Is Social Media making us less social?

Technology is evolving at such a rapid rate, every day we wake up to new tools allowing us to connect with others in new and innovative ways, but is technology really keeping us in touch, or is it making us more anti-social than we’ve ever been before?

Facebook has recently announced it has reached 1 billion monthly active users on its Facebook Messenger app, making it one of the most popular apps globally. This is a testament to how our social skills are becoming increasingly about how quickly you can type, rather than charm, confidence, personality and the ability to converse face-to-face with others.

How have we managed to get to this place, where the content of our phones is more engaging than the world around us?

All you have to do is look around. Everywhere you look you’ll see people staring at their phones, scrolling through whatever joys social media has to bring that day. Real events that affect our every day lives now seem less important than the mass of images and videos Facebook, Twitter and Instagram provide us with.

We’ve gone from wired phones and games of conkers to the vast expanse of the internet in our pocket. From meeting friends for coffee to keeping up with people’s lives via their Facebook newsfeed.

There are a lot of positive functionalities social media offers, which despite the lack of physical interaction, allow us to connect with the world with just the push of a button.

Facebook’s safety check-in feature has provided massive relief for friends and family of loved ones in areas of conflict and tragedy.

LinkedIn’s business network allows for constant communication between business professionals and makes finding work in your chosen industry a much less daunting task.

Social plug-ins are another great function, allowing users to post directly to magazines, newspapers and other companies with an online presence.

We prefer to focus on the positives social media provides to this era, the internet offers a completely new generation of innovation and a mass surplus of jobs and new companies benefitting from its creation.

Whilst our heads may be up in the social media cloud, just make sure to keep your feet firmly on the ground.