Does Social Media add to our relationships or does it replace them?

Social Media is actually affecting people’s brains because of how it modified the way people interact with each other. Face to face interactions activate the right hemisphere, which is more emotional, while online conversations activate the left hemisphere, which more logical. For these reasons, there is a fear that the coming generations will have a less emotional and more superficial experience of communication and relationships.

“There are distinct differences between the way we interact with one another in person, and the way we communicate online. When we can disassociate the individual from their social media account, it’s easier to mistreat people, ranging from minor misdeeds to more serious transgressions.” (Jones, 2018) Some tend to hide behind their phones or computer screens, feeling safer from people’s answers and anger. Promoting hypocrisy, bullying and hate groups.

Even though social media is, in theory, promoting communication by permitting people to instantly talk to each other, it is becoming normal to ignore people’s emails or messages. Sometimes is it simply because the person is truly too busy to answer but often times it is done on purpose as a way to show dominance in a relationship or declare that a certain relationship is over.

These are some of the many ways that social media has modified the way people interact, and communicate. Maybe Social Media does add to our relationships but it certainly is increasingly replacing the way we make them, develop them and deal with them in general.

We should start differentiating between situations where texting can suffice and those where face to face interaction is needed.