New advances of technology have fascinated the world and have changed how people communicate. Recent introduction of social network, like twitter, facebook, and LinkedIn have totally changed how people connect to others and most people have adapted to this kind of changes. One can get amazed to see students walking with their heads held down to the phone and fingers moving at a furious pace in the name of “twitting” and “facebooking”. The effect of social network has become a debatable and a hot topic to the sociologist where they argue that the virtual world has changed how people react to each other and the community while the other group objects side with this by agreeing that it is the best way to interact in societal world. The author of this paper strongly agrees that although this use of internet has greatly improved communication. It has also had detrimental effects on the type and the amount of social interaction that occurs hence has had negative effects on community interaction and social life.
Social network has introduced social inequality. Although some sociologist argue that it is a way of connecting all people, this is not true. Many people carry all their daily activities in the internet, doing activities such as paying bills online, shopping, and dating and having fun. In research carried by Harvard university reveals that 30% of youths in the university do their activities online (Sain 381). For this group, internet is modernizing their life, and the group that cannot get access to the internet is denied from getting these benefits. Another group is the uneducated group who do not enjoy good services such as time saving offered by the internet. The youths do not get sufficient time with the old as the gap between them has really widened. Public participation has become internet dependent hence people without an email address are social inequality victims.
Social networks have erased real communities by introduction of virtual communities (Maria and Manuela 330). Yet another problem that does not allow physical interaction, Facebook, MySpace allows people to categorize themselves in groups within a certain locality. The online communities have their own culture, guideline, expectations, norms that sociologist have interest in studying. Maria and Manuela (340) argue that MSN and Facebook created online communities globally that have fostered communication in states that people did not think are possible. Yes, it is true, but it erases a real community which practiced physical interaction.
That said, there is no doubt in peoples minds that social network has had bad and negative impacts in social interaction and face- to face relationship. Younger generation and other people spend a lot of time in online chatting and forums. This may be beneficial, but this may not be interactive as real world communication since some people do not get access to these programs (Julien 230). It is also important that people maintain real friendships as opposed to imaginary friendships in the social networks in order to develop interpersonal skills. Moreover, it has a negative perception on local communities. In addition, if people are not allowed to participate in society based activities, this finally leads to an isolation feeling for those do not have real people to do to depend and interact with wherever there is need (Julien 230).
Conversely, the positive effects on social media in line with community interaction must also be highlighted. The online community has enabled faster and a lot of friend making. Sain (350) argues that it is possible to make one hundred friends within two minutes. This help people become social and know places they would have not gone to and do not think they will go to. This makes social network adventurous. Additionally, social networks enables people to channel their views with little expenses as compared to the real world where you have to write on a poster. This saves time and resources.
Solving the social network appears to be cumbersome since the whole world runs to its side and it has undoubtedly felt to be beneficial. However, it is important to maintain a good balance between the online activities and real human being activities (Mara and Manuela 315). Not just enough, it is also important to deceit from acts that may erode community integrity and social interaction like solely shopping online. At times we have to physically do these things to facilitate human interactions between individuals.
Conclusively, online community has changed the lives of most people. It has brought social inequality since some people cannot afford the technology that facilitates it. Moreover, it is erasing physical boundaries and introducing virtual locations. People no longer rely on physical location that is important on individuality and community. When this continues without proper caution, physical human relationship will disappear. On the other hand, the online community has facilitated easy communication between individual’s hence easier daily activities. Since networking is beneficial and should be maintained, there should be good balancing between online work and physical relationship to up hold community physical relationship.
Work Cited
Julien franchesc. Virtual Environment And the Effect of Online Community. (2013) 204-240.
Maria, Luisa and Manuela spigno. Motivation to learn: a Research on University Students. “Good Or Bad” Of Social Media (2012)301-340
Sain, Spless, Psychological Foundation of Cooperate Social Responsibility: The Importance of of social media on teenagers. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, (2013). 383-386.
