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The picture was posted on October 17th 2017. This picture shows how anyone you meet online could be a "wolf" behind the screen. It was drawn by the cartoonist: Chris Slane and published by CartoonStock. It shows that you can't always trust "friends" on the internet. It also shows that someone who you thought was your friend online could really be anyone.

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The picture was posted on November 24th, 2009. This picture shows that anyone can make friends on the internet. Made by Hagen, and published by cartoonstock. It supports the claim that good friends can be made through technology. It shows that someone who feels alone can have friends through technology.

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The picture was posted on July 7th 2010. This picture shows that having friends in real life can be much better than friends on the internet. Made by Ron Morgan, published by cartoonstock. It shows that some people prefer their real life friends over online, going against the argument. It shows that real friends are better than someone that you hardly even know.

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'These beat Facebook friends any time ...'

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CartoonStock - 'These beat Facebook friends any time ...'

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The picture was posted on January 26th 2012. This picture shows that having friends online doesn't mean as much as having real ones. Published by Bizakrocomics. This goes against the idea of making friends online by showing that online friends aren't real friends. It shows that your online friends don't care about you, and they wont be there for you when you need them.

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The picture was posted on may 31st 2016. This picture emphasizes just how many people you can reach through technology. This panel was illustrated by Alan Rose the idea that so many people can reach out to you, and become your friend proves that good friends can be made through technology. Your online friends can be just as good as they can be bad.

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This article was posted on August 16th 2017.
This article goes over many different aspects of  how our relationships are changing through technology. It was posted on the social issue site, Idealog. It supports and disagrees with the argument, good friends through technology by showing many different parts of how we are changing. It gives evidence as to how we may have a lot less real life friends in the future, and be a lot more lonely unless we adapt to mostly having online friends.e

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At Facebook's F8 conference this year, Mark Zuckerberg boasted that with the new Facebook AR camera you could add a second coffee mug to your picture "so it looks like you're not having breakfast alone". Hang on. I thought the Internet, and Facebook in particular, was about connecting people. In fact, in the history of time, have people ever had so many friends? Or, more accurately, 'friends'.

Such contradictions are inherent in the evolving human relationship to technology. With technology and social media an inseparable part of how we navigate relationships today, the meaning and dynamics of friendship have changed, and the term 'friend' itself has become inadequate.

Heavy with expectations and assumptions, it does not reflect the many different degrees of friendship and related behaviours that digital technology and social media has introduced into our lives. And the idea that we are now friends with brands stretches the paradigm even further, as our favourite brands begin to establish reciprocal relationships and connect on a deeper emotional level.

But digital communication is inherently faceless. How do people, and brands for that matter, navigate a world where the ability to read facial expression and body language has been removed? We can intuit emotion only if we truly know the person we are digitally communicating with. So where does that leave digital friendships and how do we replicate the ability to read genuine human emotion?

Real and imagined

While social media and other technologies give us greater options for finding, connecting and maintaining friendships, how easy is it to nurture fundamental and emotional elements of friendship such as honesty, trust, empathy, intimacy, and vulnerability in an online world that breeds behaviour quite the opposite of this.

"Trying to find the person in between the life they've created virtually and the real life. I think that's the biggest problem of our generation now." - TRA's The Listening Project 3: Millennials

Such conflicts and paradoxes are well-known: being more connected helps sufferers of anxiety and depression yet also causes depression; we have more friends than ever yet feel more isolated. VR opens up a whole world of possibilities for sharing experiences yet is essentially a solitary experience.

And brands face an interesting paradox around their ability to trigger a positive emotional connection in a place where they have not been invited to play. Brand connections play a role in our shared understanding of the brand but this only happens when we trigger an emotional response. Neuroscience shows us that when we watch someone undertaking a dangerous activity our brain replicates the feelings of fear despite the fact that we ourselves are not in danger. Likewise, if brands can overcome the barriers and replicate positive emotions in a digital world they will significantly increase their ability to connect and influence - or, in other words, making friends with their customer base.

Block work

Savvy and sceptical about navigating online relationships, millennials are nevertheless troubled by real life consequences and visceral emotional responses.

It's an accepted fact that we all promote certain sides of ourselves on social media. While millennials may have hundreds or thousands of 'friends' online, they are conscientious about who their real friends are. The crowded online friendship space is just one element in the overwhelming busy-ness that people feel in their lives - their true friends are the ones they make time for.

Even so, many fear that their IRL social skills are being affected by the amount of time they spend communicating digitally.

"I don't even like talking to people on the phone anymore. Being able to communicate has become easier but it doesn't mean we have become better communicators." - TRA's The Listening Project 3: Millennials

"It widens your circle 10x. You get invited to events easily, there's just no limit to how far you can go socially with Facebook, Whatsapp, etc. However, I do feel I am more comfortable in the social media world, talking to people there rather than meeting up." - TRA's The Listening Project 3: Millennials

Digital communication allows people to avoid awkward and emotionally uncomfortable moments. So when those moments do happen in real life, rather than being able to deal with awkwardness as a normal part of everyday communication, we hide.

