Many critics of the rapidly expanding horizons of social media would have you believe that the increased interaction of people across emerging forms of media (often facilitated by the internet) blogs, face book, chat rooms, and instant messenger etc.results in a certain disconnect with “reality” (with a definition of reality being limited of course to physical interactions).
These criticisms certainly raise questions regarding what defining elements need to be present when defining what a relationship really is. Is a relationship really just restricted to physical interactions? Is a tangible conversation more “real” than one held over the net? Certainly attention needs to be paid to the certain social nuances present in a face-to-face conversation, but has enough attention been paid to the potential for freedom of expression that often accompanies the anonymity present in many forms of Internet communications. People are able to express themselves anonymously on line without fear of ramifications that may otherwise occur in their physical “realities”. Surely this kind of freedom isn’t without a price (especially when it lends itself to cyber bullying or certain predatory actions that may occur over social media) but what new frontier has come without new risks?
Fearful technological determinists may be imagining a “Matrix” type future in which human beings live in physical isolation, (never to see the light of day), however, to ignore the emerging trends in social forms of media fails to consider the potential for this landmark evolutionary step for human communication.
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