November 30, 2009
Is Social Networking Making Us Less Social?
I love social networking. Facebook, LinkedIn, and all of the different tools that are out there to help us connect and re-connect are great. I have re-connected with friends from high school and college who I had completely lost track of. I even reconnected with some of my very good junior high school buddies and incredibly, the Internet also helped me to re-connect with buy ampicillin online my long lost, best friend from elementary school.
I am a big fan of it, so I don't have any intention of knocking social networking. The business opportunities and relationships that have come out of it have been absolutely stellar. But there are a lot of people who I know personally who clearly have taken social networking too far — at least too far for me.
I use the computer as a tool to bring people into my life. The next step, if appropriate, is to get them on the telephone, ultimately for the purpose of having a face to face meeting so that we can move the relationship forward.
But for others, the telephone and the face to face interaction that is so valuable to me, is not on the table.
As I watch my kids — who are busy texting and chatting on Facebook — the telephone and the personal interaction side of the relationship is starting to fall away. This concerns me a lot because personal interaction is the name of the game. Maybe life will be different in 20 years, but I can't imagine that there will ever come a time when human beings will surrender personal contact as a way of "getting the job done."
My son plays video games that have the most eye-popping graphics and state-of-the-art sound imaginable. The marketing behind these games has been fantastic. In order to play over the internet, each kid has to have their own console, so they sell many times as more consoles as they would have otherwise. But the impact is that when kids play over the Internet, they don't play as a group in somebody's living acomplia diet pill room. Instead, the kids play all alone over the internet and at the end of the day they are all by themselves.
My daughter goes to various friends' houses and many of the moms are chatting on Facebook or they are playing video games — again, sitting in a room all alone.
Is it good to be in a room all alone, even if you are chatting or texting? That's not the way that I live my life. I like to be around other people, but everybody gets to pick how they live their life and I am just one guy asking the question…
"Is Social Networking Making Us Less Social?"
What do you think?
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Comments on Is Social Networking Making Us Less Social? »
Joel, this exact question was on my mind a few weeks back. I noticed that everywhere I go I see people with their cell phones out, either on facebook or texting their friends. Others have their iPod headphones in and don't seem to want to just hang out.
I've been at 3 different colleges throughout the past 4 years and have noticed it getting progressively worse each year for generation Y. I absolutely love social networks because of the fact that I can network and meet others from all over the world. Someday I'll meet up with these people and hang out with them at conferences.
However, I do feel that it can only affect our lives as much as we let it. We've got to remember that "social" media isn't our "social" life and to still go out and be active in the community
Very astute observation Chris. Thank you for your insight. JGB
I feel that decreased interaction with people due to social networks, ipods etc will reduce social interactions and social intelligence of persons which will reduce our sociability and reduce capacity to get along with people. So, it is advisable to balance our time with some social interactions, social networking, hearing songs on ipods etc
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Joel, I often read books from the 1930's, such as Dale Carnegie, and believe the social wisdom was far greater back then, than today due to the internet age and a reduction in live interaction. I like your idea of picking up the phone and asking to be LinkedIn or Facebooked, than just sending an invite.
Yeah I totally agree that social networking has cuased us to be less sociable. I know many people who are addicted to facebook so much that they do not leave their homes, and they never do anything that will help them improve their own lives (such as reading or taking up a hobby). My younger brother is always playing games on the net, my sister is always on facebook and I sometimes feel isolated because most of my friends are satisfied with just chatting over facebook! In all the years my brother has been alive I have never met any of friends - that is scary!