Friends: Reality Vs social media
By: Keyziah McCoy 9/26/18 6:33
Photo Credit: Creative Commons
What is a friend?
Who do you classify as your friends? The people you hang out with? The people you talk to almost everyday? Just because someone “friends” you on Facebook or follows you on Instagram, it doesn’t mean they are really your friend, or does it? This investigation will focus on answering the many questions we face as social beings as we navigate friendship in the 21st century.
Photo Credit: Creative Commons
Different friends, different people
For some people, social media friends are more important than the friends they have in reality. A person could talk to hundreds of friends everyday on social media, but not talk to anyone in person. Being a social butterfly in real life VS being a social butterfly on social media creates two distinctly different people.
The person whose life revolves around social media may be a person who lives to troll on people’s videos and cyberbully everyone they run into on the internet. But then again they might be on social media to build their career and for networking.
The person who spends most of their friend time in face to face conversations are similar. Maybe their job requires them to talk to people all day and they absolutely hate it, so they give everyone a hard time. Or maybe the person manages to puts a smile on everyone’s face, everyday. So it doesn’t matter if the person uses social media “too much” or not “enough:” what matters is how they use it.
Photo credit: Creative Commons
Meet your peers
I Interviewed Mr.Carl Pray on his views about today’s youth friendships versus what friendships were like for him growing up. Even though he is wise because of his age, his job places him in contact with young people everyday.
Do you think Today’s youth is dependent on social media relationships?
To an extent… to navigate their way in the world opposed to going out and talking to a neighbor or reading a newspaper or even doing their school work.
What do you use social media for?
I use social media to connect with people from my past, people i don’t see everyday. I never use it to meet new people, I meet people in real life.
How do you think today’s friendships differ from friendships when you were growing up?
I think when I was growing up my friendships were limited to my neighborhood; today social media allows for friendships across cities, states, and even countries.
As Carver students we need to spend more time meeting our fellow students in the hallway, not lurking on their Instagrams. Yes, social media is valuable for meeting people all over the world, but what about the people sitting right next to you in the classroom? Talk to them! Get to know them because you never know what kind of relationship could become of it.