Does Social Media Make People Lonely?

Social media nowadays gives a lot of advantages to the people. It provides a quick access to the information, easy communication and fast knowledge. In addition, it helps to develop skills and qualities and make the life of people better and more convenient. However, social media makes people lonely, because it gives an illusion of having many friends online, acquiring a lot of knowledge and improving life. In fact, on the one hand, social media facilitates life but, on the other hand, it makes it lonely and isolated. Social media has changed and improved our world, but it also made the lives of people less active and lonelier with providing the illusion of satisfaction and happiness.

Nowadays, in order to get some information or find a book the people not longer use libraries but find everything they need on the Internet that is not as good as it seems to be. Of course, it is easy and convenient, and it saves a lot of time. Moreover, with an easy access to information, possibility to read a lot of books and articles and get some information became not a struggle (Carr 2). However, the social media does not only provide the information but also change the process of thinking and the way of analyzing the material. Nowadays many people find it hard to analyze and concentrate on the material as the access to the information has changed the way they think and how they receive the information (Carr 3). People used to memorize a lot of things and analyze them, remember important facts, concentrate and summarize, but today they do not do it anymore as long asd they can always find it on the Internet or get it by using a smartphone (Clive).

On the one hand, social media facilitates the communication today. People are used to texting everywhere at any time because it is convenient (Cullington 1). On the other hand, it also creates an illusion of communication as people prefer sending messages with smiles instead of real-life chatting. In addition, it gives an illusion of being communicative and having many friends, but in real life sometimes it happens that so many people who are active in social media are lonely in fact. Nowadays, it became easier to write a text to a friend or a message on Facebook instead of calling or meeting a person in real life. People prefer to communicate in a virtual world rather than in a real one as it used to be before the appearance of the social media (Thompson). Actually, people are losing their ability to communicate without the social media.

The more time a person spends on the Internet, the less remains for communication in the real world. Modern technologies in many ways do not simplify communication but make it more complicated. The person can have 5,000 friends on a social network, but he or she really knows maximum a hundred of them. All the rest are ghost connections. When people spend much time on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. they often feel lonely and dissatisfied and even sometimes depressed. The reason is that the pictures in social media always look far better than in real life. People start to compare themselves to others and feel envious judging from the pictures. However, in reality people only show the best parts of their lives and the others have feeling that their lives are not quite good in comparison, and here arises the feeling of dissatisfaction from life. Moreover, instead of doing something useful in life, people spend their life watching the pictures of others and posting pictures to impress them. People use social media to fill in the social emptiness, however, it usually does not solve their problems but only worsen it and make a person feel lonely and isolated, leaving in the world of fake illusions.

The social media is very addictive nowadays. People become more dependent on the social networks, as on a drug, without even realizing it. The reason lies in that people have the illusion of communication with people, which in fact has no basis. Moreover, this illusion can be dangerous. The person, which is carried away by the virtual world, has a risk of losing the real social ties. The dependence on social networks is manifested in the fact that people mistakenly equate the relationship in the style of “like” to the real one. The online environment allows people to be what they want to be, and, thus, it helps to hide the true identity. The fact is that genuine relationships will never become old-fashioned and will always surpass virtual ones.

In addition, social media changes the way of communication. The Internet makes it easy to register the online presence and many find it easier and more convenient than in a real life (Cullington 3). However, it is dangerous in the way that giving preference to a “digital” communication, people are weaned from the real world, which over the time can lead to a loss of social adequacy. After all, communication in social networks has bad influence on the communication skills as long as a person lose the ability to express his/her mind in a clear way, so during the real conversation, the person may meet a problem while expressing himself/herself, which will lead to misunderstanding with the real interlocutor, as a consequence the loneliness arises.

Furthermore, social media can be very deceitful. In fact, deceptiveness is in the very essence of social networks. Users of the latter are better acquainted with the numerous mobile applications than with the location of the stores in their neighborhood or neighbors. Social networks create a false impression of employment, the illusion that someone cares about them, consequently, millions of people around the world have hooked up on it. However, when a desire to communicate with someone real comes, in response there is only silence and emptiness as long as there are no real friends or people who have same desire to meet in a real life. In such case, the users of social networks are likely to fall into depression, because they understand that their feelings and number of friends are just empty illusion. Fortunately, more and more people are starting to understand how destructive the virtual communication can be and realize all consequences of such a friendship and communication, so they tend to distance themselves from social networks or at least reduce the time spent there. The best cure from the loneliness, as the result of the influence of the social media, is communication in real world with family and friends.

Taking everything into account, on the one hand, social media makes the life easier, comfortable and better. In addition, it helps to access any information, reach the person in any part of the world, share information and communicate everywhere within some seconds. However, on the other hand, all of that people seat on the coach in the room alone. Being so communicative and active and having lots of passion in real life but feeling so lonely after turning off the laptop or smartphone. In spite of the fact that new technologies have opened many doors to facilitate the life of people, however, people have changed the way of thinking and style of life and forgotten the boundary between the real and the virtual life afterwards, plunging into fake illusions which transformed the real-life with happy lifestyle into the life of loneliness on the screens. Fortunately, the feeling of loneliness, which is sharply manifested after the illusion of active communication through chats and comments and online life, is easy to overcome. The best “antidote” is the communication with people face to face and living the real life with genuine emotions.

Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains.” The Atlantic. July-Aug. 2008, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/. Accessed 25 Mar. 2017.

Cullington, Michaela. “Does Texting Affect Writing?” 18 Apr. 2010.

Thompson, Clive. Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better. Penguin, 2013