Throughout the school year, many students find themselves grouped in with the same students almost all day. Not only this, but being around the same group of students extends, for many, throughout all of their high school careers.
This is largely due to the fact that students have classes, especially their core classes, with people at the same class level as them.
Intentional or not, this already creates cliques within the school. When the ever-changing trends of social media are added into the mix, it becomes harder and harder for many students to find their place in the school.
Moreover, encouraging people to be more open to having others join their friend groups becomes an increasingly futile effort when the message being conveyed is phrased in a way that makes it seem like just being nicer will fix the issue that is many students feeling ostracized in their everyday lives.
The change being made must be an international one to be more inclusive.
One of the biggest things that could be done to encourage more connection is to promote connection outside of social media. Face-to-face connection allows for more transparency, and it is more difficult to avoid conversation when it is happening in the moment. When people are having a conversation across a table, getting out of the conversation isn’t as simple as ignoring a notification or turning on do not disturb. Additionally, in person conversation can more easily flow between topics, whereas text conversation often ends when the initial topic has finished being discussed.
Having more in person interactions can greatly help to deepen friendships that already exist, and can more quickly deepen friendships that are less developed.
Through making more in person connections, people eventually become more open to interacting with people who they may have previously thought that they had nothing in common with. More discussion can lead to people realizing that they aren’t as different as they may have once thought, and what may have previously been thought to be an unlikely connection can form.
Despite their differing academic levels or how they follow the trends, people can be better brought together when they set aside their differences and make an intentional effort to have more interpersonal in-person connections.
