Social Networking

Everyone has access to the virtual world and there is so much that can be introduced, done, and learned. In the passages, “I Tweet, Therefore I Am” by Peggy Orenstein, “You Gotta Have (150) Friends” by Robin Dunbar, and “Faceless on Facebook” by Kate Beals, we are informed about how social networking impacts the social lives of each person.   Consequences of social networking can be positive by maintaining and creating friendships and making connections within the community but it can also be negative by jeopardizing intimate relationships.
Through social networking old friends maintain their friendship while others are created. As years pass by and people become more occupied, Dunbar explains, “Our circle of actual friends remains stubbornly small…What Facebook has done is provide us a way to maintain those circles in a fractured, dynamic world” (45). In other words, one can think that they have a great deal of friends but in reality that amount decreases into a small circle of true friends that, with social networks, is kept stable and active. As the older one gets, the busier life becomes and the less time there is, social network helps easily message friends at any time without being time consuming like meeting up in person will when trying to make a plan that works with each others schedule. If messaging through social media still is time consuming, there is an alternative where someone can look through the friend’s page and view what they have been doing through the years by comments and pictures that are posted. Not only can the internet keep old friends connected but can introduce new friendships where there is no need to physically meet them in order to have a strong bond because it can happen through a screen as well. In addition, distance is not a problem when using social networks as a way to maintain friendships, if it is just one mile away or across the whole world, one will still be able to communicate because the networks provide easy, mobile...