Social Media: Does it Make us Less Social?
Source: Steve Garfield on Flickr
In a day and age, where we can contact our friends and family while never leaving our computer screen, we may feel that we are being more sociable than ever. We can organise an event, virtual or not, and invite thousands of people, within a matter of minutes. And play a game of chess with a stranger on a far continent, via a handheld device. We can talk face to face in a video call, or give the world a news update by sharing a photo in seconds.
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Blogger, Tumblr, Farmville, Xbox Live, Skype, eBay, Game Center… the list trails on. Are our elders ashamed by what the developed world is coming to, when not sending a christmas card is acceptable if you leave a short Facebook wall message? This is what our lives have become. It isn’t going to change any time soon, and much of the population are on-board. So are we in turn ruining our social lives? Are we losing contacts, rather than making them?
It is immediately clear: Facebook changes us. A study, taken by research centre Pew Internet found that regular Facebook users are more trusting than others. They also confirmed that the networking giant revives what they call “dormant” relationships. [1]
A Facebook user who uses the site multiple times per day is 43% more likely than other internet users and more than three times as likely as non-internet users to feel that most people can be trusted.
Oxytocin. Wikipedia
So are we actually improving contacts, relationships, and the way we socially interact? Even though connecting this way can revive relationships, we still aren’t standing up to do so. We are typing, clicking, while staring intently at a screen. These friends we make and the trust we build differs from how we interact when speaking face-to-face in the outside world.
Indeed our brains actually fire differently. A link between Oxytocin, the chemical which is recognised to trigger trust and empathy, and social media is evident from research into the way technology affects our brains.[2] Oxytocin was first discovered to be responsible for the bond between mother and child, the strong, loving inseparable bond which may only be expected to be triggered by a relationship within a family, yet research shows us that it’s production is being triggered by social networking. By increasing levels of Oxytocin, changes to the way we interact with others through means of social media, on balance with real life, will likely become ever more evident in our daily lives.
Yet another study, this time from York University in Canada, revealed that regular Facebook users are insecure, and narcissistic[3]. This is bound to offend you, however it really isn’t anything to worry about. What it suggests is that people who use Facebook, are different to those who use a network such as Twitter as their prime way of interacting online. Facebook and Twitter themselves are very different things, and this is reflected in their usage. When I write articles, I notice how many times, and on what networks it has been shared. If I post a thought-provoking, debatable post, I will likely get one or two Facebook likes, as opposed to many more Tweets. If I post an Infographic, Facebook likes shoot up. This tell us that users on Facebook want light digestible entertainment, as opposed to Twitter users, who may want to hear the day’s news, or get overloaded with conflicting opinion. If I said that users of Facebook weren’t intelligent, I would be very wrong; many of us use both Twitter and Facebook. Thus it is not who we are, but what we are looking for at that particular time that defines the platform they choose.
Valve's Steam gaming community leads the way in PC and Mac Online Gaming. Source: Mattgarber on Flickr
In recent times, gaming has become a new way to “unsocially interact”. Gaming online is not a way of socialising; users can speak to each other through their console, but often are so engaged in the game itself, conversations rarely evolve beyond “He’s behind you”. Another take on social gaming may be the hugely popular FarmVille, which originated on Facebook. Here players buy fruit and veg to grow and sell, sometimes using real money and is found to attract a vast following. This game is huge, profitable, yet just as unsocial. Despite the average player of FarmVille being a 43-year-old woman, video games are undisputedly focussed at kids. Shockingly, 9% of young people in the US are said to be clinically addicted to video games, many online, it has been revealed.[4] The lack of social life this has been seen to cause can seriously hamper a child’s ability to live and work in the outer world.
In fact, children are more influenced by technology and social media than any of us. They are impressionable, and their lives are panned out, not just by the way they are nurtured, but often by what they do in their spare time. Spending too much time using technology and the internet has been noticed to have a detrimental affect on attention span and academic performance in children. Furthermore, by becoming accustomed to TV, young children learn to read slower.[5] While Facebook does state that under-13′s are not permitted on the site, it is known not to enforce this, with a report issued this week confirming that 7.5 million pre-teens are present on the site, 5 million of which, under 10.[6] The Boston Globe issued these statistics, which also prove that a vast majority of parents would not disapprove of their child joining a social network, even if it defies the age limit.
Source: Boston Globe
In many cases, however, Social Media, and technology as a whole changes the way in which we go about our lives, as opposed to changing us as a person. In the past, if I wanted to have a short conversation with someone I would give them a phone call. Now, I will initiate a Skype video chat. If I wanted to send a birthday card, I would walk down to my local newsagent, choose an appropriate one, and send it through a post box. Today, I will visit a website, such as ‘Moonpig‘, and design and send a card from home. We aren’t changing what we do, but how we do it. This does not affect our social life in any way. It doesn’t even enhance it.
