Meeting people
Meeting people we love, is important, especially in-person meetings.
Self-confidence is one of the most important aspects of our character. We can develop self-confidence within. The major factor is external when people find a good thing in you and tell it to you, people encourage you, give a positive mindful validation.
Sharing our deepest feeling can make us stronger and free from unresolved thoughts. This releases us from being stressed during the work-hours.
These are possible when we reach out to the people we love. My friend, Umaina Hafeez, who is a Counseling Psychologist and a writer, when asked about the advantage of meeting loved ones, said this:
“Meeting your close circle of friends/family makes a lot of difference with reducing stress, boosting morale, encouraging your self-confidence, motivating self-esteem. Plus gives a lot of reassurance, sense of support love and affection which are vital emotions for people to maintain their well-being in terms of health especially mental health. Networking, meeting up and communicating increases learning interpersonal skills and relationships. Experiences build memories and help in better cognitive processing like decision making and problem-solving.”
We all do it often. Recently it has been online meetings more in general. We spend time on social channels interacting and communicating. Social media has changed the way we connect with our friends and family.
At least as a programmer, I can work remotely. Talking to colleagues or managers, I can get the work done. Many professions do not need in-person meetings. But it’s so ironical that we meet profession mates offline, regularly and catch up with the loved ones on the online world.
Is there any advantage of meeting people over social media?
Let’s see.
Advantages :
- Distance doesn’t matter
- Any time
- Save time on travelling
- Meet a lot of people in less time
These are great. It helps. But it comes with several downsides.
Feed section: infinite/mindless scrolling which not only consumes time but also inputs a lot of information
Push-notification: Distracts us from focusing on work. Need for an extra effort to not get distracted.
Social-profiling: Increase in craving of being validated and getting noticed. Affects our confidence level. A social profile is far made up. It could be far from what we are.
Asynchronous messaging: Waiting for replies. The thought process that goes why there is no reply yet, could be negative.
Ability to express fully: Messaging, especially. Certain emotion and the way you want to convey a message can be completely misunderstood or misinterpreted.
What are the advantages of meeting people in person over social media?
You go out! Get some fresh air. Experience the real world. Notice other people’s lifestyle.
Emotions: The emotions we go through from the time a meeting plan is made until we meet. The feeling we experience when we are dressing up. The nervousness when you are almost about to see the person. Smile, exchange of handshakes, hugs or kisses. Looking into each other while talking. It is a real-life experience.
Saves a lot of time! Travelling to a place takes time, but you sending messages over social media consumes a lot of time. We spend hours together texting many people at the same time. It is time inefficient. Consider spending one-hour texting someone daily vs meeting them in person once a week. Which would save us a lot of time? What is a better experience?
Full attention to the people. You give your full attention when you meet in person then messaging them. It is obvious. Resulting in more mindful, insightful, fulfilling satisfactory experience.
What stops us from meeting people offline
Most of us know meeting on real is a better experience. But still, we don’t. Why?
There must be an obvious reason. Most of the reason we give over self is “we do not have time”
It is very instinctive to think it is time-consuming to commute and meet people. We can spend hours together on online media per day. We feel its less time-consuming. Can we really make an effort to avoid social media and use the time to meet people regularly, in person for a better experience?
There are several other factors
Poor meeting plan ( fail to decide time and place quickly )
We do not take initiative
Social media
What if we can not meet people in person due to reasons like distance and pandemic situations?
Sometimes it’s impossible to reach out to people in person or its too much effort and risky.
But there are better ways than messaging over social media.
A phone call: You have complete attention, clarity in expression, less time-consuming.
A video call: A better phone call experience. Realtime.
Finding the time and putting the required effort to meet our loved ones, help us. Making these meetings more efficient and effective is necessary. Meet more, live more.
The above-written content is my opinion and it is not based on any studies or research. Please feel free to communicate your opinions in the comment section below.
