Over many centuries, Community in its true sense grouped people based on geographical location often a village, town, or city. Average size of communities grew in number over the many centuries but with the introduction of telephony in the late nineteenth century people began to collaborate better than ever before.

In fact, communal living and the community as a concept transformed when smart wireless telephony was served with faster data connectivity and social media.

A typical urban person, these days, tend to prefer watching streaming service than going to a cinema or a theater, ordering via food delivery services than going to a restaurant, or swiping through social media platforms than reading newspapers.

You are more likely to observe couples on a dinner date browsing through their mobile phone compared to having conversations, who would have thought that 20 years ago!

This paradigm shift of behavior to indulge with digital world in a couch has shifted the base unit of society to micro communities. Despite groups of people are confined to a built-up structure i.e., a building, with people around, the communal activities and social interactions are declining at an alarming level.

What is a micro community?

A micro community is a geographically focused group of people who are physically present in and around a built-up structure, to perform an activity as part of daily life or leisure.

Many of you might be fortunate to have come from a unique generation who have potentially witnessed the transformation of life patterns – mostly influenced by social media. The impact of the shift from being a social animal to being obsessed with social media, is felt across the world in the form of an endemic called Loneliness. In October 2023, Gallup and Meta (formerly facebook) published a report on social connections surveying 140 countries and the results were staggering – Almost quarter of the world now feels Lonely!

Ref:https://www.gallup.com/analytics/509675/state-of-social-connections.aspx

Whist I’m optimistic that some sort of correction would come in play to curb this paradigm shift, I feel nervous about the timeline it would take. We all have a role to play and, given I belong to a unique generation who has witnessed the change I certainly feel obliged to contribute in a way that I can.