Social media isolates and alienates people

The quality of virtual communication via social media platforms is frequently inferior and less genuine than face-to-face contact and connection.

Social Media’s Separation of People

As a result, social media has a harmful impact on interpersonal connections.

According to the first assumption, social media separates people. As much as social media allows people to interact effortlessly across geographical boundaries, it also distances them from more personal and true relationships. Holt-Lunstad et al. (2010) discovered that frequent use of social media reduces people’s social circles. The more time people spend on social media, the less time they have to spend with family and friends in real life. This isolation and alienation refers to a person’s estrangement from real life. According to Holt-Lunstad et al. (2010), the overdependence on virtual interactions can make an individual lose touch with the realities and nuances of face-to-face interactions while also affecting their capacity to nurture real interpersonal relationships. People are nowadays spending more time on social media, which means they have little time to attend to real relationships. Virtual communication and interactions provide people with distractions from reality and isolates them. As a result, most people are lonely and out of touch with the connections of real life.

Less Sincere and Quality Communication

Virtual communication tends to be less sincere and low in quality compared to real-life interaction. Social media platforms allow people to sustain a level of emotional distance while giving them an illusion of intimacy. The messages that are exchanged through social media platforms carry less than sufficient information as they lack some of the aspects of quality communication such as non-verbal cues. This means that communication is often lean and lacks richness. Online communications also tend to accelerate the stages of relationship formation and development (Reid & Reid, 2007). People are quick to move into personal topics and other areas that take time in the course of relational development. This is facilitated by the anonymity that being behind the screen provided and as such, the quality of such relationships becomes low and unrealistic. In addition, the anonymity afforded by social media makes people less sincere and thus hinders the formation, development, and sustenance of progressive interpersonal relationships. Individuals tend to display themselves in ways they think are favorable and required. People tend to lie, overstate, overcompensate, and exaggerate in social media interactions than in real life. It is therefore difficult to have an honest relationship over the internet since an individual may represent himself or herself in a manner contrary to what they truly are in reality. The value of personal interaction is something that cannot be replicated in social media interactions since the latter lacks the sharing of experiences, which is essential in the creation of quality relationships as well as communication.

Negative Emotions Driven by Comparison and Competition

Social media can create a myriad of negative emotions among people, which is driven by comparison and competition. Muise et al. (2009) explains that most people share pictures and statuses that highlight their success in various areas of life such as in careers and family in social media platforms. When others see these kinds of things, they are driven to want to compete or compare themselves to those that portray their lives as more successful. Failure to meet these standards of success depicted in such forums may elicit feelings of envy, anxiety, and jealousy. When people feel they cannot compete with more successful people on social media, they are bound to feel the pressures of life more deeply and thus feel upset. Muise et al. (2009) further states that human beings are naturally competitive, and the avenue for flaunting success that social media provides drives this attribute even higher. These negative emotions are a big hindrance to the establishment of good and progressive relationships since such relationships are rooted in competition and comparison. The ostentatious display of luxury and wealth undermines and stifles interpersonal relationships, which often turn out to be toxic. The information that is contained on social media accounts of individuals can also create negative emotions, especially between couples. Interactions in these platforms are often ambiguous, and a couple may not know who their significant other is communicating with and the nature of these communications. In some instances, this ambiguity creates a sense of suspicion, uncertainty, and jealousy that hinders personal and interpersonal relationships even in real life.

Conclusion

The conclusion following the three premises is that social media has a negative effect on interpersonal relationships. Hardy et al. (2015) explain that for a deductive argument, the conclusion must follow its premises to be true. This conclusion follows from these premises since it has been established from the first premise that social media alienates and isolates people. Alienation and isolation are a negative influence on interpersonal relationships. Lack of sincerity and low quality of communication hinder the development of progressive relationships as examined in the second premise. Lastly, competition advanced by social media creates negative emotions in people and affects relationships. All three premises thus conclude that social media has a negative influence on social relationships. The argument has been deduced as true since, with the three premises being true, it follows that the conclusion is also true.

References

Hardy, J., Foster, C., & Zúñiga y Postigo, G. (2015). With good reason: A guide to critical thinking

Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review. PLoS Med, 7(7), e1000316.

Muise, A., Christofides, E., & Desmarais, S. (2009). More information than you ever wanted: Does Facebook bring out the green-eyed monster of jealousy?. CyberPsychology & behavior, 12(4), 441-444.

Reid, D. J., & Reid, F. J. (2007). Text or talk? Social anxiety, loneliness, and divergent preferences for cell phone use. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 10(3), 424-435.