It has never been easier to stay in touch with people. We see their stories, send them reels, react to messages, and know small details about their days without necessarily having a full conversation. In many ways, I like this. A reel can genuinely mean, “I thought of you,” and a quick text can be enough on a day when neither person has much time or energy. These small interactions do help us stay in each other’s lives.
At the same time, I started to notice how easy it is to feel like we know how someone is doing when we may not. I can see that a friend went out over the weekend or posted something funny and assume things are probably fine. Meanwhile, we may not have spoken about how we both have been feeling in weeks.
That is where the difference between staying in touch and checking in becomes important. Sometimes it just means asking instead of relying on what we can see online. It might be checking in after someone mentioned they were stressed, calling a friend you have only been texting lately, or asking how something went instead of assuming no news means everything was fine. These are small things, but they require us to pay attention and remember what is going on in each other’s lives.
Checking in is not always convenient. Someone may call when we are tired or in the middle of something. A conversation we expected to last ten minutes might take an hour. We might ask how someone is doing and get a much more serious answer than we expected. Sometimes we will know what to say, and sometimes we will not.
The last part can make people hesitant to ask how others are doing. Sometimes we avoid asking because we do not want to pry, make someone uncomfortable, or bring up something they may not want to talk about. There can also be pressure to say something helpful or figure out what they should do if they tell us they are struggling. But being there for someone does not always have to look like solving the problem. Sometimes it is listening, asking what they need, or simply not changing the subject because we feel uncomfortable.
Of course, this does not mean we should always be available. People have work, school, families, their own stress, and limited energy. Boundaries are necessary. But I do not think every inconvenient moment in a relationship means that too much is being asked of us. There will be times when someone we care about needs more time or attention than we expected to give that day. At some point, we will probably need that from them too.
Technology has made staying in contact much easier, and I do not think those forms of communication are meaningless. I send reels, react to stories, and have plenty of conversations over text. Those things are part of how we stay connected now. Every once in a while, it is worth sending a personal message or making a call to connect with people we care about, even when it would be easier not to.
In alignment with SAMHIN’s mission to foster open dialogue around mental health within the South Asian community and spotlight the voices driving this important work we invited Aanya Jajoo, a graduate student from Columbia University, to share her reflections on the values and limitations of staying in touch through messages and reels in this modern era. If you missed her earlier insightful piece on navigating mental health conversations within South Asian families, you can read You Started the Conversation … Now What?
By Aanya Jajoo
Aanya Jajoo (she/her) is a graduate student in mental health counseling at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her clinical interests include adolescent and family therapy, intergenerational trauma, and culturally responsive mental health care. She is a dedicated SAMHIN volunteer.
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