Month: October 2024

Yet some readers may challenge my view by insisting that social media does take away connection within a friendship, and to a point I do agree with them. Social media does take away an aspect of our friendship, the physical connection one retains in a friendship. Dunbar best points out how keeping “face to face friendships strong [is from] the nature of shared experiences” (Konnikova 4).  Having those shared experiences are able to help amplify a friendship and social media isn’t able to create the same experience of laughing together compared to watching a funny video separately instead. For example, moving into college and meeting your roommate on social media. It can be good to try and connect and find common interests to see how the room may function. I have friends who have had the experience where they thought the pairing would work out well but when they actually met at move in things fell apart. Social media does hold up a barrier since “on the internet, you can pull the plug and walk away,” (Konnikova 7) you don’t have to be your true authentic self even though we say we try to put out ourselves we all internally put up a front. 

However, there are exceptions to everything especially when it comes to connections, not everybody puts up as much of a front on social media. We could call out some politicians or other infamous figures for examples. But Chen brings up a better example through Megan’s friendship with David Abitbol which started over opposing views through social media, but their relationship was still respectful and friendly over social media even with their different opinions. When Megan finally was able to meet David “[Their] in-person interaction resembles [their] twitter interactions,” (Chen 18). There are times where social media interactions are still able to transfer over when meeting face-to- face for some it may even be able to amplify the connections. 

In addition to initiating friendships, social media can help keep an already formed relationship in contact in times of separation. We have all been at the point where we are away from home or on vacation away from our friends. Whenever we go away we all turn to social media to keep people informed on our life status whether it be from a small text while gone or scrolling through Snapchat and seeing what your friends have been doing. I had switched schools and because of time conflicts I wouldn’t be able to see my close friends anymore so I would use social media like Snapchat and Instagram to talk to my friends. Some of my deepest relationships we use social media to communicate like my friend Emily. Emily and I use Snapchat to communicate a lot especially since we have busy schedules. The small interactions we get from our little pictures or texts keeps us connected since we are still able to know that there is stuff going on in each other’s lives. Emily for me in relation to the Dunbar number would be one of my core five, however since being in college she in terms of emotionally still one of my core five but because of our distance we are unable to interact as much as we use to. Konnikova points out when she writes from Dunbar “What Facebook does and why it’s been so successful in so many ways is it allows you to keep track of people who would otherwise effectively disappear,” (4). Konnikova allows me to question how Emily and I relationship would be affected if we didn’t have social media to keep us in contact with each other. Because of the fact we are in different states now if we didn’t have a source to communicate, we would evidently end up falling out of touch with each other shifting Emily’s spot within the Dunbar number eventually landing in the outer rings because of the disconnection. However, because of social media Emily and I are still able to have an emotional connection still that were both able to maintain hence we do lose the physical connection that our friendship was also developed on.