Is social media making us less social?

According to Facebook, there are currently more than '500 million active users' of the social network, 'the average user has 130 friends' and 'people that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users.

I am not about to preach that Facebook is the worst thing ever created or that we should all abandon it - that would make me a hypocrite. I am on Facebook and use it on my phone. As I am writing this post I have Facebook open in another tab. I have 313 'friends' on Facebook and spend my time looking at their photos and reading their status updates but rarely talk to them. When I bump into them while out shopping I find there is little to talk about as I have not seen them for years but just read that their boyfriend just did something amazing or they just split up with their girlfriend they have been with for years.

Don't get me wrong - in terms of Journalism, Facebook is a brilliant tool. It allows you to find groups of people who all feel the same way about something. It is a social networking tool, it allows us to connect with people all over the world but it seems that we are becoming less social. Facebook is an addiction. The only time I do not check Facebook is when I am at work, in university or asleep. I check it before my shift at work starts and as soon as I finish. I check it before a lecture and as soon as it finishes. I check it before turning my phone off at night and as soon as I turn it on in the morning.

The amount of times I check Facebook outweighs the number of conversations I have most days. When I do have conversations it is often about something a friend of mine has seen on Facebook and often I have already seen it.

When looking through various websites last night, I came across a very interesting video about Facebook and it really made me think about social networking in a new light. You can find the video here. I must warn you that it does have some strong language.

Every point the guy in the video makes is true. If someone asked me now how many friends I have I wouldn't count all the people I have on Facebook. I would count the important people in my life not the people from school who I haven't seen or talked to since I left there in 2007.

We cannot blame Facebook for becoming a less social world. Sites like myspace and Bebo were around before it and there will probably be more social networking sites in the future. I confess that I am a Facebook addict and I pledge that from now on I will try to be more social in the real world than online.

If you would like to contact me about anything in the post feel free to email me at FDent1@uclan.ac.uk.