Editor’s Note: All opinion section content reflects the views of the individual author only and does not represent a stance taken by The Collegian or its editorial board.

Faces flash on screens left and right — personalities denied, judged and discarded within milliseconds of consideration. The list of friends has reached the hundreds. Thousands of words are exchanged within a minute, the stories more vivid on our screens than when shared face-to-face.

Our extensive digital network has become one of the largest gateways for interaction around the globe. More people meet online than they do in person, and this is tainting the human connection.

In today’s digital age, we communicate a lot, sometimes primarily, on social media platforms. While this is sometimes with those we’ve met in person, we also interact with people we’ve never met before — people who might live 10 or even 10,000 miles away.

Though a feat in human networking, there comes a point where the relationships on our screens are more prominent than those off-screen. We might lose what it means to truly connect with one other, or to even connect with the planet, because of it.

Both friendships and dating customs have shifted immensely because of this. As dating apps, like Hinge and Tinder, become increasingly popular — apps where we tend to judge people by the way they look and portray themselves in less than a minute — potential connections are severed instantly. This creates a culture of judging people by their appearance and needing visual acceptance constantly.

As a result, we’ve become obsessed with how we appear online, spending large amounts of time fixated on our profiles — myself included. Personality is second to appearance, damaging how we navigate dating and build relationships. 

Before social media profiles and dating apps, face-to-face human connection was the norm when it came to meeting others. Running into someone at a bar or cafe, chatting on public transportation or simply approaching people in public spaces to strike up conversation, these interactions weren’t as daunting or quite the social suicide that they’re considered now. Buses, subways and trains that used to be full of chatting strangers and screenless conversations are currently filled with drones staring at screens, disconnected from the life behind the LEDs. Our world now is filled with silence, the natural sounds of life muffled by headphones.

So put the phone down and take the headphones off. Compliment the girl next to you on the bus, talk to the guy that has been sitting by you in class this whole semester or ask to sit at that half-empty booth in the coffee shop. Clean out your friends list and prioritize the people right in front of you. Appreciate your peers and those you see in person every day. Keep us human, not drones forever connected to our phones. Human connection that is established face-to-face is dwindling, but it’s up to us to save it.