Disconnecting from the real world

Have you ever been so consumed in getting your phone camera angle just right to snap that perfect sunset and you ended up with a photo of a scene that looks so hollow because you did not live it, you did not enjoy it?
Have you ever been so consumed talking to your Snapchat followers about your vacation plans while forgetting to share those plans with your own wife, the one sitting next to you?
The urge to be liked, to send the perfect tweet, to snap the most amazing photo, to share the most mind-boggling video is consuming us, affecting our daily lives.
In a study on 1,623 social media users conducted by the New York Times best selling authors Joseph Grenny and David Maxfield, about 58 percent of the people surveyed reported that striving to get the perfect picture prevented them from enjoying the experience behind the photo. Not only that, but around 91percent of the respondents said that although they had seen others missing a great moment because they were trying to capture it for social media, they, still, made the same mistake.
“While trying to capture and post my daughter’s dance event, I completely missed it,” a respondent in the survey said as reported on Mashable. “She asked me, ‘Did you see me?’ and I really didn’t. It was awful.”
For one of the author, David Maxfield, the study was personal. He himself missed his grandchild boogie boarding (riding a wave in the ocean) because he was so busy trying to capture it. “I was kind of ignoring my nieces in order to get a trophy of our time together,” Maxfield told Mashable.
Disconnecting from the events around you is not the only thing you should worry about, it is disconnecting from the people. 75 percent of people surveyed reported “being rude or distant because they focus more on their phones (rather) than people, while one out of four said they’ve let their smartphones disturb (their) ‘intimate’ moments.”
A mother of a three-year-old son reported that “I disciplined my son and he threw a tantrum that I thought was so funny that I disciplined him again just so I could video it. After uploading it on Instagram I thought, ‘What did I just do?’”
The next and the ultimate social media addiction risks would be putting yourself through danger in order to get something that is worth sharing on social media; people like that exist, about 14 percent of respondents said that “they’ve risked their own safety to get a like-worthy post.”
Submerging yourself in the quest for finding the perfect social media “sharable moment” would definitely backfire. Social media is all about connecting with others, not disconnecting with them. It is not a contest between who should produce the best content.
The study ends with a very alarming and disturbing conclusion: “Hunting for the right social media moment correlates to low happiness.”
“You may have more friends, you may have more likes (and) you’ll check your accounts more, but you’re actually going to feel empty,” Maxfield said.
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@smaldosari