Social Media & Loneliness

During our discussion in class today, I began to think of other reasons why Facebook is making my generation so lonely. Because most people post at least one Facebook picture or at least one Twitter post during, for example, a weekend it makes you feel like you know what your friends are doing. This is especially true for friends that are not on the same campus as you or that you don’t see often. Those pictures and statuses create the illusion that you are fully updated on the lives of your friends when in reality those are only snapshots of their actual activities. I am definitely guilty of allowing tweets and pictures to serve as substitutes for interaction with some of my friends. If I see a tweet that indicates one of my friends stayed in all weekend I am much less likely to text them and ask about their weekend. If I see a picture that shows a friend partying I don’t necessarily ask about details of their weekend, especially if mine was relatively boring. When you really reflect on this trend you realize that it would be so simple to send a friend a quick text or give them a call to catch up, yet so many people are using social media as a crutch in this area. This bad habit undoubtedly creates strains on relationships and leads to weakened bonds overtime. Like one of the class articles pointed out, social media interaction is not a substitute for one on one communication. It is important to remember this next time you scroll through a friend’s account.

Although I feel the illusions of closeness created by social media in part contributes to our overall feeling of loneliness, I also think looking at pictures or reading posts on social media can be comforting during times when we do feel lonely. Being able to favorite a tweet or comment on a picture allows you to feel a sense of reconnection with friends that may be geographically far. It serves as an outlet to express the idea that you still care about what your friends are up to and what they have to say, even if you aren’t involved in their day-to-day lives. While relatively insignificant interactions on social media may seem shallow and unfulfilling I believe they can also be subtle, but meaningful reminders that your friends are thinking about you without them actually having to blatantly state “I am thinking about you”. Again, virtual interactions alone are not enough to keep a person from feeling lonely, however, they can be enough to prevent a person from feeling lonely during a bad day or even week. They can serve as little pick-me-ups that make a person’s day just a little bit better. There’s no arguing that social media interactions are only temporary fixes if a person is chronically lonely, but in some cases they might just be enough to get them through a tough few days. It is easy to discredit the impact basic virtual communication can have on the big picture, but sometimes those little interactions do combat loneliness.