The “liquid ” Relationships In The New Technologies

Currently, there is a particular and curious barometer to measure the quality of our relationships : new technologies. An example: when we stop seeing that one of our friends no longer uploads photographs with their partner on social networks for several days in a row, we immediately sense that something is happening.

And even more, the rest will also value our private lives for our interaction and the photos published on our Facebook or Twitter walls. New technologies are rewriting not only the way we communicate, express ourselves or how we relate, but also the way of conceiving a society.

Liquid love

Not long ago we talked to you in our space about an interesting concept developed by the Polish sociologist named Zygmunt Bauman: liquid love. This theory also included the idea of ​​these new societies where immediacy, globality and, in turn, that fierce individualism are valued above all else.

New technologies continue to be resources where, despite “selling out” that supposed union with everything and everyone, what is actually achieved is sometimes becoming isolated islands, distant entities that we communicate every day with “people without faces ”that sometimes we don’t even know physically.

So far and so close in turn. We have great power in the palm of our hands and, nevertheless, for many, life “slips away” from them, it escapes from their hands like that water that we cannot contain. Like those loves that some use and then throw away instantly.

The duality of links in new technologies

We cannot ignore the enormous benefit of having all these devices on a daily basis, of this fascinating connectivity where those people who are far away, we can continue to have them close at every moment.

Mothers who communicate with their children abroad, couples who maintain their relationship from different parts of the world, and of course, wonderful friends who appear in the distance thanks to these technologies and social networks. How can we not recognize all these advantages, all this way of reinforcing the bonds with those we love? It is unavoidable.

However, we cannot avoid delving into those changes that are gradually being established in our way of relating to each other in an almost imperceptible way. Not to say sibylline, and we can see this especially in the younger generations, in these boys who have come to the world having before them the screen of a mobile that photographed them, or that social network where their parents uploaded their images.

Characteristics of “liquid relationships” in new technologies

1. Immediacy is valued

The information is consumed in a few seconds, generating a kind of mental hyperactivity where instantly, one can have seen a video, read a news item, updated the profile, responded to a message and posted a status on the Facebook wall….

In the end, when you look up you discover in amazement the slowness with which the world advances. I mean, real life.

2. Disposable relationships

When our teenagers decide to break a friendship, the first thing they do is go to their social networks and “block” that person. Sometimes no more words are needed. New technologies save our life and allow us to make it safer, more aseptic using the keyboard of a mobile phone and a computer.

It is a comfortable space, where we can choose almost “à la carte” what we are looking for. This way of relating offers security for all those who lack certain social skills, more insecure people who see in this medium an opportunity to relate.

And of course, there are times when “magic” arises, that’s true. However, until this happens, we will most likely have “thrown out” other options, other candidates.

It is a way of saving “time”, there is no doubt, but it can also be a clear example of those “liquid relationships” that do not prosper, that escape through the virtual sewers of our technologies, to bring us new things almost instantly, almost in a “click”.

3. Life … that escapes

That’s right, life is all that happens while you have your gaze suspended on the mobile screen. However, and this becomes curious, is that sometimes we come to believe that if someone does not update their Facebook, it is that something bad has happened to them.

What if you are living the passion of your life? If so, you do not have to be forced to share it, as many believe, although the truth is that social networks are often our emotional barometers. Emoticons are already those modern masks that represent our happy souls, our disappointed or bored souls.

Don’t let all of this get to you. New technologies are wonderful mechanisms, fascinating tools that make our lives easier. However, do not let them be that palace where you can raise your walls and look only once in a while, to real life.