With the arrival of the pandemic, thousands of people began to dive deeper into the digital world. There were long months of social isolation that created the perfect environment to expand not only the use of technology, but also the solidification of an intrinsic relationship with social networks. As a result, for many, a fine line has been created between the real and virtual world, in fact a great interdependence.

Even with the gradual return to “normality”, with the decrease in the number of COVID 19 cases, for many, the constant and intensive presence on social networks has developed a compulsive use of these means of interaction. This ended up generating a centrality of the use of the internet in people’s daily lives, causing many to be practically “connected” all day. 

Recently WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram were down for technical reasons. 

After realizing that it was not an individualized problem, thousands of users felt the strong impact on their personal and professional lives. The repercussion of the fall of these social networks in the media revealed the magnitude of the presence of these services in people’s lives and in the business world.

While many thought this would have been an isolated incident, it didn’t take long for it to happen again. For the second time, in less than a month, Instagram showed instability in several parts of the world. Reports from the main communication vehicles indicated that the company confirmed the instability.

After the initial moment of perplexity and the search for information to try to understand what actually happened, it is necessary to think about the role of social networks in our lives and their degree of importance in our daily lives. A good strategy is to take advantage of difficult moments like these to learn, evaluate, seek possible paths and new solutions.

How can we not become hostages to these platforms? What are the alternatives to continue to relate, communicate, work with greater independence from this technology? What do we do if we have other occurrences like the ones we are discussing? How could we protect ourselves?

These are some questions we need to ask ourselves in order to have a greater back-up for new episodes. After all, we know that whether in the digital or real-world problems happen and nothing guarantees that this will not happen again.

Digital socialization is a phenomenon that is an essential part of contemporaneity. We know that with the end of isolation, we will never go back to the way we were before the beginning of the pandemic, that we will continue to undergo constant changes with the incorporation of new technologies.

Therefore, it is also essential for us to better understand the role of social networks in transforming our lives to be able to manage the impacts and consequences of the virtual world on our well-being. Learning and developing our digital emotional intelligence helps us create a constant attitude of reflection and action to improve and expand the skills needed to face the challenges imposed by the technological revolution we are experiencing.

We will continue to unfold across the increasingly subtle and subjective boundaries between the online and offline worlds. Our immediate challenge is to invest in digital education, so that our presence on social networks is conscious, ethical, and that the information transmitted there is absorbed in a critical and reflective way. In this way, we will be able to take advantage of the many possibilities of communication, production, and dissemination of knowledge. And finally, we will be able to redefine our relationship with technology.

Tags: digital education, digital emotional intelligence, new technologies, social networks, digital world.