I’ve been thinking recently about relationships and musing about how the advent of social media has affected them. Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and others have all it possible to peek into people’s lives; to reconnect, however briefly with people we left behind. In years gone past, you would simply move on and occasionally wonder, ‘‘what ever happened to….’’.
So we have hundreds of virtual friends, instead of a handful of “in real life” ones. But are we trading shallow – and potentially easier – online friendships for deeper, more difficult ones? And in doing so, are we unintentionally cutting ourselves off from far better, far more meaningful and involved interactions?
I’ll admit, the introvert in me really likes sending messages instead of picking up the phone. But am I robbing myself of more by doing that? In my off-hours, I’ve been editing a book (a new endeavour I’m really excited about), and its author in many ways echoes my thoughts when he writes this:
People seem to want to be a part of everything but are not doing enough to be truly involved in anything.
There’s a line from the musical Wicked that also touches on this. In “Dancing through Life,” the character Fiyero sings:
Dancing through life
Skimming the surface
Gliding where turf is smooth
Life is painless
For the brainless
Why think too hard
When it’s so soothing?
What do we lose when we live like that? When we “skim the surface” and don’t take the time or make the effort to have deeper, more meaningful relationships?
And yet, there is always the other side of the coin.
Social media has allowed people all over the world to understand each other better. A friend of mine says that 17 year olds today have more in common with 17 year olds half way across the world than they do with their own countrymen and women. Social media allows them to rally and gather to protest at the drop of a hat. American academian Zeynep Tufekci, who I discovered almost a year ago, explores the intersection between technology and society on her blog. She makes some good arguments for technology being able to bring people together in ways we hadn’t considered before. Like her, MIT’s Ethan Zuckerman, blogs about how social media can affect change. His thoughts on citizen journalism and participatory media intrigue me.
Closer to home, social media lets people learn from each other whether they are physically near them or not. Recently I read a great article on how an Ontario teacher is introducing her young grade 2/3 students to social media – she has a classroom Twitter account that she lets the kids use share what they’re learning and interact with other classrooms and experts online to enhance their learning experiences. This takes the idea of pen pals to a whole new level!
I’m not sure any of us know where this will eventually take us, and at the risk of sounding like a Luddite, despite the positives social media brings, I’m still concerned for the younger generation, who seem to communicate better by text than in person and would rather email a colleague than walk down the hall to have a conversation. Have they just found a new way to communicate? Or are they playing in the shallows? Yes, they may help change the world, but what about their personal relationships? What might they miss out on? Will on-line buddies be there for them when they need support? What stories won’t they hear because they didn’t take the time?
And perhaps most important of all – how do we convince them that taking the time is worth it?
