Thursday, May 17, 2012

Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?

This was the article topic proposed in the May issue of The Atlantic. This article by Stephen Marche addresses that social media sites, such as Facebook have made us more densely networked than ever, but also, that we have never been more lonely.

Our class books, We First, and The New Rules of Marketing & PR teach us that social media is good for networking and promoting organizations and companies, but do not touch on the issue that it may also be making individuals more lonely and that it takes away from our physical social interactions.

Reading Marche's article, one idea stuck in my head more than any other, and that idea was that a "connection is not the same as a bond." We may have hundreds of connections with our online "friends," but of all our online "friends" how many can we say that we have a bond with?

So for all the good Facebook does for the world, does it also have a dark side? A side that is making us more lonely than we have ever been, but that we do not notice because we feel so connected?

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