Snapchat. Texting. Instagram. Twitter. Facebook. Social media is utilized anywhere and everywhere on any given day, most commonly and excessively, by members of Generation Z. We are bombarded by a constant barrage of notifications and our smart phones have become an additional appendage. Social media is fantastic, don’t get me wrong. The progression of technology has done wonders not only to our LT community, but society as whole; however, there is a major problem.

The image we have created of ourselves on social media has been manipulated by us for the public consumption of our followers as the “best version of ourselves”—the most exciting, entertaining and witty. Instagram feeds are flooded by teenage couples in love, best friends celebrating one another’s birthdays and parties galore.

While it has become natural to feel a sense of pride in crafting funny posts and capturing pictures, these “best versions of ourselves” are not real. These posts are the images we wish to purport to the outside world, because it’s much easier to pretend.

Why admit that our relationships are healthy and satisfying while we can barely stand to look at one another? It’s much easier to hide behind a series of emojis than to have the integrity to acknowledge that our supposed best friends are complaining about us beyond our backs, or the party we attended last weekend was an absolute disaster.

Snapchat stories have become an even more instantaneous form of self-gratification that allow us to update our friends minute by minute on exactly what we’re experiencing as we experience it. There is never a moment where we can’t figure out exactly where someone is and what they are doing in real time. We are a generation that has become obsessed with establishing a “Snapchat streak” (recognized by an emoji of fire) and building relationships through pictures that disappear after ten seconds over holding an actual face-to-face conversation with our friends.

Social media allows us to stretch the truth not only about our experiences, but about who we truly are. When was the last time you had a genuine conversation with your best friend by talking on the phone, let alone in person?

In the past 40 minutes I have spent writing this article alone, I have received 42 text messages, two Snapchats, one notification from Instagram and two notifications from Facebook. There is a never-ending onslaught of digital messages.

We are losing the ability to communicate and the valuable people skills that come along with it. We need to learn how to un-plug, how to have a good time without fueling our constant need to validate our experience with a clever caption and 142 likes. We need to look up and observe the world around us. We need to speak the words “I love you” instead of texting “ily”.

Communication is the most fundamental key to building, maintain and repairing relationships, and if we continue down this trend, we will become nothing more than a shell of ourselves—lost among a hail of filters, tweets and group chats.