The physical aspect of Technology could be seen as just as damaging to how social we are. By texting under a table at a restaurant, by updating Twitter whilst in a meeting, it is obvious people are coming close to alienating themselves, thanks to this ‘addiction’ to the web. It is apparent in every day life: Technology is making us rude, as it distracts us from our friends.
To conclude, whilst Facebook and Twitter may reflect us as a person, whilst they do help us engage in some extra social activity, they aren’t too much of a problem for our social lives, unless they are over-used. It is the social gaming, the things which drag people away from their friends to participate in, which affect us. All in all, these are not helpful, will never help you, and will never improve your social life, even if the game is dubbed ‘creative’ and ‘imaginative’ which are the usual excuses. Social Media is making us less social, yet if we use it in moderation, use it to enhance the way we consume information, there really is nothing worrying about it at all.
Do you find yourself drifing away from people, by overusing social media, or does it enhance your social interaction? Leave a comment and start a discussion – if you’re not too busy harvesting your farm.
References:
[1] PewInternet.org
[2] fastcompany.com
[3] yorku.ca
[4] diyfather.com
[5] aboutourkids.org
[6] bostonglobe.com
Featured Image Source: Jaymi Heimbuch on Flickr
Used in the right balance, tweeting or facebooking your mates is perfectly fine, but you've always got to be wary that it is a very fine line between using it to compliment and accompany a real social life and it becoming your social life.
It's a great way to augment and complement the medium. How do you make up for the lack of senses and sensations though (touch, smell) as well as the absence of body language? Without them, interaction is altered, not quite the same, nor as full and diverse. This to me is what may be the signature residual factor behind social media reality: the downgrading of dimensions central to the human experience, rendering it essentially 2-dimensional. As a supplement, social media are great. But if used as a main mode of interaction, by an entire generation no less, I have a feeling it may have profound impact on humanity's future.
Your comment on children is most crucial. Unlike adults, they are still being molded by experience to very large degrees. If they learn to socialize predominantly through social media, they will be harder for wear when asked to participate in the non-social media world (I don't want to use the word 'real' because the virtual world of the electronic may one day take over and become real instead). Fact is, a generation of screen-affiliated individuals is building up, and they will not willingly take part in a world that makes them feel ill at ease, threatened, or exposed. Given the choice, they will choose a reality they feel most comfortable with. If that reality is social-media-based and 'virtual', then that is what they will gravitate toward, shaping the world as they go along. To paraphrase Mark Twain, if what they're accustomed to is a world on a computer screen, then everything beyond that screen will become a distraction and the world will shift according to how its inhabitants prefer it: virtual. Unless of course some other tool or prospect comes along to apply gravity in another direction, in which case social media will become either part of that new reality or neutralized in its wake
There is a growing offset which I term a cultural offset to the social media world. A group of us, of mixed age, but with direct social media and computer technology links on a daily basis, meet regularly face to face in a social setting. These "get-togethers" ameliorate the limited focus of social media and produce a delightful mix of shared comments and experiences that include snippets from SM. Very often those gatherings produce fodder for "Tweets" and comments on Twitter and its associates like Facebook and Google+ . If this growing offset continues and expands we may come to enjoy an entirely new homo-electronic basis of personal interactions.
Thanks for the comment. On the topic of children, you might find this clip from BBC's clip interesting, which discovers how children are moving from toy electronics to 'real' electronics. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_onlin...
I agree that there is nothing social about sitting in front of your computer. Social Media is almost an oxymoron, but it's fun so we still use it.
I think there was a growing collapse of our socializations in advance of social networking, and in one respect, this networking has re-opened a level of socialization. Yes it is remote, often dispassionate, and sometimes misinterpreted because suddenly brevity and a unique set of abbreviations come across as either abruptness or disinterest or both. A very positive ingredient of social networks is its global scope. I personally have international contacts that I would never have had before social networks. These electronic hands across the seas are very potent enablers of our understanding and appreciation of world cultures. This can become a keystone of world peace. As for the elderly, well I fall in that category in that I am sufficiently over 40 years old. I am sure there are some of us who are put off by the technology and its often befuddling behaviors. At the same time there is an increasing number of "elderly" who have quickly become fully conversant in digital communications and are enjoying more contact with friends and relatives than in the past. The biggest challenge we face, in my opinion, is government paranoia. Using a variety of scare tactics and threats governments seek to control the scope and content of social networks. This must not be tolerated. It is free speech, and we must preserve it as such without any invasion by government entities or their leadership. Lastly, I cannot wait for that great moment when ET and I exchange greetings on Twitter. Long live Cosmic, social networking!
I absolutely agree how social networks can help keep in direct contact with those across the globe, yet I think calling it a "keystone of world peace" is a little overzealous! It is when people over use these features, for example when initiating a Skype call with someone easily visited in person, in which I worry.
Thank you for your reply. I just don't believe that we can ever be overzealous on anything that can improve the chances for world peace. I do agree with you about Skype. I use it only to talk with people too, too far away to every meet with directly.
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