Do we know our friends or a version of them? We have the ability to connect with anyone at the end of our fingertips. Are we really connecting? Has social media given isolation an environment for community spirit? Are all social media platforms beneficial and if not what are the benefits and troublesome tendencies?
I know people who have met their best friends through a type of social media and completely had their lives changed by the relationship. I've connected with amazing and not to great people on multiple platforms and there's so many different views that I could see being looked at in this article. We live in a world where many of us 'live' online. I think all types of social medias would have benefits and negative points. Making new friends, business inquiries, cat fishing and bullying are a few I'd focus on. – TorriPaige7 years ago
Many people are skeptical about the "realness" of online relationships, but there's emerging evidence that those relationships can be more honest than face-to-face relationships. There's an interesting discussion at http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/05/31/1222447110?with-ds=yes: Marital satisfaction and break-ups differ across on-line and off-line meeting venues
John T. Cacioppo, Stephanie Cacioppo, Gian C. Gonzaga, Elizabeth L. Ogburn and Tyler J. VanderWeele
PNAS June 3, 2013. 201222447 From the abstract: "Results [from a survey using a nationally representative sample of 19,131 respondents who married between 2005 and 2012] indicate that more than one-third of marriages in America now begin on-line [that was back in 2013, so it's likely even higher now]. In addition, marriages that began on-line, when compared with those that began through traditional off-line venues, were slightly less likely to result in a marital break-up (separation or divorce) and were associated with slightly higher marital satisfaction among those respondents who remained married." – JamesBKelley7 years ago
There is definitely a dark side to online interactions, including trolling and doxing, but my thoughts keep returning to the positive.
It's worth doing an internet search for: online dating and marriage
There's a lot of information, including a number of studies from 2017, about the benefits of online beginnings of marriage: lower divorce rates, higher levels of satisfaction, greater opportunities to find spouses outside of traditional and limited social circles (e.g. increased opportunities for interracial and/or same-sex marriages and partnerships). – JamesBKelley7 years ago
Like personal interactions it depends on the person and the community of people they surround themselves in. – haileysolessmith7 years ago
We have friends whom we know personally, and probably have added them on our social media channels. However, people we add only because they have friends of our friends, now those are people we only know a certain version of them either through their profiles or chit chatting about them with others. In terms of connecting; we do connect with our close friends on an emotional and interpersonal level when we comment or post on each others' social media updates, or share photos of each other. What is posted can definitely cause any emotion in an individual, groups of individuals, and worldwide. However, if we are in the same room physically, and are browsing through social media feeds, THAT is when we are not connecting at all whatsoever. – Yvonne7 years ago