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Are Online Social Interactions making us more awkward?


In reality, this is the "righteous" path that all of us have already trotted onto. The mediums of communication, that help us substitute physical interactions, keep on flooding our ecosystem. Be it virtual classrooms, virtual conferences or even attending virtual concerts, they are all there.

And every now and then, there is something disruptive, or let me rather call it confusing, something that is Yo! Let's not try and get into the super high valuation that the app is getting. But, some of the use cases that have been developed, like the alerts that Israelis have been getting whenever there is a rocket strike back home. With some of these apps raising insane amount of bids, with the likes of Whatsapp ($19 Billion), Instagram ($1 Billion) and Snapchat ($3 Billion), even when the base itself has no angle for justification, we can probably place a bet on the way Yo is headed. The game changer though remains, if at all, the app will be able to break into the stock that mobile OS's have, and change the way notifications are delivered onto these platforms.

Now, Do all these social platforms, and continuous disruptions, have an impact on the physical interactions also? I feel, yes.

It is almost impossible to keep the two worlds separate: the online and the offline worlds. And the way our communication has seen a transition from: Hi, How are you today? to Wassup to A simple poke, it is a little disconcerting that when we actually have the need to be a little verbose, we can't really be.

Its not only about saying stuff though, is it? Its about how you behave in a room. Will you be the person who's standing in a corner and feeling I am absolutely ok here, and don't feel the urge to interact with 5 different people, although the purpose of the room was to network. Quite a lot of folks do.

There is a flip side to it too though.
These days, if you are sitting in a group of 10-15 people, that you know well, and if you look around the room, you'll find atleast 25-30% of the people who are awkward, socially awkward. But this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The quirks that each of these people display, in the interactions that are happening, are really the gems that create the dynamism of the group. These people might struggle during the initial rounds of interactions, but once they open up, is when you realize, the hidden wealth of the group.

And that is really where you ask the question, "Are we really getting socially awkward?"

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