“Tell me a little bit about yourself. What are your hobbies?” We have all heard these questions. It comes up all the time and will likely follow us for the rest of our lives. If you are like me, you have a small amount of guilt as you say your biggest hobby is photography or reading, when you know those activities only take up maybe 10% of your free time. Social media is just so easily accessible. Why would I indulge in a new hobby when I can just lay in my bed? We joke about “when times get tough, there is always phone in bed” or we swear that spending 4 hours a day is how we stay up to date on the current trends for our profession, and therefore is necessary. Phone addiction is rampant. And since everyone is addicted it is no longer a bad thing. If everyone jumps off the cliff then it must be a good idea.
I have known that the situation was bad for a while, but I did not realize the effect it has had on me until recently. A recent study found that over half of Americans admit to being addicted to their phones. This data does not include people in denial. The average number of phone pick ups is between 144-352 per day in America.
Now, I love watching reels. I love watching videos of cool people doing cool things in cool outfits. I often think to myself how I wish I could be like them. How I wish I could wear what they did or “have the time” to enjoy their hobbies. It hit me like a ton of bricks when I realized: my hobby is watching other people have hobbies. I am indulging in second-hand experiences instead of having them on my own. We are already living in the future that WALL-E predicted where we sit around in our chairs and let the screen in front of us dictate our mood.
But it is worse than that. Not only are we so disconnected from any sense of reality because of our meta-hobbies. Through the accessibility of the internet, we also form fake relationships.
We all have our favorite celebrities who we love to keep up with. We watch every story they post, every interview they do, and every movie they star in. We feel close to them. We defend them when anyone says anything bad about them. The way we talk about them is the same way we talk about close friends. Being a fan has never been an inherently bad thing. Forming a parasocial relationship can be really fun. You join the club of fans and you get to learn about an incredibly interesting person. In fact, there can even be a huge sense of community among fellow stans.
However, we are becoming more lonely over time. And we all know that social media is one of the main reasons. As we become more lonely, it is easy to look for relationships in other places. Parasocial relationships create a “perceived connection”. The connection is not there because it is one-sided. Sadly, parasocial relationships begin to replace real ones more and more.
We no longer have to leave our house to meet someone. We can download a dating app and put in our exact preferences to find our ideal mate. We are getting dangerously close to the projection girlfriends from Blade Runner 2049. And was Officer K actually happy? With the new Apple Vision Pro, you can make anyone appear to be in front of you and with AI you can control what they do. Our society has never known such access to fake experiences and it is only getting worse. I miss when dystopian movies were fantasy.
Are we really “advancing” in the technological age if every experience and relationship is second-hand?
Words by Abigail Wornock
Graphic by Oisin Carolan