Let’s talk about something real for a second—when was the last time you had a deep conversation? Not just some surface-level chit-chat about the weather or who’s dating who, but a real, raw, soul-baring discussion that made you think? It feels like we’re losing the art of that.
Social media has turned everything into soundbites and hot takes. Everyone’s quick to tweet or post something for likes, but where’s the depth? When did we stop diving into the uncomfortable or challenging topics and start just… reacting to everything? We’ve become allergic to nuance, obsessed with being right instead of understanding each other. You ever notice how even when people do talk, it’s all about winning the argument, not learning from the conversation? Like, what happened to genuinely listening without waiting for your turn to speak?
It’s like people are scared to be vulnerable, to open up about the messy parts of life. We’re constantly scrolling, double-tapping, moving on to the next thing instead of sitting with something and exploring it fully. Have we all become so distracted that we’ve forgotten how to truly connect?
I’m curious—do you think the digital age is destroying meaningful conversation, or am I just getting old and cranky?
Maybe a bit cranky. Confusing social media interaction with actually interacting with people is a mistake. It is either extremely atomized (twitter), or painfully slow (lemmy, forums), or chaotic (public chat). These are also all public platforms, and public speech is under different influences to private discussion. There is more face to save, more to loose if you need to move off a position.
Thing is, I don’t think humanity has actually changed all that much, we just have a record of more people’s speech. What survives of the past is often just what someone thought worth preserving. Prosaic and uninteresting writing by ordinary folk was discarded. Prosaic and uninteresting writing by notables went unpublished and valued only by a collector. Now every kid’s first stumbling around philosophy is recorded for the world to see.
To answer your question, I regularly have such conversations, sometimes in text, or voice call, sometimes in person but almost always in private and real-time. As most conversations have always been. I am somewhat curious though, about when you think the decline happened?