Sample Argumentative Essay On Social Media: Is It Social Or Antisocial?

The fact that a social media platform like Facebook has more than one billion regular monthly users is proof that social media interaction is a major characteristic of the modern age. This is not forgetting that there are other social media sites like Twitter, Myspace, and Whatsapp which make the number users even more. Considering the amount of time people spend with their devices communicating on social media as opposed to talking with physically available people, there has been concern whether social media makes us social or antisocial. Based on the fact that interaction on social media is a relatively new medium of socialization, it makes us social rather than antisocial.
One of the major reasons social media makes people social is that it connects people, which is the core of its essence. Social media helps to link people with others including friends, work colleagues, and relatives among others. It enables interaction with them at both near and long distances. Through social media websites like Facebook, Skype, and Twitter, one is able to share with people they like, which would probably not be possible otherwise. For instance, social media can enable a person to chat with people who disappeared from his/her life but matter such as distant relatives, childhood friends, and former school friends. This becomes possible since they can be found on social media platforms like Facebook. Additionally, research by scientists like Joanne Wood and Amanda Forest of the University of Waterloo has shown that people who are shy or have a low self esteem find it easier to connect with other people through Facebook (Herbert, 2015). Therefore, the connection that this form of social media provides makes them more social. People can also through social media connect and interact with people whose schedules are different from theirs making it hard to meet in person (Vukasović, 2015). It is apparent from this point that social media enables people to be more social.
However, some people hold a different view and believe that even as social media improves interaction between people, it plays a great role in degrading real conversations. One of such critics is Sherry Turkle, an MIT professor, who believes that this will have serious outcomes in our emotions, relationships, and self-perceptions. She points out that we only project ourselves as we would like to be seen when interacting through social media by deleting and editing the content that we want to share (as cited in Ostrow, 2012). She notes that face to face conversations on the other hand occur in real time and location hence we cannot as easily control what we are going to say. Turkle says that humans only pay attention to the things they want to and that is why most people turn to their devices when conversations do not interest them, leading to a disconnect between us and our friends, colleagues, and family when we find social media to be more interesting (as cited in Ostrow, 2012). In response to this counterargument, one may argue that social media does not take away real conversations since it constitutes real time conversations when people communicate live through media such as Skype and Facebook where responses can come immediately (Bakker, 2013). Furthermore people still interact with each other physically, for instance on the bus, even with the presence of social media. When people think that others are paying more attention to converse with other people on social media than with them that are physically present, the problem may not be social media but rather the kind of relationship between the two whereby it may be weak.
Social media is also social since it helps us to have more friends who can enlighten us in areas that we need for our personal development (Whelan, 2013). Friends that we rarely see in person like old school friends, former work colleagues, or even people that we meet at social gatherings are vital sources of valuable information. We mostly get to interact with such people by adding them to our friends list on social media. These people often have information such as about a better service provider, a new job lead, and they can even introduce us to future lovers. High-tech companies have conducted research which has shown that these loose friends are better than our close friends and close work colleagues when it comes to acquiring new opportunities and ideas (Whelan, 2013). Therefore, the importance of these online friends can increase our socialization with them on social networks.
Those who are of the opinion that social media makes people more antisocial refute the opinion that social media can facilitate people to have more friends who can help them. They argue that social media like Facebook dilutes the meaning of friendship. They claim that only one click of a mouse is required for one to have an additional “friend” hence the profiles of social networks only show “conn-ections” to a huge number of friends. This is contrary to the fact that one can only maintain close friendship with a relatively smaller number of people. Research even proposes that most people can only maintain approximately twenty meaningful relationships at any moment in time (Thornton and Jones, 2013, p.57). Therefore, social media profiles that display friends greatly exceeding twenty are proof that social media degrades the quality of friendship. What proponents of this opinion need to understand is that the spectrum of friendship is broad. On one end of the spectrum are close friends with who we interact intimately while on the other end we have acquaintances (loose friends) who we rarely meet, like previous workmates. These acquaintances are the ones who give us information that may not be in the possession of our close friends (Whelan, 2013). Therefore, social media rarely increases or reduces the number of close friends a person has, and this remains constant for the larger time frame. Social media however assists us to connect with acquaintances that we may not be able to reach without.
Social media is also more social than antisocial since evidence shows that its regular users are more social in person than non-users. Online socialization and offline socialization are complementary whereby online socialization may enhance personal (physical) socialization. For instance, tweet-ups can enable people who have never seen each other to socialize virtually and arrange for deeper personal conversations which can enable them to meet in person. Such meetings can facilitate career, group, or leisure interests to be developed. Work colleagues can also use social media to complement face to face interaction whereby they can pass important project information and even acquire better corporate culture understanding, which general acquaintances may not provide. Employment seekers may also identify company profiles on social media after which they can find the managers and interact with them personally (Noor Al-Deen and Hendricks, 2012, p.133). This is evidence that social media makes people more social rather than antisocial by helping people with similar interests to interact both virtually and personally.
Some people argue that social media may cause people to be more antisocial since they spend most of their interaction time in front of a screen talking to people they cannot see (Elgan, 2013). This they claim reduces the chances of these people going out and interacting personally with other people (Bryfonski, 2012, p.72). Conversely, according to studies by Pew Internet and American Life Project, persons who interact on Facebook several times per day have the same probability of personally visiting a neighbor just like anyone else. They also have a greater likelihood of belonging to charitable organizations and youth groups. Keith Hampton, a University of Pennsylvania sociologist partnering with the Pew Research Center studied 2,225 Americans and found that users of social sites like Facebook may in fact be more active in political and social activities, and also tend to possess more close relationships (Gambino, 2011). The study also showed that these people are more likely to vote.
In conclusion, social media functions to promote socialization rather than reduce it. One way this is achieved is through connecting people such as relatives and friends at both near and far distances. Social media also facilitates interaction with more friends who become our acquaintances. These people can give us useful information, making us to be more social online. Social media can additionally be used by people to arrange for personal meetings where they can meet and interact physically, showing that it enables people to be more social. As aforementioned, people who are more active on social media also tend to be so in real life. Therefore, social media can confidently be described as social.

Reference List:

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