Hi, I’ve been using my phone a lot now (social media etc) and I feel like I’ve always been on it. But in person I’m just so awkward speaking to people, does anyone feel the same way? I feel as though the fact that I’ve spend so much time on digital devices has impacted the way I socialise in real life. I’m a 24F for reference!
Also any tips for social awkwardness would also be great
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Duuude the early 2000s were a blast for me, I would get invited to all kinds of events. People would call me and send me text messages and invite me personally. Then around 2004 that all started to dry up. That stopped to happen as soon as Facebook invites became a thing it became the new way to invite people to events.
Well, I always suck at socialise in person so digital device doesn’t make any different in my case…in fact, with out digital device I don’t think anyone want to waste their time more than necessary to hold any kind of conversation with me.
Personally, I think digital device really have impact on how people socialise, it’s easy to type, delete and re-type what you want to tell than say it…
Kinda, especially during the earlier stages of the pandemic. Or, perhaps, due to the pandemic.
I feel like this is going to be a big problem in the future – and probably already is a problem now!
When you are, let’s say… 15 to 20 years old you learn a lot of the social skills that you will need in your life. You learn how to talk to adults – men, women. People of your age. People of your age who are into different things. And part of that is going through some awkward moments. If you just grab your phone the moment things get awkward you’re not going to learn anything!
For example, sometimes a deathly silence strikes out of the blue. It tends to be worst in groups of about 4 to 6 because nobody is quite confident enough to take it on. Well, a good thing to do is to say “Going back to what you were saying earlier, I think…” Even if you’re pretty much repeating what’s already been said – people will be grateful!
I know that, because I’ve gone through it a few times. It doesn’t happen online, only in groups of people IRL. The lesson is that a conversation doesn’t have to be linear. You can go back a bit. You can completely change the subject. All you have to do is say “This may be COMPLETELY changing the subject! But…” And then it’s fine. People don’t expect a conversation to be like a well-edited movie script.
The main thing is that it’s not awkward. The next thing is hopefully that it’s interesting. And, after that, I would say that it’s a topic that the other person/people can add to. So, if you’re talking about a sport they don’t watch that is not a great conversation because they have nothing to add to it. In fact, popular threads on r/AskReddit usually work well in person. So, social media can translate well to IRL conversations if don’t correctly.
“It’s weird some of the things that have a really large fan base, isn’t it?”, “Do you ever watch a movie from the 90s and suddenly realise it’s a bit… let’s say, ‘un-PC’?”, “Do you ever think what you’d do if money wasn’t an issue. Like, if you’ve got a billion and you buy a car for 10 million and crash it… doesn’t matter, right?” Those are all examples taken off the front page of r/AskReddit.
Anyway, I’ll add some paragraph breaks to all of that and post it on the offchance there’s something of interest in there!
I think being a social media addict for more than a decade has stunted my social skills by a great degree. I’m 25M btw.
Yeah, I can be awkward as fuck and uncomfortable depending if I’m prepared or not.