Forget love, loneliness is in the air!

Ritu Singh Waiting For Godot

Yes, loneliness is in! Look around yourself. Don't you notice curious eyes glued into flashy screens and fingers hurriedly typing away in glory! In offices, in metros, in all public places and even at family functions, this is the trend nowadays. This is the new 'normal' now. And this lifestyle has left us lonelier than before instead of bringing us closer. Have you witnessed how the epidemic of loneliness is slowly creeping into our lives, harrowing our souls and incurvating our society? Do a fact check on how people are being sucked into delphic depths of anxiety, loneliness and depression.
Now this is quite absurd, keeping in mind that our generation has been endowed with the marvels of social media. The magical web's most dear assurance to us was a world in which no one needed to ever suffer the pangs of loneliness, and where friendship and love were just a click away.
It's indeed the mother of all ironies. The internet promises us more connectivity with a plethora of websites sparkling in front of our eyes. We happily surrender ourselves into this allure thinking it will provide an end to our isolation. But does it really? To an extent, it does. It enables complete strangers to confide in each other and to see the world along shared line of interests but the deep-rooted darkness of internal isolation is never whisked away.

The present generation now lives online and documents everything online. Exceptions apart, has this habit done us any good? Can we find real intimacy and connection in a fake world amid shifting identities and permanent surveillance? As they say, loneliness is most acute in a crowd.
We spend our days and nights hunched over our laptops with multiple browsers opened and a smartphone whining away every minute, begging for our utmost attention. The human mind which is so bogged down by a crazy lifestyle, cannot guarantee the wholesome attention that is demanded of us, every minute. How can one develop intimacy without an overwhelming sense of attention and thoughtfulness? We, the youth aspire to be overachievers, to accomplish everything and do everything. But in this mad race to 'conquer' everything, we tend to leave behind things which are really significant to us and do things half-heartedly.
Sure, we have skilled the art of human interaction but only online. More often, we give priorities to the virtual space than sharing a space with an actual human being. Nowadays, more than actually making plans of meeting someone, we become more excited at the prospect of scrapping them. And even if you do meet in person, can you really keep that phone aside, look into the eyes of the person and make an actual real conversation? Doesn't your mind wander and become restless if there is a slight beep on your phone and your fingers ache to unlock it.
We are constantly pushing each other away because of fear, the fear of being judged, the fear of being misinterpreted. We shove this fear by hiding behind our screens, projecting an alternative reality of ourselves and frantically scrolling the hell out of Internet. I am no exception here.
But ask yourself, does this make you happy? When do you feel more alive? Is it when you have a heart-to-heart conversation with someone, or is it after mindless hours of random sinuating on the internet.
So people, smell the coffee before it's too late and let go of this addiction. Stop being cool and start caring!