Thoughts on Networked Relationships Chapter 5
What is interesting about this chapter by Rainie and Wellman is how social media networks to a large degree have replaced many personal offline relationships. I remember seeing a meme come through my own Facebook feed that spoke to how social media has brought together people far away and pulled apart people who are right there in each other's space.
Technology, smart phones, the social media networks have overtaken so many sectors of the population particularly with how people fellowship and commune with each other in face-to-face settings.
Even though people enjoy going out to eat, shopping, and being in wide open public and private spaces, one would be hard-pressed to find people that even in these spaces people are not completely attached to their phone devices, texting, snap chatting, Marco Poloing, on Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook scrolling or even capturing their not always interesting shenanigans on Facebook Live.
What's interesting to me about Networked Relationships as pointed out by the authors is said based on a survey conducted in 2005 there was a 28% decline in Americans who expressed they didn't have confidants for whom they could discuss important issues as opposed where those numbers were in 1984. Now, that statement was interesting to me because I think it's spot on and I can attest to that myself from personal experience.
Although I am not by any means a social media guru I have found that connections I have made with people some not all I've never met in person have given rise to more openly honest and vulnerable dialogue than people I have known for years. There is a huge level of trust that exists from people who don't know you, who are not trying to project a certain image, lifestyle, social construct and I have found these people the ones whom I have met in person and the ones I haven't much more open in walking in their truths and confiding much more deeply in me and my thoughts on some of the things they share.
Those relationships tend to be simple, by way of the openness and removed guard where people can just be themselves, but complex at the same time too, because it's not necessarily an openness they feel comfortable sharing with the people right their in their physical spaces.
The chapter touched on so many different aspects of Networked relationships including personal networks, communities, and core networks but the portion that connected to me most was how people connect on a more personal level and social media has fostered that more than offline personal connections I think have ever done.
Technology, smart phones, the social media networks have overtaken so many sectors of the population particularly with how people fellowship and commune with each other in face-to-face settings.
Even though people enjoy going out to eat, shopping, and being in wide open public and private spaces, one would be hard-pressed to find people that even in these spaces people are not completely attached to their phone devices, texting, snap chatting, Marco Poloing, on Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook scrolling or even capturing their not always interesting shenanigans on Facebook Live.
What's interesting to me about Networked Relationships as pointed out by the authors is said based on a survey conducted in 2005 there was a 28% decline in Americans who expressed they didn't have confidants for whom they could discuss important issues as opposed where those numbers were in 1984. Now, that statement was interesting to me because I think it's spot on and I can attest to that myself from personal experience.
Although I am not by any means a social media guru I have found that connections I have made with people some not all I've never met in person have given rise to more openly honest and vulnerable dialogue than people I have known for years. There is a huge level of trust that exists from people who don't know you, who are not trying to project a certain image, lifestyle, social construct and I have found these people the ones whom I have met in person and the ones I haven't much more open in walking in their truths and confiding much more deeply in me and my thoughts on some of the things they share.
Those relationships tend to be simple, by way of the openness and removed guard where people can just be themselves, but complex at the same time too, because it's not necessarily an openness they feel comfortable sharing with the people right their in their physical spaces.
The chapter touched on so many different aspects of Networked relationships including personal networks, communities, and core networks but the portion that connected to me most was how people connect on a more personal level and social media has fostered that more than offline personal connections I think have ever done.
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