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By: Emily Current

One of Facebook’s features is its “like” button, which is used to express appreciation for a post without actually leaving a comment. Now Facebook is giving us more options with new reactions — a heart, an angry face, a sad face, a smiling face, a laughing face, and a stunned face — introduced in Ireland and Spain.

As it is, people already press the like button complacently. You can see the likes on pictures and other posts accumulating into the hundreds, and then far higher for posts that get repeatedly shared. With the numbers of likes on posts growing so high, these likes become essentially meaningless. People have stopped noticing that their friends liked their picture, and started looking just at the number of likes they’ve received. The introduction of Facebook’s new reactions brings up the question of whether this will be any different. Take for instance the heart button. Realistically it will probably not end up being used much differently than the like button. If people really did care about a post they saw and wanted to express that to the person who made the post, then they would take the time and the effort to actually make a sincere comment about it. Facebook’s heart button will probably just end up being used by people who want to appear to be thoughtful and sincere, but who don’t really have anything they want to express. For the most part, it will probably be used as a gesture, just as likes are now.

The outlook for the “angry face” reaction doesn’t seem much better. Why would anyone actually need an angry face to express themselves on Facebook? Do we really want social media to give us an easy way to publicly show anger? This tool could be very easily misused. The angry face could be used to express an actual justified grievance, but it probably won’t be used in that way. If someone is genuinely angry, they’re not going to show that by clicking an angry face button on Facebook — they will comment. It is more likely that the angry face reaction will end up being used in a passive aggressive manner, with people clicking the button on someone’s post and thinking “there, now they know I’m mad at them” thus avoiding direct confrontation.

Like with the angry face and the heart, the problem with the sad face reaction is that it can’t actually genuinely be used to express the emotion that it’s meant to convey. The act of clicking a button is simply not enough of a gesture to have any meaning. If permanently introduced, the sad face reaction will probably dissolve into another empty expression of empathy.

As for the stunned face, the smiling face, and the laughing face, I suppose nothing bad can really be said about them. But on the other hand, nothing good can really be said about them either. They’re harmless but unnecessary additions that will most likely neither contribute anything to Facebook nor have any detrimental effects. They’re just new add-ons that people might enjoy using, but that aren’t really needed.

The introduction of Facebook’s new set of reactions brings up the question of whether buttons on social media should be a part of our daily interactions. The stunned face, the smiling face, and the laughing face aren’t really problematic, as people can use these reactions without having much of an impact. The heart and sad face highlight the issue of insincere emotions on social media, and the angry face is just asking for trouble. Overall, these new reactions are not an improvement to Facebook. They bring with them new issues to the already complex social media site.

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I think I’m obsessed with the fragility of human relationships. I reflect upon past relationships and consider the future of my current relationships. I remember boys who held my hand during the short summer months. I remember long-forgotten friends who comforted me while I cried about something dumb. I remember teachers who wrote “keep writing” in my yearbook and schoolmates who made me laugh in the middle of the soccer field. I remember strangers sitting next to me on the bus, strangers whose faces and eyes and expressions I studied so carefully that they were not so strange when the bus came to my stop.

I think about the people who touched my life who I will probably never meet again. Or the people who once meant so much to me, who mean a little less every single day. I think it’s one of the tragedies of life – that we invest so much in one another, only to have it fall apart or fade away or suddenly not matter anymore. We find each other wonderful and fascinating and beautiful and incomprehensibly irreplaceable, but in only a matter of weeks and months and years – we move on. Sometimes we look back, but other times it’s too painful, or we simply don’t care to anymore. And we find new people, make new friendships, kiss other strangers and the cycle continues. Meet, fall in love, separate, forget, repeat.

This must be one of the most unforgiveable things about human nature. Perhaps it is an evolutionary fact of survival. We have to know how to move on. When a loved one dies, eventually we learn to move on – the human race could not exist otherwise, we would have died out centuries ago, it wouldn’t have taken long for every human on earth to experience loss. But I don’t think I’m talking about death. I’m talking about break-ups, failed friendships, random interactions, brief encounters – all those emotions we feel in those moments. Where do they all go when the people we experienced them with have gone? Does the love go with them? Or does it stay hidden inside both of us, a memory we’d rather keep somewhere under a dusty mass of years? Does it all just become a secret that we can’t even share with ourselves?

And the memories, the memories! Where do they go? How can our hearts hold so many memories that we leave untouched for so long, sometimes forever? I often wish that I could play all my memories like a never-ending reel, a film that I would watch for days and days, sobbing and laughing and experiencing them one more time. But what good would that do me? The ex-lovers who lifted my chin with two fingers and stared straight into my soul – what good could come from looking into those eyes again? The friends who made me laugh until a little bit of pee came out, why should I want to relive that laughter only to have it end more suddenly and coldly than before?

And then I have to ask myself, is this the fate of all relationships? Is anything forever? Is it something we have to accept when we enter into all forms of human contact? Do we have to tell ourselves, this will end someday? There will come a time that I mean nothing to you and you mean nothing to me, and it won’t even matter that we mean nothing to each other. Or maybe it will matter, but only to me. So dance with me anyway. Laugh with me anyway. Hold me, fuck me, inspire me, scare me, stay with me a little longer anyway.

