“…nothing delights the mind so much as fond and loyal friendship. What a blessing it is to have hearts that are ready and willing to receive all your secrets in safety, with whom you are less afraid to share knowledge of something than keep it to yourself, whose conversation soothes your distress, whose advice helps you make up your mind, whose cheerfulness dissolves your sorrow, whose very appearance cheers you up!”
~ Seneca
I think we can all agree that friends are are an essential part of our life. Real friendships should be cherished and we should spend time nourishing them.
My question for all of you is, do you think it is possible to develop real friendships on social media?
Another question would be, do we devalue our friendships by using social media as a way of maintaining a connection with our friends?
We lead busy lives, and it is easy to lose contact with friends and family. We send off a text, or send a message on Facebook instead of calling someone or get together and talk face to face.
We spend time on social media, and in my opinion, we are wasting precious time. We should be spending less time on social media, and instead use that time to have face to face conversations, or at least phone calls. We can also use Skype or Face Time so we can have a more personal interaction.
Spending time on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or Tumblr, among our many choices, can suck you in and before you know it you have spent hours. Another question. Do you feel happy when you realize the time spent, or do you regret not using that time to get together with family or friends?
Because we spend so much time on Facebook and Twitter, we see day to day disclosures of our friend’s activities, and we feel we do not need to spend time with them. We feel like we are up to date and think there is no need to meet them for dinner, call them on the phone, or invite them to our homes.
When we interact on social media, we cannot know how our friends are. We do not know if they are experiencing something negative because they may be presenting a happy face. They do not want to share their experience with everyone, but they might like to share with us. They may want to share their feelings with a face to face meeting. The only way to know for sure is not to take it for granted that everything is okay. We need to spend time with our friends. We need to ask them face to face.
Social media gives us a flat experience. There is no real contact and no personal involvement. It is non-personal.
If we continue to use social media as our way to maintain our friendships, our friendships will suffer. They will become more and more superficial.
We use social media to gain knowledge, but do we? You can view a post and receive a small nugget of information, but unless we take the time to do in-depth research, we only see part of the picture. If your friends post their viewpoint about an article, but we do not get together and talk with them, we may not understand why and we lose real understanding.
Then, of course, there is the possibility of not agreeing with a comment left by a friend. You respond by making a negative comment, they answer back, and you end up arguing on line. There is a strong possibility that neither of you has any understanding of each other’s true feelings. As a result, your friendship can be damaged.
Please don’t misunderstand; I am not totally against the use of social media. There are positive elements, but I do feel we have to maintain a balance.
If you feel yourself drawing away from your friends and not having one on one contact, it may be time to back away from social media. You can not replace the positive mental and emotional impact of our friendships and our interactions with one another.
Because it is so powerful and states so well the importance of our interactions with our friends, I am inserting the same quote used at the beginning of this blog. It says what I feel, and what I have tried to share here, much better then I have.
“…nothing delights the mind so much as fond and loyal friendship. What a blessing it is to have hearts that are ready and willing to receive all your secrets in safety, with whom you are less afraid to share knowledge of something than keep it to yourself, whose conversation soothes your distress, whose advice helps you make up your mind, whose cheerfulness dissolves your sorrow, whose very appearance cheers you up!”
~ Seneca
Cherish your friendships.
As always, thank you for reading my blog. Get together with your friends today.
Adjusting My Time Frame 