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The Impact of Social Media on Interpersonal Relationships

    How often do you use social media? Nowadays, social media has become a huge part of people’s life. We usually interact with our friends, family, and our lovers with the different kinds of social media. Social media usage has affected the way people in Taiwan interact and maintain relationships. There are several positive effects of using social media including connecting with friends without boundary, reaching the desire to share, and matchmaking.

    First, connecting with friends without boundary. Thanks to social media, we can connect with friends wherever they are. You don’t need to write letters, make a phone call, or talk to the person face to face. For instance, we can know our friends’ daily life by their posts or IG stories. Different from before, if we want to connect with old friends, it is easy to find others on the social media now. In recent years, the way we interact with friends has been changed. We don’t need to hang out to maintain our relationship, we can click a like on your friend’s post, or make a comment under their post. Moreover, if your partner is in other country, you can have a video call with each other. With the screen showing your partner’s face, it may provide more comforts to you. Nowadays, we can be social with others easier than before.

    Second, reaching the desire to share. Jarman et al. (2021) found that different motivations for use had different outcomes, for example, social media use for information sharing was positively associated with body satisfaction. A small story I had heard from my dad. There is a man who lives in an isolated island. One day, the most beautiful woman in the world also came to this island, and finally, she married to the man. However, the man is not happy at all, until another person has come to this island. He is so excited and starts sharing that he married to the most beautiful woman in the world. In this story, we can find that people do like to share. As pack animals, maybe it’s in our nature. Therefore, thanks to social media, we are provided with a platform to share our information and gain some spiritual fulfillment.

    Last, matchmaking. When it comes to the way social media affects the way people interact with each other, the thing I think that has changed the most is the way of how people fall in love with someone. In the past, maybe you will choose to have a blind date to find your lover. However, in recent years, date app has become a trend. For example, TanTan. On this date apps, you can first introduce yourself on your page, and maybe others have the same interest with you will try to pair up with you. Of course, you can choose to pair up or not. After a few talks, if you think you are very compatible with that person, you can try to have a date with that person. Also, this kind of change helps a lot for those introverts. For example, some people will be afraid to talk to others directly, but with this app, they’ll have more time to organize what they want to say, and maybe without face to face, they will feel more comfortable. It's a special twist on social media.

    The rise of social media has changed the way of how people create and maintain their relationships. Perhaps the first thing comes to your mind is a negative influence, but the truth is that it has brought us a lot of benefit as well. Not just contact only with your familiar, you can even satisfy your psychological needs, or find your destinated one. Unconsciously, the world has been changed into next stage, a variety of social media platforms are popping up now. Our ways of interacting with others and maintaining relationships will be changed more in the future.

References

  Jarman, H. K., Marques, M. D., McLean, S. A., Slater, A., & Paxton, S. J. (2021). Motivations for social media use: Associations with social media engagement and body satisfaction and well-being among adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 50(12), 2279–2293. 

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