Are social media and increasing access to virtual reality altering our Essay

Are social media and increasing access to virtual reality altering our social interactions and expectations - Essay Example The social/cultural and ethical aspects that I will concentrate on pertain to privacy issues and the development of friendships, as well a social circles on-line. These are activities that Americans previously loved to do in real time using physical interaction but has now migrated to virtual settings within the context of social media. 3. What are the opponents of your position likely to claim? My opponents will be most likely to claim that social media has enhanced the social lives of people and allowed for a greater degree of friendship development since social media is used as a world wide connectivity and discussion tool. 4. What is your response or reason that suggests your opponents are incorrect? Simply put, we may have a large friends list in our social media accounts but we do not really know anything about them. Social media creates shallow friendships that do not last beyond a shared interest in a particular activity. These are simply friendships suggested by the social m edia based upon our perceived likes and dislikes. 5. Cite at least TWO outside resources that support your position and one that expresses the objection to your position. Two outside sources that support my position will come from Jay Baer's article â€Å"Social Media, Pretend Friends, and the Lie of False Intimacy† along with Kathleen C. and Anuhea R.'s â€Å"Free Speech: Benefit or Liability?†. ... For those living far apart from friends, postal mail was the way to go in terms of keeping in touch. Needless to say, making and keeping friends during the time of our parents really required effort in order to get to know each other and stay in touch. but all of that changed with the advent of social media. Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, all of these social channels allowed for instant connectivity among friends. It also allowed people to make friends with other people based upon shared likes and interests. The time had come for the rise of easy contact and making friends all over the world. Sadly, even though social media has created an excellent virtual reality setting that allows us to interact across the seas, it has also altered our social interactions and expectations in a negative manner. This paper will look at two of the main reasons for the negative influence of social media over our lives and methods of interacting with people as opposed to those who believe that social medi a has provided a tremendous benefit to our social interactions using various articles and journals that support and opposed the issue respectively. Let me start off this discussion with the reasons that people say social media has positively affected our social interaction and expectations. Proponents of social media say that the instant communication allowed by the system makes part of the conversation by allowing them to participate in discussions rather than talking at them (Folkens, Dave â€Å"3 Ways Social Media is Changing Public Relations†). By allowing people to have their say via social media, the group interaction helps to remove the communication barriers that used to exist for people during the infancy of the internet. As such, the internet has become a