That we may not lose touch

I see that many of my fellow peers have commented on the effects of social media and I wish to discuss the same. My question, which is similar to Andrew Olson’s is, does social media promote or hinder our communication? This is a question that is important to be asking now because we have social media all around us such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many more that I have not even heard of. It is taking over our lives and we most likely continue to grow, therefore I believe that it is important that we take time to ask ourselves questions such as the one above.

Let’s take a look at some of the pros, because there definitely are some benefits to social media. I served in a mission in Honduras Comayaguela. It is a beautiful little country with many wonderful people that I would like to keep in touch with. Two major problems though were that it is expensive to call and they don’t have addresses to it is impossible to write them. While there we didn't ask people what their address was. You ask someone where they live and they will tell you, “I live down this street, in a pink house, two houses down from the pulperia (a mini store run out of people’s homes) on the right.” Like I mentioned no addresses and those directions can’t really be written on an envelope, so I was extremely grateful for social media when I got home because many people, although not all of them, had a Facebook account. It is fun to hear from them every now and again and see their pictures. I have also heard accounts of older generational people finding dear childhood friends who they had lost contact with many years before. Another benefit is for companies to communicate with other companies or the people around them. I recently applied for a job where they asked me to take a look at their Facebook, Twitter and Glassdoor accounts. Social media is a great way to relay information.

It’s not all rainbows and butterflies though. Social media can be a great tool but I also think it can hinder our communication. The key though is if you allow it to. I think it can be used wisely but I believe that younger generations who have never know a world without social media may not know how to balance it. They are more prone to losing themselves in social media. I remember driving through my neighborhood a year or so ago and I saw these two kids out on their bikes. They came to a corner, stopped their bikes and whipped out their phones. They sat there for a while, texting or checking their social media pages and it made me sad. I remember when I was young and would lose myself in my imagination and the world outside, not my cell phone. I also think that texting and other forms of social media and hinder people’s ability to communicate personally face to face with others. At this point there is no way to get rid of social media, put restrictions on it or just forbid it, “To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind for it.” (Michel Montaigne) So, what we need to do is self-evaluate once in a while and ask ourselves if we are allowing social media to dominate our lives. I also believe that as siblings and parents we need to reach out to the youth and teach them how to balance their use of social media so they don’t lose touch with reality.