intention of making it easier to meet and connect with people. But the long term effect is a stunted generation that is both unhappy on the apps and uncomfortable in live social settings. So where do we go from here?
If nothing else, leave your apartment. Get out of the house. Go to the bar you’ve been meaning to try since you moved into the neighborhood but have never gotten around to.
At the risk of sounding preachy, the more you put yourself in uncomfortable situations, the more comfortable you’ll become. Unfortunate that it works that way, isn't it.
