Context matters. This short post by Cathy Davidson addresses the issue.
How does social media affect interaction in our society? Will face-to-face communication ultimately diminish because of these new social technologies. These questions are ones that many researchers have found extremely intriguing since the advent and popularization of social media in the last decade. Within this topic, social competency is an important ideal that most people strive towards, but there is evidence to support the claims that social media is actually harming people’s ability to interact competently in an offline setting. Studies on the social competency of youths who spend much of their time on social media networks are sometimes very conflicting.
I was struck by Cathy’s comment, “Despite my opinion that social media is positive, I definitely believe that face-to-face interaction must continue to be our main source of communication.” I wonder how much of my communication is face to face vs. in person. I think it’d be interesting to track the amount of time per day or week that I spend communicating with people face to face and the amount of time I spend communicating online. I think we’d all be surprised by the ratio of online vs. offline communication in our own lives. Between texting and emailing alone, so much of my communication is mediated by technology!