I’ve noticed people caring less about preserving the feelings of others during difficult conversations. Especially prevalent around New Year’s on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, you’ll see posts about “leaving you in 2024,” for example, often accompanied by sadistic text messages sent to the person they’re leaving. This trend involves friendships and romantic relationships. 

Now, some people deserve to be left. I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about the people who say unnecessarily harsh things just to be unnecessarily harsh. “You don’t hold enough value for me to waste my time entertaining you” is a real message my friend received.

I blame the internet for a lot of things, and I blame it for this apathy, too.

Therapy buzzwords are all the craze right now, but as we see a lot with trends, the words hit social media and get thrown around so loosely that no one knows what they mean anymore. “Gaslighting” is an infamous example.

It’s a dangerous game of telephone.

Therapists will often tell their clients to set boundaries, be firm and put themselves first. That advice is meant for people who struggle to do that; it’s meant to be empowering. I’ve noticed people using that advice as an excuse to be incredibly rude for no reason at all. You’re not setting a boundary — you’re hurting someone. 

Social media trends aside, we simply talk to each other digitally so much that we’ve lost sight of how to communicate with someone face-to-face. 

I’m beginning to sound like a grandma, I know.

Understandably, people aren’t receptive to being approached by strangers anymore, so the classic parental advice “Just go talk to people!” is truly outdated. When you can make all the friends you need through the phone, why would you be?

When I was writing my very first article for Technician, my editors suggested that I go interview students around campus. Nervous as I was, I ventured into the wild. Of the five students I attempted to interview, only two of them were willing to speak to me at all. The other three made me understand why we’re experiencing a loneliness epidemic.

We’ve lost humanity for one another. A lot of grown adults could, unfortunately, benefit from the golden rule of treating others as you wish to be treated. 

You can, in fact, unfriend or break up with someone because the relationship no longer works for you without saying, “You don’t hold enough value.” Even if it’s true, even if you feel that way about a person, that’s an inside-thought. We need to bring those back.

You don’t have to keep everyone in your life, but there are kinder — and still honest — ways to communicate your feelings. 

Some simple yet much gentler phrases could be, “We’re not getting along like we used to” or “We’ve grown apart.” Cutting ties doesn’t have to be messy, and the better it’s handled, the healthier and easier it is for everyone involved. 

Plus, phrases like these open up the opportunity for a conversation about why the relationship isn’t working before it simply ends. There could be an easy fix that completely reforms the relationship — one you wouldn’t get to know about by being overly aggressive from the get-go.

In the age of dysfunctional situationships, bluntness for shock value and an overall lack of connection with others, it’s more important than ever to remember that you’re talking to another person and, if you wouldn’t want to be spoken to like that, maybe don’t speak like that.