The Ramifications of Artificial Relations

          Social media is pervading our society. Facebook was created as recently as 2004, and yet it has become a staple of our daily interactions. Facebook does not stand alone in this sense, Twitter is an even more recent innovation, MySpace is slightly older, and yet social media such as these are used by a staggering amount of Americans, particularly among the current college-age generation. Take, for example, the current predominance of Twitter on the public scale. Politicians, athletes, musicians, artists, companies, organizations, and countless other public figures can “tweet,” and not only have it read instantly by thousands of followers, but have it reported in related news coverage. In ways such as this, even those who do not actively participate in social media are indisputably impacted by the prevalent place such websites hold in society. As such, there is no doubt that social media has evolved to become a part of our lives, and it seems unlikely that such innovations will be going away anytime soon.

            Yet even as social media begins to dominate many aspects of our society, many questions are raised. It seems only natural to examine how deep our dependence on social media even is. Do such artificial interactions diminish the human ability to intermingle naturally and disrupt the patterns of the human psyche itself? Such conclusions would lead one to assume that social media is merely a cancer to be torn from society. Yet there are doubtlessly benefits from such convenient technology, and it cannot be entirely problematic for society. Thus, we are led to seek the answer to a real and applicable question: is social media a good thing? Do the benefits and convenience of social media truly outweigh the disruptions to the natural order, or are we using such sites erroneously?