My friend (in both the online and physical worlds), Kate Carruthers asks an interesting question in her post Are social networks breeding social isolation? Kate concludes that for her and her circle of friends who she associates with online and physically, this isn’t the case, but has other friends who are concerned. They need not be.
The notion of isolation as a consequence of social network use has been given the lie in the latest Pew Internet and American Life Project publication – Social Isolation and New Technology. While it’s US research, I imagine the findings very much extend to Australia and other Western countries.
The report is a really interesting read, providing some interesting insight into the level of reliance and importance we are all placing on our online lives in an increasingly busy world. We’re more connected, more engaged in participation in our networks and communities, more diverse in our discussion of views and extent to which we discus them.
Most importantly, the research gives the lie to the notion that being involved in social networks makes us more isolated and less inclined to engage in the physical world. Quite the reverse is true!
For me, there’s much that resonates in the report. Relationships that we initially broker online are very much extending into the physical world. For someone like me, online and physical world relationships are the same thing. I discern no difference. In fact, I feel that for people like me – who can struggle meeting and engaging with new people – the online world offers us a chance to overcome the introduction and small talk hurdles we might otherwise fall at.
More isolated by spending time online? Far from it!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I am not bold when I don’t know people and like to use social media to break the ice, as it helps open up an avenue of some commonality of interest, so all good for me [end of case study 101].
A lot of social media content is total inane crap, of course (do I really care what people are doing in an airport lounge? Read a book, freak). But I guess all things for all people…
Having been a geek since birth, the online world has been a normal mechanism for me to meet people. Since I bought my first 2400baud modem in the early 90s, to present day, I’ve been meeting people in ‘real life’ via various online mechanisms.
As any geek knows, there’s a large proportion of the general population – young and old – who just don’t ‘get’ this. Fine, whatever, horses for courses, it really doesn’t matter to me if they don’t – critical mass has already been reached to make that/them a non-issue now.
In recent years I’ve been living under the cloud of depression/dysthymia. For reasons I don’t yet fully understand, that cloud is clearing. And once again, it’s the online world that’s enabling me to reach out to the real world, to make new contacts, and rekindle old ones. And this time around, the ‘social media’ tools that have developed over the last several years allow me to do that with even greater reach & specificity – like-minded people, virtually anywhere, from the next suburb, to the next continent.
Social Media is clearly in its formative stages, but it’s nothing of not genuinely social in real, tangible ways. Like anything, it’s up to the individual to use these tools to their fullest advantage.