Something I hear quite often these days is that social media makes us less social, which seems quite silly to me. I think, really, it’s just a case of people being unfair and saying the past was better than the present while refusing to accept modern trends. There are several ways that social media makes me more social, and they are all things which I imagine apply to lots of other people too.
First, I have made new friends through social media. A few of my closest friends are people who I, at first, spoke to through social media. From then, I’ve gone on to see them all in reality and spend countless real life hours with them, which is probably the epitome of being ‘social’.
Second, when I meet new people, I tend to use social media to consolidate the friendship. People are nice, and when you meet someone for the first time it can sometimes be a little hard to determine whether they’re actually enjoying your company or whether they’re just good at being polite. I find that sending a friend request and then exchanging a few messages helps me to determine whether it is possible to build a friendship.
Thirdly, I use social media to keep in touch with people. Once I’m friends with somebody, I like to remain in contact. As people are drawn very far away, without social media I’d have no way to easily keep in touch… Sure, I could write them letters, and I do write my friends letters, but I simply wouldn’t have the time to regularly write letters to the number of people who I’d like to keep in touch with.
So, basically, social media means that I get more chances to be social with my friends both over the internet and in person. If I thought hard about it, I could probably think of several more points too. I’m sure these all apply to several other people as well. But because people get annoyed when people are on their phones when they meet up in person (and it does annoy me a little bit too) they feel the need to label all social media as bad. Silly.
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