Has Social Media changed our perceptions?

I have a love/hate relationship with social media.

On one hand I feel that people are becoming divorced from life. Gone are the days when someone felt comfortable hearing from a friend or relative on the phone, resulting in more than just catching up on gossip.

We’d hear about personal stuff, without needing to share several bottles of wine to get to the same state of openness. We’d know how our loved ones would feel about things, and help them through their problems with a good old fashioned heart to heart.

Lately I’ve noticed the slow divorce.

It irks me when friends and family who have my number in their phone’s memory, decide to contact me through a private message on Facebook instead. Often I won’t know I’ve been contacted until several days later. And once a Facebook message contained the address of a restaurant several of us were meeting at that evening.

This is truly sad. It’s one more step backward from reality, where even in the world of social media, personal opinion and commentary has been replaced with congratulatory or agreeable messages.

But here’s the silver lining. 

In the modern world, social media compliments reality television. This century we’ve made everyday people our celebrities, for better or worse. But the flow on is that this is reflected in advertising and media. Characters don’t have to be handsome or beautiful. Some still are, but it’s not mandatory.

People that look like you or me are acceptable. They are not just the co-stars, but are the more interesting faces that have a voice with something to say.