The increasing view of social media as an addiction, especially to millennial population by the rest can largely be attributed to its current usage. A little altered perspective provides interesting insights and we may clearly understand that people who extensively use social media are generally not averse to physical social contacts but they would want more of it, provided they have the time for it.
Let’s see how! The very fact that any given sample of the millennials will have hundreds of contacts in their social sites, itself is a proof that they are more than interested in maintaining social relations. These relations may only be virtual for now, but may not remain so for long when technology becomes an enabler. Usage analytics of social media enables planned and organized opportunities to physically meet with their respective social groups. Connected devices armed with AI will manage logistics, end-to-end to the last imaginable detail and sometimes beyond. A scenario where your calendar is being managed to give you a few hours of free time and all your friends of a specific whatsapp group waiting for you at your favourite restaurant for dinner and the only thing for you to do, is to go sit in a pre-booked cab waiting at your doorstep, is going to be a reality pretty soon. Icing on the cake is, frequency of such connections will only increase in future. This however, will have its own limitations, as these scenarios may not apply to all social groups.
Finally, I may not use the word addiction, but such attachment to social media should not be attributed to the psychology of the current generation. We are at the cusp of technological transformation and very soon this will revolutionize the way social media is used and people will again maintain physical social contacts with tens of people with exponential efficiency and effectiveness than at any point in the past.
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