Modern Social media follows us wherever we go. It used to be you had to log-on to your desktop computer to check whose top eight Myspace friends you entered into, now you can get push notifications for anyone one of your numerous social platforms straight to your smartphone. In his book Rewire, Ethan Zuckerman outlines a time where Picasso found a connection to African Art through random sorts of encounters. Zuckerman continues on to say that modern social media has eroded this ability to learn this kind-of stuff in real life, we now learn exclusively through screens. He sums it up like this…

@EthanZ says that indexes like Google give us the #information we want, but don't necessarily need – making it harder for unexpected moments

— Jeff Goldberg (@SyracuseJeff) February 1, 2016

I couldn’t agree more with this sentiment. When you are going out, you can almost always keep close tabs on where people in your social network are. Whether it be a geotag on Snapchat, or a location identifier on Instagram you can make any chance meeting a little less chance.

A1: You have to have some plan when it comes to #socialmedia IN ORDER to be spontaneous, but also be ready to throw it out the window #SMAMi

— Greg Rokisky (@GregRokisky) January 21, 2016

Another example I can think of when looking at the spontaneity of social media is it’s ease. Instead of struggling to think of the answer to a simple question, we can so easily look to our phones for the answer. This takes away a key social aspect. Looking at your phone is a uniquely individual experience, and whenever you consult your phone over your friends, you’re losing a chance at a unexpected conversation or experience.