How is the Internet Changing Friendships?

How is the internet changing the nature of friendships? Does social media strengthen friendships or make them more shallow? And can liking a friend’s status or commenting on their Instagram meaningfully bolster your interactions with them in person?

How, if at all, is the internet changing the nature of friendships? Does social media strengthen friendships or make them more shallow? 

According to this video from The Atlantic, social media helps to preserve friendships that would have otherwise died out. By ensuring us constant access to our friends—”commemorative” ones that we have fond memories of but have not talked to in years, old friends that we marginally keep in touch with, and current friends we often contact—social media serves an important tool for the kind of “maintenance” all friendships require. 

Of course, while “liking” the status of someone you haven’t contacted in years is not enough to remain friends with that person, at least social media provides an option for more meaningful reconnection, even after long stretches of time.

Can liking a friend’s status or commenting on their Instagram meaningfully bolster your interactions with them in person? Is social media an artificial way to keep in contact with friends past their natural expiration date? Shouldn’t we just allow some friendships to die?

Watch the video at this link: https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/529632/how-the-internet-is-changing-friendship/