Currently there are 1.28 billion active Facebook users. Five hundred million tweets are sent everyday day. Six billion hours of video is watched everyday on Youtube. There is no question that social media has become a significant part of our lives. We all use some form of social media today, whether it’s Facebook,Twitter,Instagram,Snapchat or Youtube. Social media is here to stay in fact social media is still growing today, and undoubtedly it we’ll be a factor in our future. Many claim that this constant use of social media has made us antisocial. However when we take a closer look at the issues we might be surprised to find out that when used right social media has actually made us more social. This topic will continue to …show more content…
This Idea is most commonly held by the younger generation that grew up in this social media era. They would argue that it helps us stay in touch with more friends, it helps us find new friends that otherwise we wouldn’t have met, and that it gives us the opportunity to get closer to celebrities . The idea that social media does in fact make us more social can be supported by one of the studies Eoin Whelan refers to in her article Do social media technologies make us more social? Published by the Irish Examiner . The study Whelan points to claims that “People who use Facebook several times a day are just as likely as anyone else to visit a neighbour in person and are even more likely to belong to a youth group or charitable organisation.“ Additionally Megan Gmbino touches on another similar study in How Technology Makes us Better Social Beings. Gambino writes “ people who use sites like Facebook actually have more close relationships and are more likely to be involved in civic and political …show more content…
One particular example of that is the way I’ve been able to keep in touch with my childhood friend Anthony. Anthony and I were best friend for fourteen years. Eventually I moved to America, and shortly after he moved to England. Although we haven’t seen each other in more than five years we’ve been able to stay in touch thanks to Facebook. We still talk once every month or every two months, I often like and comment on his post. If social media didn’t we would not have been able to stay in touch. Similarly after I graduated high school some of my friends attended colleges out of state, and of course we still interact on Twitter , whether it’s by retweeting or favoring each other’s tweets. Many we’ll say that there is no point of keeping such relationship. But I believe that you can always learn something from other people. This does not mean that you can’t have close friends in real life. I do not see how chatting with my friend Anthony on a weekend while waiting for the football game to start will affect my ability to connect with people in real life. Or how cheeking Twitter while waiting for my car to warm up will affect the way a connect with people. Interacting with someone through a screen is not meant to replace face-to-face interactions. Physically being in a room with someone is always better than talking to that person through a screen. But It doesn’t necessary have to be