Has social media made people more anti-social?
talkback poll results — By TFNadmin on 10/05/2012 5:14 pmMost of us have been out with friends when all of a sudden their mobile phone comes out and they start tweeting and texting. Our conversation, it seems at the time, is just not as exciting as their social media aps. Do they really need to tell their Facebook friends that they’ve just eaten a packet of haggis flavoured crisps? Have we become so obsessed with communicating with absolutely everyone, right this minute, that we’ve forgotten how to socialise with the people right in front of us? What do you think?
Has social media made people more anti-social?
And please tell us why?
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5 Comments
Yes to a degree. I am amazed at home much of their lives people reveal on Facebook and Twitter. It worries me when I see some of the things people especially people I know are writing. Live life with real people not virtual friends and have a good old blether and a laugh. Its good for you.
I said no but that’s possibly because I’m not in touch with many people who seem obsessed in the ways described. I try to focus on the here and now…but I am still crap at being sociable, I think sociable people just extend their sociability on-line and introverts like me carry on as before! It looks to me that people who use social media are more in touch with their friends and not less in touch.
Definitely yes. And it really came to light for me personally, when I made a recent long-weekend trip to N.Ireland with a group of friends. Whenever we sat down during the day, for coffee, lunch etc, the phones would be out almost immediately and someone would be ‘checking us in’ on facebook or taking a photo of our whereabouts for uploading to twitter. More than once I found myself looking around the table, and every single person had their head down, engrossed in some sort of phone-based social media activity. It was incredibly anti-social. I found that carefree photographs I was taking were frequently followed up by a warning of: “You’d better not put that on facebook!”. Sadly, our digital personas seem to have taken precedence over our actual lives. Although I guess it’s just a wholly depressing sign of the times.
I even find myself doing it at times, you open your phone to add something to the calendar or check the time and there’s a new message that just cannot be ignored or a notification of a conversation you are currently involved in on facebook, which you simply must respond to, despite being in the middle of a face-to-face social situation! Very annoying!
I don’t know that many people who would sit in a real life gathering and update FB etc, though I know it happens and it’s incredibly anti-social.
On the other hand I have got to know several people through blogging who I’ve then met in real life and we’ve become friends or at least acquaintances and so it’s extended my social network.