The internet is changing the way interact with each other in the world, creating both opportunities we have never encountered before. Social media has helped our ability to communicate more effectively. Social media is providing us more ways to communicate and socialize not the other way around. This allows us to keep in touch with distant relatives and friends from all over the world, helps us make plans and socialize maintaining our friendships with people, and we connect with people we normally would of never spoken too, when there is simply no other way of talking to people. Strangers are finding ways to not be strangers.  the overall frequency of all communication is increasing dramatically.
   

Social media helped our ability to communicate by allowing us to keep in touch with distant relatives or possibly a neighbor or friend that has moved far away. The rise of personal cell phones and social media has allowed us to stay in touch with other individuals regardless of the location. Barry Wellman is a sociologist and the director of the net lab at university of Toronto. According to Wellman’s lecture at the political networks conference in Montreal, “We no longer require homes, offices, or cafes to stay in touch with people; we can do it whenever we happen to be”.  This quote is saying that we no longer need to always have conversations when we are in local places, there a more options now. We no longer need to lose touch with neighbors who move away or with classmates who graduate; we can keep friends for life while we are making new ones. From personal experience I’ve have learned it is a lot easier to stay close and maintain a good relationship with family that is far away like with my grandma that lives in Miami. I text and call her on a normal basis and without phones I wouldn’t be able to keep that good of a relationship with her.
   

Social media also helps us make plans and socialize maintaining our friendships with people. We use the internet and social media largely to stay in touch and make plans with people we already know from the past or our face to face relationships. The article “don’t fear the network: the internet is changing the way communicate for the better” states that “Email and social media communications aren’t better or worse than in person ones; they’re just different. And they complement each other”. Social media isn’t destroying our social skills it in fact makes us more social and interactive with people online and offline. Some people may think that we are becoming less social, spending more times on our phones then with people that really matter and that are right in front of us or replacing traditional forms of contact Wellman thinks that “We are perhaps, too wired- more attuned to events and friends thousands miles away than to what going on right in front of our faces, more likely to share cat videos over smartphones than to play catch in our backyards”. But Wellman’s research has shown that the use of social media has improved, rather than undermined, our personal relationships. “Does not replace more traditional offline forms of contact- face to face and telephone. Instead, it adds on to them, increasing the overall volume of contact. More specifically, people with a great deal of online conversations have just as many off-line conversations as those who decline to participate in the former”. Social media is creating more ways for us to be social. Wellman writes that time spent on the internet usually supplants time spent watching television rather than time spent on other form of social life.
   

Social media helps us connect with people we normally would have never spoken too. People can see other individuals online that they’ve never seen or met before with similar interest, for example relationship websites. People find their matches based on similar interest. The article “knew you before I met you” states that “more than 41 million Americans have tried online dating sights, such as match and eHarmony, to find mates who share the same interest, and 17 percent of all marriages last year were the result of first encounters on sites like those”. With social media we are being connected to people mainly on common interests. Focusing more on things you have in common with others lead to more meaningful in person-encounters. Connecting with people on social media can form online communities with similar interests. Social media connects strangers, as a community we connect with neighbors who might as well be se strangers. Social media creates common for strangers to share and reflect. Social media and the internet unite strangers when there is no other way to meet.

Social media is certainly affecting our relationships but not in a bad way. Social media has been helping our ability to communicate more effectively over the years. Social media is not making us antisocial and ruining our personal face-to-face relationships. Social media and the internet is increasing the overall amount of conversations and social interactions.

My name is reagan, i am a sophomore student. I've written this article to share my knowledge on social media and how it is making positive impacts in others lives.