Is the use of social media making us more social?

Today we went to Youngstorget in Oslo, to a café called “Kulturhuset”, or “the Culturehouse” in English. We went there because we were invited to be the audience for a radio show here in Norway called “Ekko”.
 If you want to listen to the interview, click here for the link. Start listening from 1:24:30. Unfortunately it is only in Norwegian, so it can be a bit hard for all the non-Norwegian readers to understand.J

The host of the program was Kristi Kraft, and she interviews three experts on this field. I do not want to write as summary, but I will write what they concluded with. They all agreed that social media makes us more social, but in a different way. You get to know more people and you increase your social network. This can be really helpful in some occasions, such as getting job interviews. They also agreed that it is easy to make more acquaintances through social media, but that it is hard to make good and close friends.                

I agreed the expert panel to a certain point with, and I also believe that social media make us social, but in a different way. On the other hand, I think that it all depends on the type of social media and how it is being used.  A study in Texas also agrees, but a post on dailymail.co.uk disagrees. It presents a study that social media makes us more lonely and unhappy, and less sociable. It says that that Facebook use can undermine well-being and increase loneliness, and that the more time people spent on Facebook, the less happy they felt over time.

It is safe to say that the way people socialize has changed, but in some ways it always stays the same. People have always had the need to present themselves in the best ways possible. It has always been normal to share the picture that makes you look happy and successful.

Personal I do not use social media as much as many of the others in my generation, but I use it enough to be accessible every day. It might be a good thing or it might be bad, it is hard to say. There a lot of research about social media, and I put all my trust onto them to find the answer.

 

Sources:

http://www.astramatch.com/blog/social-media-making-social/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2419419/All-lonely-Facebook-friends-Study-shows-social-media-makes-MORE-lonely-unhappy-LESS-sociable.html