by Nathalie Jennifer Repenning“We are all about connecting people” could be a summary of what modern social media companies try to achieve. Whether you pick Facebook, Whatsapp, Line, or Instagram, social media services are designed to connect people. Updating your status on Facebook, uploading a new picture on Instagram, liking a quote on Tumblr, or sharing a video on Youtube is equivalent to sending a message to the community to see. And the community will answer you by liking, sharing, commenting, and re-tweeting. The basic idea is to share your life and inquiries with other people, find allies and friends and be connected.
As social beings humans are dependent on interaction with others, having someone to talk to, and considering ourselves as a group. As stated on its website, Facebook desires to “Bring the world closer together.” Looking at pure numbers reaching this goal seems just to be a matter of little time. There are, for example, about 100 million daily users on Instagram. Facebook accounts for 2.07 billion users. This means that one third of the world’s population is on Facebook and 5 times the number of Taipei’s residents share Instagram stories daily. For more numbers on social media usage you might check out the websites of oursocialtimes.com, statista.com, or pewinternet.org. According to these statistics each person uses social media about 2 hours per day, and 70% of this is on mobile devices. Indeed, with smartphones and wifi, staying connected with your crowd while being on the street has become convenient. In contrast to its beginnings when social media users were the nerds who stayed home, it has become a convenient way to message, talk, and share not only thoughts but also daily life. Connected… Social media transfers personal interaction to another level, making it possible to reach beyond geographical borders and time zones. It doesn’t matter if you are currently in Taiwan and your friend spends a month abroad in Europe while your family might be in the U.S. – as long as you all have internet access you can communicate and share thoughts and advice. If you travel alone, social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or Tumblr can provide you the opportunity to share your experiences, making you feel less lonely. If you are alone, just put on your headphones and watch a video on Youtube that your friends have recommended to you. You stand in the middle of strangers, how about you check for new messages on Whatsapp and Line then? While having dinner by yourself in a restaurant just scroll the latest news of your Facebook friends and have their company. So indeed you are never alone anymore but connected with your friends all the time. You can go online and interact whenever you want, you can turn off notifications of people you don’t like, and focus on positivity. Isn’t this an amazing scenario? But disconnected… Before you start the flow of social media, hold on a second and take a look around you. Looking at all the people wearing headphones, talking or scrolling on their phones, you will find that all of them are by themselves. I bet you all have witnessed the strange scene where two people are sitting in a café at the same table but instead of talking to each other they are on their phones. Yes, they are connected with their friends but disconnected from their surroundings. Little wonders of daily life like a singing bird or a wild animal crossing the street pass them by because they are too busy with Instagram. They do not ask strangers for directions but rather refer to their Facebook friends. They do not talk and smile to people around them, as they are hypnotized by their phone screen to watch the latest YouTube uploads. Putting it this way, social media actually separates and disconnects people from one another and makes them lose contact with the real world. A dilemma? The whole view of social media and its ability to connect people is shaped by these two perspectives. On the one hand Facebook, Whatsapp, and Line benefit people’s connectivity. You can talk to others wherever you are and whenever you want. Additionally, campaigns carried out via social media have shed light on current issues like gender discrimination and human rights. On the other hand, having the opportunity to focus on your friends can make you blind to your surroundings. Also, by having the function to delete notifications you are in danger of getting trapped in your own echo chamber, just listening to and watching what you want and nothing else. Connected without disconnection Do social media platforms like Facebook bring the world closer together, as the companies claim? Well, it depends. They can indeed provide a space to communicate and interact regardless of your current position and geographical distance. Yet if used excessively, you can be on the brink of losing connection to the present moment and preventing you from making new friends. So what should you do in the end? Well, first of all don’t let social media dominate your life physically and mentally. This means not paying too much attention to social media but taking it only as an extra tool for communicating. a
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The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
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