I often find myself questioning how we begin to define “social” in the 24 hr technological cycle. With the advent of social media and trends of tweeting, posting, liking, commenting and retweeting, has it become a social norm for people to forgo face-to-face communication for a hybrid form of computer mediated communication? Has social media forced us into an anti-social pattern of granting virtual space the new top priority in our interactions, and if so, what are the consequences to our interactions? Sure, the web allows us to reach out to people living in different time zones and places we could only imagine of going, but are these actual meaningful relationships, or is it just a way to further our egotistical selves.
I’m part of the Millennial generation. I began using the computer in elementary school and have had one hand connected to it ever since. By 2006, I had made the switch from MySpace to Facebook and I can confidently say that is when my addiction started. It is also the year I began my undergraduate journey in the hopes of a job offer at the completion of it. As a corporate communications major, every facet of the new web 2.0 craze was exciting and a little overwhelming. Ok, very overwhelming. Now fast forward to present day. I fought becoming a tweeter as long as I could because of the social stigma associated to the term, and the SNL skits didn’t help ease that fear either. But with a new internship opportunity, I figured I would join the bandwagon, and I have been very impressed thus far.
As a social person, it is becoming more and more difficult to leave the iPad at home for fear of missing out on the latest information made available by twitter. Even with a Blackberry in hand, I feel a slight anxiety about missing out on the 24 hour news cycle. Now, back to the question posed above. It is going to be interesting to see how our human connections are maintained and cultivated in the age when CMC (computer mediated communication) is being increasingly popular.
socialrealm 