The celebrated poet Ghalib wished for a small visual of his beloved for a few moments in the street window, which made him smile for hours and hours. Similarly, Ahmed Ali in his novel portrays at the same time, zero male access to the women’s quarters in his fascinating tale Twilight in Delhi. But the same beloved in the digital times is available in visuals almost every moment of the day, though digitally and so the same digital-ness has put a new emphasis and transformation on human relationships. The 21st century can boast of its tremendous increase in socialization and relationships, but it exists more digitally than physically. Although it has frequently been witnessed that humans have found a better tool for interrelationships on digital social media, it is increasing more in shallowness than depth. This escalating of communication on a very enormous scale has weakened social bonding in many ways and has introduced a transformed and mutated form of social relationships.
One of the many social media casualties is letter writing. Previously people used to write and send letters to maintain social relationships. Letters to the beloved, sometimes written with blood were the norm to prove love. Letters written by many grand people have become a significant part of the historical archives. Now the same is done through SMS, text messages, audio or video shots which carry very little genuineness and are more fleeting. The same is the case for the impact on relationships in the 21st century. The poetry of Ghalib and Mir and the people of the same flock claimed a spiritual communication with the beloved as a proof of genuine love which was further made possible because of lack or absence of communication. But the relationship was so solid and impeccable that it lasted for years with utmost sincerity.
Instead of providing psychological and political security, the age of communication has infringed upon our privacy.
Now we have communication and communication everywhere, but the relationships are fleeting and unreliable and may terminate at any moment. It holds good not only in the case of love relationships but also in sociopolitical ones. Look at the national and international friendships, leaving aside a few exceptions, are mostly profit-driven or power-mongering and consequently keep on settling, unsettling, and resettling. So, the increase in communication quality and quantity has not contributed to solidifying the social bonding, it has rather weakened it. Now we have seemingly friends and friends, but we are running behind our motives of success and money.
There can be occasional episodes of people falling in love and marrying cross-culturally because of social media but these are likely to be terminated with the same haste and speed with which these were formed. In the absence of any support mechanism, social media has proved a bane in the context of social relationships. Many deaths and suicides occurred because of isolation, loneliness, and frustration. In the past, the support mechanism existed at home in the shape of nannies and grannies which would counsel to not let things fall apart.
A similar support mechanism strengthened the bonding among people through multiple modes of communication and social interaction. Now, instead of this, we have Apps and Apps for resolving conflicts, traumas, and tensions but to our utter dismay, it has rather increased the same vigorously. Today, humans are more alienated in this age of constant communication. Even motivational speakers, so-called social healers, are themselves not sufficiently motivated to motivate their audience.
Instead of providing psychological and political security, the age of communication has infringed upon our privacy and has negatively exposed the private lives of people causing even more damage to relationships, so much so that now no one is interested in making an actual human to human relationship because of the fear generated by social media. People have started to discard the old bonds and traditions of relationships and are relying more and more on social media relationships. Another dreadful consequence of social media relationships is bullying because as soon as a girl, minor, or woman refuses to act the dictates of the bullies, they would threaten and blackmail because of the tactics they can play online. This artificiality of relationship has promoted the tendency of not creating any solid relationship which is necessary to keep the society running on firm footing.
The modern age of communication is a double-edged weapon working as a killing machine on both sides. It has brought us electronically close to each other but has separated us physically from each other. It has facilitated knowing each other situation more feasibly but has equally weakened the bond that used to exist among the people. We must devise some way out that does not force us to go back but rather allows sincere bonding and actual human relationships for happiness instead of the electronic existence.
The writer is a professor of English at Government Emerson University, Multan. E-mail: [email protected] and Tweets at @Profzee