Tuesday, 26 August 2014

Welcome To The Era of E-Relationships!


We will continue to be grateful for the invention of technology, the internet and consequently the social media. One cannot begin to relate the immense benefits the internet has brought into our every day lives. Almost every business venture is carried out online and more people are building professional networks via the internet.


You get to seal business deals via video conferences and also meet business partners via professional social media platforms like Linkedin. The commercial industry has been revamped due to the internet with the birth of e-commerce. You can shop for house-hold items, office equipments and groceries within the comfort of your home and also request for home services to be rendered to you.

The relationship scene cannot be ignored when mentioning the various spheres of life in which technology has amplified and aided. Courtesy of the social media and mobile smart phones, people stay connected 24/7. Online dating sites are frequently visited by people just to find that 'special one'. Long distance relationships have also been made easier with technology as both partners can keep in touch constantly through BBM, Facebook, Skype, Whatsapp, Snapchat and other social networks.

However, this trend has birthed what I term E-Relationships. Naturally, deep and meaningful relationships evolve with time and constant communication. And in most cases, one cannot exempt the significance of physical intimacy in building such relationships. Spending quality time with a loved one brings about such depth in communication and impacts the growth of the relationship positively.

An intimate relationship involves the merging of two separate individuals from different backgrounds, cultures and with different philosophies, attitudes, personalities, life-styles, world-views and perspectives. Most times it starts with an attraction, then builds slowly into friendship and finally blossoms into an amazing love story. However, this transition occurs with spending quality time with each other and lots of communication.

But it seems technology has short circuited that process and is beginning to take the place of physical intimacy in relationships. People meet online, date online, even get married online *lol*. The relationship process is initiated via the internet, nurtured via the internet and even broken off via the internet. The internet has rendered almost irrelevant the importance of physical presence in relationships. In my opinion, more relationships have been dissolved on Facebook and other social media platforms than in person.

The process of cultivating real friendship and deep relationship by spending quality time with one another has been short-circuited by smart phones and social media. People do not know each other well enough because they spend most of their time apart and are under the illusion that they are connected via the internet. The truth is you are most closest to the people around you. People with whom you constantly spend time with stand a better chance at influencing your life and decisions than those in your virtual circle.

Although some studies show that people in long distance relationships are much more closer and intimate because they tend to treasure the little time they spend together either on the phone or via social media and as such discuss issues pertaining to love, trust and the future, the reality remains that those people (especially those who met via the internet) stand a chance of being ignorant of  how their partner acts or operates in their day-to-day activities. Certain character defects and flaws are hidden so as not to distort the smooth flow of the relationship. Both parties are thereby living in ignorance of who their significant other really is.

They do not know each other's  high's and lows and are in some sort of dream land or fantasy world of love whenever they are together, thereby eliminating the reality of the relationship. In some cases, these couples will have a harder time adjusting to reality when finally together as they will be forced to adjust their expectations, built from sweet talks of love everyday, with day-to-day issues.

It is true that the millenial generation is addicted to technology but it is time we learn to raise our heads from our phones once in a while and stop building our lives and relationships around technology. This post is not condemning long distance relationships, as some of them work out pretty well, neither is it eliminating the possibility that people in close proximity with their partners still lie or deceive their mate.

However it is bringing our attention to the fact that we are loosing touch of what real relationships are all about and depending so much on technology to give us the kind of closeness that can only be best achieved with constant physical proximity. Let us stop relying on phone calls, skype and BBM to build our relationships, rather let us take time out to appreciate the beauty of spending time with our loved ones and believe me, it will be worth every second.

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