It is widely believed that social media and online communication have significantly changed the relationships between people in the twenty-first century. Along with the ability of encompassing an ever increasing audience, the quality of these connections is getting weaker. It eventually makes people feel lonely even if they have a lot of friends on social media. But if we have a look at this from a different perspective, we can find both benefits and drawbacks.
The first most obvious problem with reducing in-person interactions is that people don’t foster their friendships anymore. Instead of having a few close friends that can really help in a difficult situation, most of us now have only meaningless numbers in social apps, such as Instagram, Facebook and so on. Unfortunately, becoming a friend does not work like this. The mechanics of it is much harder and requires a lot of involvement. I can see it from my own experience. When I moved to Moscow from my hometown, it became very difficult to maintain all the relationships I had before, and as a result, I lost the connections with some of my old friends.
However, there is a bright side of our online presence. Information technologies gave people the opportunity to connect with others all around the world. And I find it quite exciting that you can connect with someone from a different country as if you were in the same room. To be honest, it is the only thing that helps me to stay tuned with news from my family since I moved to Australia.
As a result of reflecting on my own experience, I came to the conclusion that online communication is not purely a good or a bad thing. It is an instrument that people should learn to use appropriately. And if you use this type of communication along with the conventional one, you will get an even more diverse and strong social circle.