Get Yourself Connected!

I wrote an editorial regarding social media :)

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We always find delight in meeting new people from diverse backgrounds. We were just born in that way. We have this insuppressible instinct that forces us to step out to a larger world and to establish a bigger network. Before the advent of the Internet, people had to meet one another face to face, which ultimately limited a scope of social relationship. However, even after the Internet was widely distributed, people found it extremely demanding to make “true” relationships. Even though people were able to reach more diverse groups of people, they were not emotionally connected to each other. Why? In order to become friends, people need to share their ideas without any constraints. While exchanging their opinions in an open environment, people become frank and show other people what they hid inside before. That is the moment when a true relationship is born.

 

Hopefully, several inventive individuals came up with fabulous ideas that revolutionized the way people establish relationships: social network services such as Facebook and Twitter. People all around the globe are now buzzing about them and utilize them as a vehicle through which they can get acquainted with literally people from “hyper-various” backgrounds. For example, when a person posts a picture on Facebook, his friends see that photo and leave comments. When a person tweets, his followers see that tweet and make remarks. The process itself is so simple and direct, but its influence is utterly huge and profound. Social networks are the places where millions and billions of ideas are shared by again millions and billions of people. It does not simply end there. While those many different ideas are mingled and integrated, new valuable ideas are fashioned out of them. This is what makes social network services so unique and attractive. People are keenly aware of that what they say is heard by other people and now people can finally connect each other emotionally and establish genuine relationships.

 

Yet, the power of social networks is not merely limited to widening social webs. Social networks are currently changing the society. The only thing that can take our society to the next level is ideas of people. Social networks literally generate myriad ideas every day. The society pricks up its ears and listens to those different voices. That is why many politicians and corporate leaders keep their eyes open on these social networks. For example, the Obama administration takes advantage of Facebook and Twitter by creating their own pages where people can participate in policymaking. Enterprises freely communicate with their clients through social networks and maintain tight bonds with them. Information that they can collect from social networks is totally different from one that they can get from traditional media. People make candid statements on social networks because they know that those words will be seen by those they consider as truthful friends. Thus, information that social networks provides us with is definitely a changing force of our society.

 

The society is evolving at an alarmingly fast rate and so do our relationships. Our relationships are no more fettered by time and place thanks to the resplendent development in both hardware and software. The wall created by time and place is breaking down by the second. Social networks broke the wall asunder and opened the new world of connection. Join this social web today! Get yourself connected! You can not only establish true social relationships but also transform the society. You can become the protagonist of this era.