Recently, I’ve been
reading two mangas that deal with problems regarding social situations. WaTamote deals with a
social anxiety disorder, while Waratte! Sotomura-san is about ‘stereotype’
generated social problems. These mangas got me thinking about how we humans
view the need for socialization and acceptance, and how recent advances in
technology have changed our daily interactions.
In one of the manga
the main character wants to be popular, but suffers from social anxiety
disorder, which involves being afraid to talk to people, she panics if talked
to, or has to talk to someone. Social anxiety has many manifestations and most
people probably suffer from it, some extreme case, other rather light that
doesn’t affect them much. Some people may hide their hobbies, age, salary,
studies, etc. to fit into a circle they think is comfortable. Still there is
one type of social anxiety that I’d like to touch on and which has been the
butt of constant jokes in several forms of media. Which is the ‘escape’ to
formality in form of reading Facebook during group gathering (be it with family
or friends).
WaTamote actually
omits one prominent ‘social’ activity: social media. It never once mentions
social website such as Facebook. Waratte! Sotomura-san shows characters using Twitter,
but is still narrative of ‘stereotype’ social problem when use. Everyone views
the character Sotomura as a ‘delinquent’ cause of her clothing and form of
speech (rough), but in reality she is actually sensitive girl that loves
everything cute and things done by the rules. The manga makes joke of Twitter
character limitations and the writing of Sotomura comes out as rough and
misinterpreted that ‘followers’ thing she is telling her delinquent acts.
This forms of
‘social problems’ the main characters of the manga got me thinking, what other
current social problems young (and even adults) and I decide to analyze one of
them. Let’s try this: go to a restaurant and look at the tables. You might notice
a lot of the tables have people using cellphone, giving you a clear idea that
most people would rather look at messages, Facebook, or website than the person
in front of them. The need for constant information or amusement kills the quiet
moment of simply looking at one another. That small but essential silent moment
when you feel comfortable with the other person, even if nothing is spoken, is
now considered an awkward moment we should always avoid. The need for constant information
(in social media, that is), or oversharing, of what you are doing seems to be a
syndrome where people ‘need to tell the experience instead of living it’.
People seem to
prefer reverting back into something comfortable that they already know and are
familiar with by simply reading friend information, looking at funny pictures,
or posting something themselves instead of speaking with the person in front of
them. This seems to be the norm even if they are with a friend of years. I
think this is one kind of social anxiety to deal with: not having something to
say or thinking that everything you might say is silly or stupid. Just like
WaTamote escapes her social anxiety by imaging ‘what if’ and blames other that
she isn’t popular, we direct ourselves to a bright screen to escape the fear
that we aren’t interesting, and in the process we might make the other person
think they aren’t interesting. Slowly, we are creating a non-person-socializing
environment were the only words we say are ‘Hello, is that a Galaxy S4?’ before
seeing the post your friend from another state posted to his/her wall as means
to socialize in life.
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Carlos Encarnacion has a BA in communications and marketing from Metropolitan University (UMET) and is currently an Audiovisual and Media Specialist working for several companies.
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This week, Carlos has been kind enough to be the guest writer for Pop Trends, hopefully, we'll have him again
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