Communitcation Made Easy SOSC300

With the Internet, communication has been made easy for families, friends, and collegues. The internet has aloud us to create virtual communities that function similarly to colonies. Everyone in the communities respect one another (as you can easily remove yourself as a member and join a similar community- there are millions of them) creating a tight bond in the society. These communities are usually topic specific. My favorite at the moment is Etsy- a community requiring you to be a handmade artist. Many of the viewers of this blog are Etsians (a name created by the members to describe themselves as a part of the community) and can agree with me that Etsy artists have a strong bong and that they are always willing to help each other, especially through gift guides, features, giveaways, and reviews on each others blogs.

Virtual communities are making it easy for families to connect with each other through instant messaging, and posts on each other's member profiles. Mothers can check up on what their child is doing at college, and one can see what an old friend is doing with their career or life by visiting their profile. Instead of writing a snail mail letter, one can email or tweet their friends in 140 characters. If you havn't spoken to someone in a long time, how many more words do you really need to say? The new instant socializing tools encourage humans to communicate as it is easier to do so.

On the other hand, it is also easier to avoid comming in contact with a person in real, physical life. It has become incrediably easier to ignore someone, and message them once in a while on their Facebook page to make it seem as though you care. It was my birthday last month on the nineth and 20 people posted on my Facebook profile wall to wish me a Happy Birthday. Of those 20 people, all 20 of them were people whom I havn't seen in phsyical life in over a year- or even talked to via text or email. The people who I actually care about or care about me visited me on my birthday to give me an honest happy birthday. The virtual happy birthday is nothing more than a fake smile. That being said, if one of those people was a friend of mine, working in Africa, and didn't have access to a pay phone but had the internet instead, I would be estatic to recieve that wall post.

Virtual socializing is a double edged sword, one that creates a tight bond, one that allows you to easily network and meet amazing people on an international scale, and one that allows you to be every where and stay in contact with people you don't care about- creating a false relationship. I have to be honest and say that I am guilty of taking advantage of this sword, but don't we all? In the end, it is about you and how you feel, and tools like Facebook cater to this because you can post pictures of you wonderful like, compare them to pics of your friends (or not friends) and have a huge number of friends (though you won't talk to 80% of them). Doesn't it make you feel good to have a huge number of friends or followers? Yes. Social networking sites make us feel good because of this. It is a free, no postage, no long distance bill service that allows us to socialize and 'stay in touch'.