Real Connections in a World of Followers
Until the early 21st century, gatherings with friends and family meetings were an essential part of everyday life. Birthdays, dinners, weekend visits — all of it happened naturally, creating memories, building up bonds, and sustaining a sense of belonging.
Maintaining a friendship has always required conscious effort. Showing up in someone’s life — even with the challenges of time and routine — has always been a deeply human gesture. Strong groups — of friends, family, and neighbors — made up the foundation of psychological and social development for many generations. Real-life interaction, with imperfect exchanges and shared moments, helped shape people’s identities.
With the rise of social media, face-to-face connections slowly gave way to digital ones. The feeling of constant contact can be comforting, but it has brought deep changes. The notion of privacy has become blurred: today, anyone can be tracked down, watched, or recorded at any time. Images and situations are quickly passed around — often out of context — feeding a continuous environment of exposure and public judgment. In this way, social media has taken on a role of control and surveillance, defining what is acceptable or not according to fleeting trends, often leading to consequences that are hard to reverse.
In this new reality, building up true friendships requires not just intention, but courage. Courage to slow down, to make room in your schedule, and to allow yourself to be there for someone in a real way. In a world of fragile connections, there’s something deeply liberating about simply sitting down with someone at the table — no filters, no distractions, just presence.
