Social Media On Real World Friendships And Interactions

Social media and technology has improved the ability to stay connected with each other from far distances. In the article “Text or Talk: Is Technology Making You Lonely? By Margie Warrell” the author states “ online technology is a magnificent tool for staying in touch with people across miles time zones and years.” In

A prevalent issue regarding social media and interactions exists between researchers and social network users. Social media is currently changing how relationships between people are created. Relationships can exist through people across the world through social media and can produce more emotional bonds with friends that you can see everyday. On the other hand, social media also could present conflicts due to the fact that some of these relationships can become unhealthy and that people could change to be more dependent on internet friends, becoming introverted.

Although many argue that social media is an easier way to interact with others and that it has the ability to improve relationships by keeping those that are far apart together through technology, social media can also cause people to further distance themselves and it can also have a negative impact on relationships. There has been many studies that proves that technology harms our relationships and how one interacts with other in social situations. Many people use technology as a way to escape the real world. Even though social media can be used in a positive way, it can also be used negatively. Before technology was as developed as it is in today’s society, people had different realities; separation between work life and personal life.

When technological advancement began so did the growth of social networking. Social networking became easier with the innovation of smartphones, by making social media more accessible than its initial phases. However, in social networking’s earliest stages social media sites were created with the purpose of helping people stay linked together despite the distance separating each other. During that time, the only means of using these networking sites were by having access to a computer. Without the easy accessibility to computers, people back then could carry on with everyday life tasks without social networking distracting us from the life around us. Despite social media not fully taking off until the booming of mobile devices, the earliest known form of social media is believed to have been created in 1995 by way of Classmates.com. Eventually being followed by networks such as Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest (Social Media). Unfortunately networking quickly changed in the 2010s when smartphones became more common and social media sites began to release their products as mobile applications or apps (Social Media). In this day and age in which some school-age children are gifted mobile devices almost everyone can get their hands on social media. It has become so easy to stay communicated by means of these social media apps that we are starting to forget how to interact among each other. We are moving away from face to face

The internet has so many features and benefits that help people maintain friendships or give us the tools we need to deteriorate one. The ability to keep in contact with each other, stabilize relationships, and network. On the other hand it can take its toll on a friendship. Social media combined with the fragileness of a friendship might affect someone's mental state, causing them to become a victim of catfishing or cyber bullying. Social media has impacted relationships in positive and negative ways.

Today, socialization that involves real interaction is very rare because people have been reduced to interaction on social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Though there is nothing expressly wrong with technological communication, but over-relying on it can be a problem when it is seen as a substitute for face-to-face interaction. It takes away real life activities and can cause a breakdown in relationships. Constantly connecting through mobile devices is prone to disconnecting people from those physically around us.

Society today sees technology as a beneficial tool; however, it ultimately damages relationships by distorting the perception of what authentic human contact is. While providing the ability to keep in touch with friends around the world and share memories, social media definitely has negative effects on our society. For example, the fundamental criteria for what makes human contact authentic is damaged, and is at risk of extinction due to the role social media plays in our society.

In a study done by Przybylski and Weinstein “[we] found evidence that [technological] devices have negative effects on closeness, connection, and conversation quality [with another person]” (Przybylski and Weinstein). By using online communities to gain knowledge people are limiting their face-to-face interaction resulting in a decrease in the effectiveness of common social skills, such as conversation quality. There is no need to have face-to-face interaction when technology can simply do it quicker. According to Kaci Stephens, “digital forms of communication […] tend to lead people to act impersonal in person.” This impersonality causes people to be friendlier over text than in person creating awkward real life social interaction among people. By interacting with people over text or email, it is easier to say things that would not typically be said in person. Online forms of communication lead to a lack of effective communication skills amongst others when talking

It is no secret that social media has taken over a lot of our time, and perception on society. It influences our day to day lives without us really knowing. Social media usually portrays one’s life to be perfect, or it makes us feel like one’s life needs to be perfect. For this reason being, social media can be a bad thing. In "The Social Networks" by Neal Gabler, he explains how media has taken away the meaning of friendship or anything 'real'. In the long run, social media makes things seem better than they actually are, it gives us unrealistic expectations for our friend and family interactions, which kills the chance of having actual friendships because our expectations are so high. So, here are the reasons elaborated on why social media

Today, the average person spends at least two hours a day on social media sites. Through social media, texting, and online chatrooms, people can communicate with others that they would otherwise have no contact with. For this topic, it is important to define what ‘friendship’ really means. Some have argued that a friend is someone they talk with; others say it’s someone they’ve shared an experience with. For this essay, friendship will be defined as someone who is kept in constant contact with through and outside of the internet. The majority of effects seen from technology are negative: from decreased in-person social interactions, to loss of identity, and ultimately the watering down of friendships. Social media has changed the expectations of social relationships. While technology does allow users to stay connected with family and friends from varying distances, technology’s negative effects also make it harder to maintain those relationships and have a lasting impact on how people will pursue their future relationships.

In the world we live in today, people have the opportunity to interact with one another due to the advancement in technology. For many years people relied on the traditional ways of communications, for example pay phones, send letters, a house phone, in person and they even used web cam’s. Presently, people rely on modern day methods of communication such as sending text messages, emails or even messaging via social. The development of the internet has made it so much easier for people to communicate that Social Media has become the place where people interact more than ever in a mere second.

Manjoo’s essay 'Is Facebook a Fad' provides extensive insight into various social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Based on statistics derived from Manjoo’s essay, we get to know that Facebook has over one billion active users and one half of them log into their accounts each day (Manjoo p.223). William Deresiewicz also eludes to this in his essay 'Faux Friendship'. As a result of so many people opting to turn to social networking sites, this in turn has made friendship to smoothly be integrated into the various new electronic lifestyles. One way that these sites poses an imminent threat to our ability to communicate face to face, is that,

People begin to connect more and more every day with the power of social media. Whether someone is thousands of miles away or a few blocks from your house there is the possibility of finding them on social media. The question is, with all the connecting possible through social media does it make us more distant to one another? With today’s youth, social media begins to take over one’s life and become their main source of interacting. Social media is possibly one of the best and worst creations in the modern world but the cons definitely triumph over the pros.

Nowadays, Internet and social media plays an important role in our life. You just ask someone such as a child, a teenager, or a old person; you ask a question “Do you know or have facebook?”, and almost people say yes. Following statistic, Facebook has 845 million users at 21st century; Facebook has an appreciable attraction for almost people. Most people have a smartphone in the hand to access social media easily, and it easily helps contact with family, friends, colleagues, and another relatives in anywhere. Additionally, social media includes Facebook, Twitter, or another social facitities that remarkably affect to life of everybody, especially young people. Somebody thinks that social media affects positive aspect to the life of everybody because they think that social media connects a lot people together through social networks, even you do not need face to face each other. The other people think that social media gradually separate in human social interaction, specifically Facebook’s influence. Stephen Marche gave an article with title “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?”. I agree with the claim in the article that Facebook also played a part in influencing our lives, but the most important factor that makes us separate from social life is that we are doing it to ourselves.

Some of the top benefits of social media over the years are that it is free to anyone, the content can get out to resources virtually immediately, and it can be delivered to a wide variety of people. For these reasons, communication through social media has become an extremely accessible and convenient way to communicate. It is also popular for those who need to be in contact with others. One example that comes to mind is a teenager who goes away on a trip to visit a friend or family. They can be hundreds of miles away but still talk to their parents as if they weren’t. Another example is a person who is shy and has a hard time making friends face-to-face, social media sites are a great way to meet people and build relationships.