Social Media: Truly Social?

Sometime right around when I was forming this blog, I read a fascinating article in the New York Times saying that in the last 30 years, people have gotten lonelier, with the number of peoples’ intimate friendships decreasing. In other words, people have fewer and fewer close friends to truly confide in. 

The reason? Social media. Or, rather, our use of it.  

It seems like a paradoxical situation. How could social media, made of platforms that actively encourage connectivity and friendship, make us lonelier? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the way we interacted with others on social media and the vast, overwhelming nature of social media itself could potentially alienate us from the deep, empathetic understanding and communication we crave. Based on my own experiences, along with the articles read and videos seen in my Feedly, I theorized three ways that the increased usage of social media could lead to a decrease of intimate, meaningful relationships with others. 

1. Social media enables multitasking, which hurts mutual engagement and understanding. 

A few days ago, as I was talking to a friend, I found myself surreptitiously checking my phone and seeing an urgent Facebook message I’d gotten from a classmate. As I nodded along and tried to engage in my real-time conversation, I frantically tapped out a response to the message. I remember little of the conversations held with both friends; I only remember the stress of needing to engage with both friends, and the subsequent guilt I felt when I realized that I wasn’t paying either friend the individualized attention they received.  

Using social media to multitask in our interactions is becoming commonplace. We tap out of meetings and family meals with a cursory scroll through out phone. Sherry Turkle, a cultural analyst, mentions in her TED Talk (on the effect of technology on communication) that by multitasking in our conversations, we distance ourselves from the interaction at hand, short-circuiting the depth of our engagement with friends, family, and coworkers at that moment. On the other hand, when faced with a multitasker, we feel as if we have to compete for their attention, or that what we have to say isn’t important at all. This, in turn, makes us more hesitant to confide in one another. 

2. The pressure to maintain a flawless image on social media translates to real life as well.

When I scroll through Instagram, I see the lives of others portrayed through rose-tinted filters with whimsical names. Photo albums on Facebook show effervescent social interactions and radiate seemingly effortless happiness. Based on social media posts, it seems as if everyone around me leads immaculate, perfect lives, and that any struggle I have marks me as an anomaly. 

I know that many posts on social media, including mine, are carefully curated, and that they don’t always accurately reflect the extent of someone’s circumstances. However, I think it’s exactly that reluctance to “get real”; to display vulnerability; to portray our honest, complete, flawed selves in our digital communications with one another. That expectation of maintaining a perfect façade discourages us from reaching out to each other with our worries and insecurities, dampening our ability to be sustain intimate, trusting friendships. 

3. In being able to reach a wider network of people, we end up valuing quantity of friendship over quality.  

 Social media gives us access to an expansive network of friends and acquaintances. People marvel at the ability to connect with their high school friends and maintain long-distance relationships via platforms like Facebook. However, this Atlantic article reveals that people, dazzled by their large numbers of “friends” or “followers” on Facebook, are spending an increasing amount of time grooming their virtual social circles and interacting with large crowds mere acquaintances to appear well-connected, rather than investing deep reservoirs of attention toward cultivating their bonds with a few people they’re close to. This results in many surface-level interactions, rather than a couple of meaningful, deep conversations that lead to close friendships. 

Now I ask you: do you relate to any of the 3 situations above? Are there other factors in which social media usage could decrease intimacy? On the flip side: are there ways in which social media can increase intimacy and depth of friendships? 

Social Media: the Conduit for Corruption-Free African Elections

At this time of year, as America's election fervor spreads, we take to social media to express our views and opinions. In spite of heated Facebook discussions and inflammatory tweets, there is still the underlying, unshakable belief that we exist in a democratic country; we take comfort in knowing that we have a relatively transparent voting processes and open access to forums and social media networks. 

In some countries of Africa, the people have a similar democratic process; candidates run, the citizens vote, and elections are transparent and fair. However, in other countries, such as some of the central African states like Congo or Cameroon, resource-rich lands have encouraged political corruption and leaders' desires to stay in power (to control the lucrative markets) by any means. Elections in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, have been rigged in favor of the incumbent leader and party. Political dissenters are silenced by the government, opposing parties are edged out of competition, through intimidation and threats, and there is serious lack of communication between voters and governments. 

This is where social media has stepped in, fostering communication and democracy between citizens as well as keeping a check on government corruption. 

Africa in the recent years has been going through a mobile revolution, and increasing rates of cell phone ownership have marked the continent as the site of the next digital revolution. With access to mobile info-sharing social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp comes the opportunity for widespread communication and grassroots activism. educate each other in politics, and participate in their own forms of grassroots activism. Citizens are able to expose evidence of government abuses and crimes, which educate voters. People can form massive online communities to galvanize and recruit voters who once believed they had no say in the political process. Live recordings of the vote tallying process, publicized via Twitter, helps keep an accurate ballot count nationwide.  

Whereas three decades ago there was virtually no modern communication infrastructure in many parts of the continent, now, the increasing availability of mobile technology and social media in Africa has fostered a political revolution and a culture of connection. There are undersides to this process—governments attempted to shut down internet access, protesters in the Congo and Sudan have repeatedly clashed with government forces over their elections, and there is fear of the violence this Arab Spring-like movement could cause. Still, central Africans are closer to democracy than they ever were before. Activists are now compelled to share their ideas and political advocacies, with an online audience listening in. People feel like they belong to a rapidly growing community that extends past their immediate surroundings--a community that wields its own power over the government process. In countries plagued by corruption and authoritarianism, the knowledge, connections, and communities that social media platforms have provided aren’t just advantageous to the people—they’re the crucial stepping-stone to maintain a true democracy.