Social media has become highly integrated into the lives of nearly everyone who has access to the internet. The result includes people who have perfected the ability to perfectly ignore anything that has no interest to them. This is both positive and negative.
Social media provides an easy way for communities to form and for people to join them. It creates more channels for information to be shared and more avenues for people to become involved. Susie, a small town teen from Wyoming, can get fired up to help out Invisible Children and dedicate her time and efforts to support the cause, meeting many people around the world sharing her passion. Without social media, Susie may never have had the opportunity to learn about the struggle in Africa or have found the fuel to dedicate a large part of her life to help end it.
Sometimes easy access to many social outlets will mean that real life interactions are being ignored for online stimuli. While Susie found a great community to be a part of largely online, she may have started to ignore her friends at school. Katie and Todd aren't the perfect friends for Katie, they don't share a lot of the same interests and prefer the community of their small town, but they are loyal and miss Katie as she fades away from their lives. Susie chooses to stay online on forums and blogs dedicated to her cause, even during school lunches.
While social media has no doubt done a great deal of work in bringing people together, has it also spawned a generation of people who lack skills in real life communication? By creating havens out of online communities, we may have created an escape for people when faced with interpersonal conflict.
