Is social media transforming friendships?
gulfnews.com Misunderstandings
I strongly feel that social media is pushing friends apart. People don’t bother to meet their friends anymore, since they think it’s enough to be in touch online. As youth tend to spend many hours on social networks, they rarely have faceto-face interactions. Social isolation can lead to a host of emotional, psychological, physical and mental problems, like anxiety, depression and somatic complaints, among many others.
I would like to share a personal experience. My friend was depressed and used to vent all her anger on Facebook. People who were her close friends on Facebook didn’t know about her condition and misunderstood her, due to her rude comments.
Due to this, she lost a few of her dear friends and the rest started avoiding her. When you post something on social media and give a chance for millions of people to see it, it gives rise to misunderstandings. From Ms Megna Rajagopal UAE
Use for news
Y es, if we live in the same city or locality, we meet mostly virtually. We must say ‘no’ to virtual meetings and use Facebook to create events and actually meet. But if we are living a good distance away, we usually keep each other informed about major developments in life offline.
Facebook does not come with any set of rules or codes of conduct. People can use it any way they want.
What has actually happened is that people are just too busy and scared of investing time in real relationships and learning to grow with other people. ‘Unfriending’ someone on Facebook is easy. Dealing with it in real life is a bit of a challenge.
The best use of Facebook is to create a magazine of your own, by liking pages that share various kinds of information, like Gulf News. Stay away from friendships on Facebook, but stay updated with what you like to read and have information about. From Mr Chirag Thakur Ajmer, India
Be cautious
T oday, social media brings about misunderstandings and unwanted opinions, because of fake accounts trapping innocent people for personal gain. Still, many people are continuing, with good motives and friendships, helping each other. One should be careful when studying the identity of a person.
It is better not to accept unknown people who ask for friend requests. From Mr K. Ragavan Bengaluru, India
Bringing people closer
I n earlier days, friendship constituted the meeting and greeting of two or more people frequently, enquiring into their welfare, discussing many issues and sharing experiences. So, in those days, a physical presence was an unavoidable factor in all friendships and relationships. Nowadays, we make friendships online, even with strangers whom we have never met or heard of. We chat and share experiences with a person or a group of people located in different parts of the world on the basis of some assumptions.
The number of friends increases with the passage of time and places we visit. Facebook helps us to locate and identify some people once we have met in the past, on the basis of certain criteria, such as friends of friends or people you may know. So there is a complete change in the very concept of friendship. Since all of our friends are not included on Facebook, we can feel the difference of meeting them personally and online. Facebook successfully connected almost 1.8 billion people worldwide as a peaceful way to cement friendships, and the network is growing. From Mr Girish R. Edathitta Dubai
The good and the bad
S ocial media, undoubtedly, plays a crucial role in bringing people together while eliminating distances and related barriers. Networking platforms have given those divided by geographical boundaries the opportunity to stay in touch and connect at all times, despite the vast distances.
However, as much as social media may have helped people in the virtual world to bridge the gap, it has had an adverse effect on real-life bonds. As a result, people have started to lose the human touch of seeing and meeting their friends, and instead rely on updates, likes and posts on networking sites. This, in turn, has caused friendships to suffer. Social media is to be blamed for increased rifts, failed friendships and other social issues, since people spend more time virtually than mending and maintaining reallife relations. From Ms Fatima Suhail Ajman
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