How do social media influence sociability?

As the name indicates social media are supposed to make people interact with one another and share any information they find interesting. – But do social media and the Internet in general really make us more social? Or are we in fact becoming more isolated, lonely and depressed as our use of social media increases?

A great advantage of social networks like Facebook is that maintaining and establishing new relationships to friends, family, colleagues, customers etc. have become very easy. With only a few clicks contact is initiated. However, being ‘friends’ on Facebook does not necessary mean that people get to socialise or ‘talk’ with one another. In fact many people are only ‘Facebook friends’ due to curiosity and status matters. – We trick ourselves and others to believe that we are doing socially well when in fact all we do is prying into each others’ private lives. 

To be fair several of us do use social media for interaction. In fact we use them to such great extent that some experts fear they will affect our interaction with other people in real life – that the virtual world will replace the organic one and make the computer our only social connection. 

What do you think? Are social media enhancing or reducing sociability?