Here’s a story that I’m sure we can all relate to. You’re at a party at some friend-of-a-friend’s house and you’ve had a bit to drink. You meet some great people, and of course, as soon as you get home, you add all of them on Facebook.
A week later, you see the same people on the street—you easily recognize them because you’ve already looked through their profiles—and you’re not quite sure if they’ll you. What do you do? Do you say hello? Wave? Nod your head so if it goes unreturned you can just pretend that you were stretching your neck? You know this person’s full name, their hometown, their birthday and any mutual friends you may have. Why is it so difficult to interact with them in person?
Since the advent of social media, the lines between friends, family, acquaintances, hook-ups, exes, pseudo-acquaintances, coworkers and strangers have blurred. The privileged information that you used to reserve for your closest friends is now readily available to the five-hundred-or-so people that are able to view your profile.
Back in the day, your friendships were measured by the time you were willing to invest in them and the information you were willing to share with your closest circle. But friends lists on Facebook today are usually in the hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals. The reality is that humans aren’t made to keep track of so many people, let alone meaningful relationships.
Aside from the superficial friendships that Facebook and Twitter have created, social media may be damaging the real relationships we already have. It’s become so easy to maintain with our friends through technology that we begin to take for granted what really strengthens those bonds: human interaction. Status updates may have made it easier for us to follow developments in our friends’ lives, but they’ve also led to a ive approach to staying in touch that may be pushing us away from each other without us realizing it. But the side effects of social media aren’t limited to relationships. Texting and instant messaging give us the luxury of being able to type out and edit our comments before we send them, something that does not translate well to face-to-face interaction. The filter normally honed through years of conversation is rusty at best, and we find ourselves saying a little too much before we realize that there is no delete button in real life. The truth is, we’ve forgotten the art of conversation.
I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t victim to these social pitfalls. And the reality is that social media aren’t going away any time soon. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are only going to become more entrenched in our lives as time goes on. But it’s important to that at the end of the day, these portals are effectively glorified phone books, and not a replacement for real, human relationships. It’s time for all of us go offline and spend some time with our friends face-to-face. And no, Skype doesn’t count.
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