Not maintaining friendships is a choice

A typical morning for many teenagers across America is to update their Snapchat streaks, reply to unread messages on Facebook Messenger and scroll through celebrity updates on Twitter or Instagram. Throughout the day, this cycle continues, connecting people from around the globe. Simply put, we are given the unique, yet sometimes arduous, opportunity to be constantly connected.

But this also implies that not maintaining friendships is a choice now, because we have the means of communication to stay close with our friends even if we don’t live in the same place.

Unlike our parents’ generation, we can no longer can use the excuse that “we fell out of touch with our friends that live in different places.”

Social media has become such an integral part of our lives. Thirty-seven percent of the people in the world are active social media users, according to TNW X. How can we have an excuse to not be able to contact old friends when we are constantly using smartphones that give us access to people anywhere in the world?

Although having social media connections may seem like a burden to those who are simply too lazy to pursue their friendships with those they don’t see every day, it is still a blessing to those who utilize the many advantages of  we have now with technology.

Even if you aren’t able to be physically present with your friends, Facetime, Skype and a interminable list of applications allow people to physically see each other.

I am still close with my friends who moved to different states. Even though we haven’t met in person for years, we Snapchat multiple times a day. As a result, it feels like I see them every day, because I know almost everything that happens in their lives by simply asking them how their day went on any of our shared social media applications.

Most of us take technology for granted or think we would be better off without it. However, it’s important to realize that it’s this same technology that allows us to be able to maintain friendships with friends across the world, or just down the street.