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Tanya Vargas
Trina Sotirakopulos
English H 1102
7 October 2015

Impact of Social Media on Social Relationships

Growing up, we have commonly heard the expression, you are what you eat. This same
expression is evident in todays society and could easily be used today in reference to social
media: You are what you share (Beware, Social Media?). We are surrounded by the most
popular forms of social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tumblr, even
Youtube, and thats not where it ends. They allow us to interact, communicate and share with our
friends through a virtual space that wasnt feasible to us years ago. They allow us to build
relationships we didn't have the capability of having before. Due to this, social media has gained
impact on who our friends actually are, the closeness of those who surround us, and how we
view ourselves through social media systems.
The internet is an enormously popular, convenient and immediately gratifying way to
communicate with others (Bonanno). Having access to about 73% (Fleck) of the worlds
population at your fingertips, allows the opportunity for a variety of extensive relationships to
ensue. Virtual relationships can form through either online dating or simply following another
individuals personal account. They allow us to see where others are, how they are spending their
time, and we can begin to formulate their interests and likes through the things they post. But
does having over 600 friends on your Facebook account actually verify you have at least 600 true
friends? In a study done by Thomas V. Pollet, Ph. D., Sam G.B. Roberts, Ph. D., and

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Robin I.M. Dunbar, Ph. D., it was proven that individuals with better social cognitive abilities,
have larger personal networks. It makes sense that a more sociable person has more friends but
as far and the contact between them goes offline, the number physical friends averages to be
around 10.56 individuals (Pollet). That nearly 11 person average decreased to less than 2% of
that of the virtual friends. In comparison, when I look at my list of friends on my social
networks, I have to say they're extensive in retrospect to the number of people I consider my
friends that I speak to on a regular basis and spend my time with. Concerning the ones I label
close to me, they are applicable to the norms of social media. In our young adult years, our social
relationships are vital components in our lives that help us form into the individuals we will
become. We live in a society in which is it routine to post pictures of our friends and family to
essentially show off to the world who is dear to our hearts, but even more so, shows the person in
the post that we are either enjoying our time with them or even just thinking about them. It has
become meaningful to express our affection in this way.
People gain amusement when others post about them in a positive light. They may deny
it, but bringing attention to a person in an upload on social media has everything to do with their
unsaid reputation and with every post, that reputation gets fed into. Posts aren't always positive
though. The widespread power of social media allows information and misinformation to travel
fast and seems to fasten with the diffusion speed of misinformation or juicy gossip. Kim Stolz, a
television personality, states that a study found that college students are less compassionate by
40% as compared to 30 years ago in her interview with Eliana Dockterman. It continues to claim
that this is due to teenagers having the capability of sending hurtful things before thinking about
the consequences later on. Commenting and sending rude IMs does not take the same effect on

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the person saying it, as it would if they were face to face with whom they were speaking to. The
virtual space of the internet allows for this to happen and therefore has a way of hindering strong
relationships to form (Pollet). On the other hand, utilizing social media for the benefits of
keeping in touch with those old high school friends you stumbled upon on Facebook or
discussing the topics of intriguing articles on Pinterest, has a way of combatting loneliness
(Bonanno). As social beings, we crave the information social media can give to us and applaud it
for the uses in which it helps secure a long distance friendship. It provides the bridge that is
needed to share information that others wish to see, but the true impact of social media on social
relationships, starts and ends with tour own social beings and how it affects us.
Building up a network or creating an account with any social system, reflects the
yearning of belonging. Nobody is forced into creating a profile of their own to use it for
miscellaneous reasons, its an act of personal desire. On personal accounts, it has been revealed
that people gravitate towards presenting themselves best on social media. Any signs of emotional
weakness is generally to a minimum on any networking site (Bonanno). With that, it has been
said that there has been a rise of narcissism in our society that correlates with the rise in social
media sites. Our personal self-esteem is dependent on the number of followers and friends
individuals gain, the likes recieved, even just whenever a notification is alerted to the networker
(Dockterman). That little buzz or vibration enters the mind and it is received in the form of
attention that can eventually later become a subconscious obsession.
The obvious problem with this is that among the gratification we receive based on likes
and follows, we might lose ourselves within these sites in compensation for increased
notifications. Especially with the freedom of not having to be who you are really are on the

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internet, the leeway of creating an account in the essence of our ideal picture of a person, can
grow confusion about our identity within ourselves (Brown). The perception of a person, based
on the pictures, statuses, and tweets they post, affects their social relationships with others
through these net working sites. Theres the capability of becoming a different person online and
therefore it can create virtual relationships with people outside the norm realm of friends.
In the way that technology is evolving to fit modern needs, people mustn't get lost in the
virtual world because real-life relationships very much still exist. A virtual relationship does not
and will not replace one in which you speak to an individual face-to-face and form a bond off of
body language and physically going out. A virtual interaction allows one to reach distances,
otherwise difficult to get to physically and gives the power to form a relationship with those,
that without social media, couldn't have been reenforced or even established in the first place.

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Works Cited
"Beware, Social Media?" Haigazian University OR Dialog Letter. 16th ed. Kirke Sby: Danske
Dental Laboratorier, 2014. N. pag.
http://www.haigazian.edu.lb/Admissions/Orientation/
Documents/DialogLetterApril14.pdf. Haigazian University, Apr. 2014. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.
Bonanno Psych, Shelley Galasso. "Social Medias Impact on Relationships." Psych Central.
Psych Central, 7 Apr. 2015. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.
<http://psychcentral.com/lib/social-

medias-impact-on-relationships/>.

Brown, Arnold. "Relationships, Community, and Identity in the New Virtual Society." The
Futurist (2011): 29-34. Print.
Dockterman, Eliana. "Kim Stolz: How Social Media Is Ruining Our Relationships." Time. Time,
24 June 2014. Web. 24 Sept. 2015. <http://time.com/2917916/kim-stolz-how-socialmedia-is-ruining-our-relationships/>.
Fleck, Jesse, and Leigh Johnson-Migalski. "The Impact of Social Media on Personal and
Professional Lives: An Adlerian Perspective." Journal of Individual Psychology
71.2

(2015): 135-37. Academic Search Complete [EBSCO]. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

Pollet, Thomas V., Sam G.B. Roberts, and Robin I.M. Dunbar. "Use of Social Network Sites and
Instant Messaging Does Not Lead to Increased Offline Social Network Size, or to
Emotionally Closer Relationships with Offline Network Members."
CyberPsychology,

Behavior and Social Networking 14.4 (2011): 253-58. Academic

Search Complete

[EBSCO]. Web. 2 Oct. 2015.