2015 has been a year of a lot of changes. Some good, some bad.
I think perhaps the biggest change is the way that people in our society approach things now. This is the year that the gay marriage referendum passed in Ireland and that alone is an amazing achievement to note.
This is the year when the internet and social media sucked us further into its web of information.
You can’t go anywhere – not a restaurant, not an office, not a bus – without seeing someone on their phone. I am one of those people, I will raise my hand up and say that I am always on my phone and that I probably live over 50% of my life with headphones in my ears.
But I am using the excuse of being a teenager to get out of that one.
Other than the significant rise in the selfie count for the year, I think that the way that we use our phones and the internet has changed the way that we discuss certain topics. 2015 is the year when people started learning more about who they are and telling more people about it.
There is no longer just gay and straight; but there is pansexual, bi-sexual and even gender-neutral. I do genuinely think that it is amazing that people are finding out more about themselves and are comfortable enough to express their beliefs like this.
However, like with most things, there are strings attached to this new way of thinking. Despite this supposed freedom of speech, there are so many things that you can’t say in 2015. So many words that are off limits and so many more people to offend if you harbour a certain opinion on a certain subject.
For example, if someone is overweight, what do you say about them? What word can you use, without causing an absolute uproar.
In most cases, you are not using an term that is intentionally disrespectful or crude, but now they’re are so many words just crossed off the list that it can be hard to conduct a sentence without being annihilated for it.
Of course the same argument does not apply to calling someone too skinny or telling someone to “go eat a sandwich” but I think we will save that particular argument for another day.
This inability to speak on certain topics has stemmed from people’s new hyper-awareness about every topic discussed.
I would like to make it clear that I do not think that it is a bad thing that people feel more free and more comfortable in themselves to be who they want to be; I think that this is an amazing step in the right direction.
But I do think that the way that we are handling it with this hyper-sensitivity is insane. I just think that people should still retain a certain level of free speech to be able to express their opinion on whatever topic without being slandered for it.
Of course, we may not agree with said opinion but that’s just one of the facts of a free country.
So if 2015 was the year where we learned more about being ourselves, maybe 2016 is the year that we learn how to deal with it.
• See Zoe O’Connor’s website teentimes.eu and follow her on Twitter here
