Technology and communication: social media at a glance

The increased use of modern technology to communicate with friends and families, beyond the business use, is bringing to the common questions:

• Is this use improving or worsening relationships?
• Should we use more or less of these technologies to improve communication and interaction?

Answering these questions is very challenging.
What should be said more than the web is connecting people over all the
world and conquering the mobile mobile, tv and radio market, by
merging the whole communication systems in one media channel?

It would not be said that the internet is one of the unrevealed dreams of
humanity, instead it is one of the most evaluated and widespread
dreams, still keeping many eyes stuck in wonder and surprise.
This dream is called ubiquity and it is a similar dream that is supporting the globalization of economy, language, cultural patterns.

However, the real successful use of modern technology has to be intended as support and/or extension to the real life and never as its full replacement.

Virtual "places" where people can meet, online communities like the world wide famous Facebook, should be used to keep in touch with far away people, to support and to enrich relationships with people to meet then more often outside Facebook. Even possible virtual friends are considered as a benefit for people social life. In fact virtual friends are a great resource against loneliness and interaction issues which can be defeat and solved thanks to the anonymity given by distance and unawareness. These 2 features are
fundamental for breaking the ice and for going beyond any lack of social skills.
In addition to that there are many recorded cases of people met virtually which got married.

On the other hand the awful effects and consequences of a wrong use of these media tools are unfortunately well known. Just to quote the most famous and serious, a sort of web addictive syndrome whose most serious effect is making people’s isolation even worse. Imagining all other additional side effects is quite easy as well as sad for everyone. The disease is spreading not only among teen-agers but also among other ages of people, especially those playing online social video games.

What has been presented are only some relevant aspects of the many, related to the growing multitude of modern communication tools whose proper use is left to people´s good sense.