Human beings have never been more connected than they are right now. That much is a commonly accepted fact of modern American society. Technological and Social equality advances have made people more and more able to easily interact with one another. Yet the argument can be made that even with our revolutionary advances in communication devices and utilities, Human beings have never felt quite so isolated and separated from Everyone else. The entire concept of who you as an individual are has been obstructed by the constant 24-hours-a-day façade some teenagers find necessary to keep up their reputation. Because of things like cell phones and the internet it has become increasingly difficult for teens to simply act like themselves. And the whole idea of having a close group of friends that know exactly who the real you are is practically a fantasy for some teenagers.
Everybody knows how difficult high school and other large social groups can be for some individuals. The constant worrying about appearances, reputations, and levels of influence can be incredibly tiring to lots of teens. Everybody needs a release to decrease the amount of stress in ones life. What that release is can vary greatly from person to person. People can find release in sports, acting, playing an instrument, drawing or any number of activities. However often times the greatest release we have is simply being honest to ourselves and those around us. But because of how easy it has become to destroy a reputation, and because how easy it is to hurt one another through means of embarrassment, People find it much more difficult to tell people what they truly think. The entire concept of who you are can be lost in constantly putting on a mask to be what people think you are. Teens can convince themselves that they are something when inside they know they’re not. This can create an internal conflict that makes one not know who you are, and they feel separated from everything and everyone, essentially creating a sense of loneliness unknown by previous generations. Teens in today’s world have a unique experience of growing up in a time of extreme technological changes, involving mainly how people and businesses communicate with one another.
The Feeling of loneliness however is often times different from previous generations by the sheer implications of this sense of losing who you are. Traditional loneliness is generally considered felling isolated from society. However this New Loneliness is something more than that. Not only do teenager fell pushed away from society, but they also feel separated from who they are. They forget what it is that they truly enjoy. They forget what it really is that that drives them. This loss of self is something much greater than simply loneliness. Teens feel Nothingness (For lack of a better term). They feel, they choose, and they live, but never really knowing why they do so. Simply put, When we isolate ourselves from truly personal relationships we feel lonely. When we isolate ourselves from who we know ourselves to be we feel nothingness, and become nothing more than a tool of society and other people’s desires.
But now approaches the question of what teenagers can do to escape this spiral of nothingness. The simple answer would be just to be honest to yourself and those who care about you. And while yes, that would solve a lot of teenagers experiencing nothingness’s problems, often times they will find it to be incredibly difficult or even impossible to believe that they are in fact lying to themselves. That leads us to a simple fact of life as we know it. Life is difficult if you try. The only way to accomplish anything is by trying. One of the glories of modern technology is teens don’t have to limit how they appear on the internet. Teens that experience this sense of nothingness should seriously consider just joining an online community where they aren’t compelled to protect there reputation so feverishly. They can be who they are and discover what it is that they like, or what it is that they choose. That is one of the easiest ways to solve this feeling of nothingness or really loneliness in modern teens. The entire concept of loneliness can basically be summed up in These few lyrics in Modest Mouse’s Baby Blue Sedan.
And it's hard to be a human being
And it's harder as anything else
And I'm lonesome when you're around
And I'm never lonesome when I'm by myself
That is the concept of loneliness in modern teenage society. But it’s not something one has to live with. All it requires is a little effort and determination to be who you are.