Or do we have to find a way to believe that some relationships must be different? Some relationships must exist outside of this universe where people fall asleep beside each other and then rarely think of one another again. And that we have to resist those conditions that reality has handed to us (however deluded and unsafe it might be), those conditions that explicitly state that people die, change, make mistakes, have regrets and sometimes wake up one morning and feel differently for no apparent reason.

Tarun Sanda / Silhouette Staff

“Hi, how are you?”

We hear this phrase countless times in our day. We could be delivering it, or be on the receiving end of it.

At times we have this interaction with acquaintances as we’re passing by one another, with barely enough time to stop and make eye contact and respond.

At times it seems like we’re all more focused on our phones than the people in front of us. This brings me to my question. When you come across someone and ask them how they are doing, or how their day went, do you really mean it?

When you’re on the receiving end of this question, are you answering truthfully?

The Super Bowl is less than two weeks away.

NFL fans across the globe are anticipating the conclusion to one of the most exciting post seasons in recent memory. However just a few months ago, the NFL and the sporting world was struck by tragedy.

Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher shot his girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins, several times, drove to the team’s headquarters, ducked behind a car and put a bullet through his head. It was the seventh suicide of a current or former NFL player in the past two years.

“We’d just been together,” says Brady Quinn, now a Chiefs quarterback. “I’d just seen him and his girlfriend and his little girl, Zoey, at the stadium. We were talking about how she was doing, how cute she was.”

Many times we lose touch with our good friends. We are immersed in our own personal lives, and in turn make friends with the people who remain part of our busy day. Life goes on and friends change.

What if that’s only your side of the story?

What if your best friend in high school still has trouble replacing that close friend that was once you?

They could be dealing with something severe. Something they cannot share with someone they just met. They need a friend; they need you, but might not even reach out to you in the first place. They’d face every problem on their own. But it’s hard doing it alone.

Recently an old friend of mine had called me at 2 a.m. He was in tears. He told me his story. He told me how he tried to kill himself.

How he wanted the pain to stop.

I spoke to him till sunrise, and once I knew he was okay, I thanked him.

I could not imagine what might have happened had he not mustered the courage to pick up the phone and call me.

Nobody ever wants to be in a situation where you begin asking yourself: “Why didn’t he or she reach out to me?

Had I known I would have stopped everything and gone to them.”

You never know what’s going on with somebody. The look on their face can be deceiving. They may say they’re fine, but you may never know the truth.

What you can do is try to make a sincere effort to connect with people.

Take a minute out of your day to ask how someone’s day went.

The smallest things, be it a gentle smile while passing by or a simple wave across a lecture hall, can make someone feel noticed and respected.

Maybe that might keep them from doing something tragic, leaving you, and everyone else, filled with regret.

 

Aaron Grierson / The Silhouette

With the New Year having passed us by already I’m wondering what sorts of new years resolutions were made, if any at all. I know that a lot of people are overloading the gym still, three weeks later, which I suppose is a good. But I wonder if there are any people other than one friend of mine who made a vow to be “less technologically reliant” as she put it. Aside from hibernating her Facebook profile (lets be honest, killing them is nearly impossible) it will be interesting to see what she does in this personal crusade. Hopefully, the results are inspiring.

I feel like I’m beating a dead horse but the more I see it, as much as I love technology, the more I think it’s ruining our genuinely human relationships. And let’s be honest, this dead horse has cybernetic legs and technologic eyes that can shoot laser beams from them. I just don’t want to feel the kick of those legs.

So, perhaps I’ll (hopelessly) continue to use technology in what I feel is moderation. I only surf the web with a computer or laptop because really, my phone bill is enough as is. And we’re on computers enough as is; with all of the assignments we have to do and all the games and movies to be played. And I admit, Skype is really handy, especially when your good friend moves out east to educate rural French children in the ways of English. Facebook is also a fantastic way to keep in touch with people, even if you’re the only one doing the work.

But there is a more serious side. Like when two people hang out and one or both spend the whole time on their phones. What kind of human interaction is that, if not escapism?

How is that an acceptable amount of effort to consider one another friends? I guess it could be worse though. It could be a couple on the same couch sexting one another for hours at a time. (Sexting, for those that are unfamiliar with the term, is just like writing your own 50 Shades of Gray and probably just as well performed.)

Daily life really leads me to wonder; aside from how long a person can text while walking before crashing into something, how far we have to go from everything is absurd.

I mean I had to go online just to find the Silhouette last Thursday, even by 4pm the newspapers were mysteriously absent. And with ebooks, I shun web browsing as much as I can personally. Call me retrograde, but I like the feel of paper in my hands when I am enjoying a story, no matter the sort.

With the advancements in technology, wonderful as they might seem, we’re really just taking advantage of old tricks. I recently discovered that cell phones have been able to transfer data since 1997! Who knew history class could teach such useful information? In spite of this marketing made it sounds like the hottest thing ever a couple of years back.

Perhaps it will be a day of escape, where people put their electronic lives on pause and take time to create something meaningful for once.