Whether social media destroy human relationships or make them better, the reality is that social media are here to stay and have already profoundly affected the way we socialize and do business. Whether it ends up hurting our relationships or improving them is entirely up to us. That’s the beauty of social media: they are microcosms of our existing social and professional bubbles, and they can be used for different purposes depending on the person. If you don’t have many friends who work and play online, social media is pointless. Just like any technology or service that enables intercommunication, if no one you care about uses it, then why should you? But if your personal and professional life—like that of most people in the developed world—depends on the Internet, you are probably hurting yourself by refusing to engage in these tools.
In a much larger sense, people learn about major world events, like the killing of Osama bin Laden, on Twitter and Facebook. They also meet new business partners, argue about important issues, get first-hand information on a developing story, find out what’s going on in their community, and even become information sources for others through social media. With newsrooms shrinking every day, it has become vital for obtaining information and gauging the pulse of important issues.
Social media users are young, old, on-the-go, traveling around the world, doing businesses, going to school, raising families, spying on their kids, starting careers, stalking exes, and trying to grasp relationships that can be hard to maintain with the busyness of modern life. Social media has taken the Internet by storm not because it has determined the nature of future relationships, but because it has nailed it on the head that today’s relationships have changed. We have to be able to engage with others in a way that reflects our lives. Not everyone has time anymore to sit by the phone or turn on the television to gather information or engage with someone. If our world is online, we need to be as well.
Ladan Nekoomaram is an online communications assistant at AEI. This post is part of a series tied to the May 11 AEI debate between Tyler Cowen and Roger Scruton on whether social media destroys human relationships.
