RE: 2. The meaning of relationships
It seems like survival keeps getting more difficult and more "expensive" as you say in demands from us for time and energy. Just trying to stay alive and provide food and shelter for ourselves and our family can leave us with very little energy for others. Often we are so tired at the end of the day that time that could be spent with other people building strong relationships and social ties or having heart to heart conversations with those around us are spent staring at screens. Hitting a like button or making a short comment. Even though social media is in fact "social" and it is better than being completely alone, we have to remember to say the words. Do you think you can make a little time for me this week? Maybe we could go for a coffee or a walk. We have so much to catch up on. It sounds so easy, but yet, most of us find it too "expensive". What do you value most? That is where we should be spending our precious time.
Hi bitkat, we completely agree with your point of view. Sometimes a like or a short comment can take the place of an intimate conversation that could lead to more than a simple "seen". What we want to achieve is to break the wall of the "fake sociality" of social by driving people to see personal relationships as a mean to build a better society by enhancing what the innate ability of gathering with others is. The limits of time and energy devoted to our relationships is the fact that, in our materialistic society, nothing tangible comes from them and so they could seem "useless". So, in our social economic context, a person should be rewarded for the huge benefit he gives to society just by upkeeping a relationship, in order to break down those "screens" which separate us.
I often find myself referring to two types of social, that of the virtual world, and that of the "real" world. Perhaps this compartmentalization is true for others as well. We somehow don't feel our online time is really real. It is real, and it's becoming an expensive distraction taking the place of physical connection with others.