In today’s digital age, we can’t imagine a day without technology. We have become highly dependent on it, be it for shopping, talking to friends or simply looking up information. In today’s time, everything has transformed, but have you ever thought about how it has affected friendships?
The digital age has changed friendships a lot, it has made it easier to connect and allowed one to share things with each other with the help of social media. Even though it has had a positive impact, there are several negative aspects of it we tend to ignore.
Let’s take a look at some of the positives and negatives of the digital age for friendship:
Pros & Cons Of Digital Age For Friendship
Everything has its own pros and cons, let’s take a look at some of the pros first:
- No Geographical Barriers
With the help of technology, we do not need to worry about how far someone stays. We can easily communicate with people with the help of various social media platforms.
Social media has made it convenient to stay in touch with people and it can be done easily without any barriers.
Besides, you can also play online multiplayer games with your friends that help to keep your bond strong
- Convenience & Accessibility
Talking to friends online has now become very convenient and accessible. Social media has made it extremely easy to keep in touch with friends
Earlier, in the absence of technology sending a message through a letter would take days, but now it takes just a few seconds. Even calling an international phone call would cost a lot of money, but now all you need is a wifi connection and a compatible device.
- Reconnecting & Maintaining Friendships
Social media has made it easier to reconnect with friends you might have lost touch with. Many times, social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook show you suggested profiles based on mutual friends that can help you find and reconcile with old friends.
- Expanding Friendships
Besides keeping in touch with our friends and reconnecting with old friends, technology also helps us to connect with more people and make friends online. There are many groups and communities for people with similar interests and hobbies.
Due to social media, people have started to develop online friendships with people from all around the world.
While it is still possible to meet new people in traditional ways, social media makes the process simpler. Social media can help us connect with people all over the world. This can help us to learn more about different cultures and practices.
- Real-Time Update
Nowadays, the digital era is becoming fast-paced. You can simply click a picture or share a message within seconds.
It allows you to share updates with your friends about important events. It also helps to deliver urgent messages within seconds.
- Innovative Ways to Stay Connected
The digital era has grown a lot and continues to grow. From waiting for days to send and receive messages to easily being able to video call people and talk to them one-on-one despite the geographical barrier.
Apart from this, the rise of digital communication continues to grow. Now, in the near future, it is possible for people to meet their long-distance friends in Virtual Reality also known as VR. While you may not be there physically, you can connect and meet with your friends in VR through avatars.
Cons
While the digital age has made things easier, there are a lot of cons that we need to consider before becoming dependent on technology for communication.
- Digital Addiction
Suppose you are studying, and you get a notification from your social handle that someone has liked your post, you will find yourself checking who has done so. While you may think that this isn’t harmful, you will often find that one notification urges you to spend more time on social media than you intend to.
Technology is addictive, more than we like to admit. Even young children who may not know how to walk can easily operate a phone, this causes an addiction which is extremely harmful.
Being addicted and dependent on technology can disrupt social interactions with people. After COVID-19, many people have shared finding it difficult to connect with people in real life.
- Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying can immensely affect a person’s mental health. Studies have even shown that 21% of people have admitted that facing cyberbullying has caused them to have lower self-esteem, 35% have admitted to feeling depressed and the others have either been self-conscious or even felt suicidal.
There are several studies that show the dark side of social media.
Read about: Cyberbullying and Mental Health in Adults: The Moderating Role of Social Media Use
- Privacy Issues
Studies have pointed out that over 70% of social media users have reported that their accounts have been hacked. Hence, it is important to be mindful of what you share. Ensure that you don’t share any private details such as your address, or phone number.
You must also ensure that you don’t share any personal information with your friends online on chats as they can also be easily accessed by hackers.
- Comparison And Lower Self-Esteem
While sharing updates on social media, people edit photos to make them look more appealing. However, it causes people to have very low self-esteem because they start to compare their lives to the ones they see on social media.
It is important to remember that social media can be misleading and people only share the positive side. Hence, it is important that you don’t believe everything you see on social media as it can cause you to feel constant self-doubt.
- The Fear Of Missing Out
Often people share interesting things about our lives on social media. However, this causes people to have FOMO also known as the fear of missing out.
This makes us feel like everyone else in the world has a better life than ours. This makes one feel inadequate.
- Short Attention Span
Social media has various different types of content both long form and short form with quickly changing graphics.
Studies have suggested that our brain can’t catch up with the amount of information we consume on social media in such a short span and doing so causes an individual’s average attention span to lower significantly.
- Social Withdrawal
Due to the digital era, there are people who have withdrawn from society and choose to live only digitally. It can get so bad that people have not left their houses for years at a time.
Some of these people often use the virtual world to escape from the hardships in the physical world, while others may have a kind of health condition where they may not be able to go out in the real world and for such people, the virtual world becomes their world.
Also read: Things To Discuss With Your Friends Before Moving In
Conclusion
With the rapid growth of the digital age, there are endless possibilities as to what may happen in the near future.
There are many pros of digital media. However, there are several cons that we chose to miss out on. It is important to understand them and be safe while having a digital presence as we do not know the dark side of it.
Anshuman