Sherry Turkle, social psychologist and Director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, calls this the 'Goldilocks effect'. You can have your friendships at the temperature you want them - not too close, not too distant, just right. And when you want to end things, it can usually happen without penalty from family or community.

Saving face

In her book Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age on how flight from conversation is undermining our relationships, creativity, and productivity, Turkle argues that all the instant messages, texts and minimally effortful "likes" and asynchronous communications are diminishing people's capacity for empathy and ability to communicate in real life situations. One of the more prevalent behavioural examples of this is the rather deplorable practice of 'ghosting,' the unilateral ending of a relationship by suddenly stopping all communication with no explanation. This is a common occurrence in the dating scene, but friends can certainly be ghosted, too.

If you do not participate in the online dating or friendship scene, however, don't feel smug that you have escaped such experiences. Our fading capacity for human interaction is arguably happening in many areas of life and affecting all sorts of relationships. Consider that people can (and do) shut themselves inside and entertain themselves, order and organise their food, groceries, cleaner, or driver all through an app, without having to talk to anyone. This isn't great for your small talk skills. Collaboration is one of the most important skills for how we work today, but that collaboration is going to unravel pretty quickly without empathy, compassion and developed communication skills.

But let's say we do decide to leave the house and make some IRL friends. Yes, there are apps for that. Funnily, enough, it was dating apps like Tinder that broke ground for friendship apps to become normalised. Hey!Vina is a friend-finding app for women who are travelling or have just moved to a new city. Huggle is an app that introduces people based on common location and interests, rather than appearances.

Despite warnings of our diminishing social skills, disappearing capacity for empathy and algorithmic-based means of finding friends, you actually do need some interpersonal skills to move from chat, to meeting, to actual friendship. And you need the gumption, vulnerability and risk of rejection to go out and meet someone. According to eHarmony, 20 percent of those in current, committed relationships began online and seven percent of marriages in 2015 were between couples that met on a dating website. That's a significant number that suggests people are managing to communicate fairly well, whichever their preferred combination of channels.

Artificial sweeteners

Apps are just a current invention providing a tool to fulfil a basic human need for companionship. The tools we use to fulfil this need will evolve as technology does, but the underlying desire won't. And if we look towards the future (not even that far) we see robots, AI and machine learning. Which begs the question, what will honesty, trust, empathy, intimacy, and vulnerability look like in such a world?

Popular culture has imagined many scenarios for this. It's hard to talk about the future of relationships without talking about the movie Her, the story of a man who falls in love with his operating system.

"Even if you come home late and I'm already asleep, just whisper in my ear one little thought you had today. Because I love the way you look at the world. And I'm so happy I get to be next to you and look at the world through your eyes" -Theodore Twombly, Her

Currently, every major technology player is developing a voice-activated AI assistant, or operating system. According to The Guardian, people who have bought Amazon's Alexa report that they quickly and easily start thinking of the device as a proxy member of the family. As one interviewee said: "Even when I've tried to call her 'it', it feels wrong. She has a name. She's Alexa." What brand would not relish the idea that they could forge this level of relationship with end users?

In fact, we fall easily into humanising robots. Back in the early 1960s, MIT computer scientist Joesph Wiezenbaum invented a computer therapist - or in today's terms, a chatbot therapist - called ELIZA and let non-technical staff interact with her. Her intelligence was made up of only pre-programmed questions and responses, but he was astounded and appalled to discover that some ended up spending hours sharing personal problems with her, believing she could help them.

Other studies have shown that humans find it hard to be mean to robots once they are humanised. For example, they struggle to turn them off when they are pleading with you not to.

While effort is going into making robots and artificial intelligence more human, the fact that robots have always been presented as
non-emotional, without judgement or reaction, can work in their favour. It has been found that in certain situations, people open up more to robots than humans, particularly when the context may be taboo or illegal.

Robots are probably the ultimate friends - you can tell them everything, they keep secrets, they will do practical things for you that make your life easier, you won't have to deal with their neuroses and emotional dramas, they won't judge you, and they will never, ever ghost you. But unless we completely lose our capacity for empathy and compassion, we are likely to still feel guilty if we try to terminate these friendships. This human experience is examined in the critically acclaimed Black Mirror episode 'Be right back', where a woman orders an AI clone of her deceased boyfriend but soon realises it will never replace him. Though she tries, she is ultimately unable to get rid of him, and keeps him in the attic for years to come.

Should the reality of our relationships end up following the imaginings of popular culture, perhaps AI achieving sentience will force humans to regain the humanity that seems to be slipping through our fingers and create more opportunities for people to emotionally connect.

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Future friendships: How technology is transforming our relationships - Idealog

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At Facebook's F8 conference this year, Mark Zuckerberg boasted that with the new Facebook AR camera you could add a second coffee mug to your picture "so it looks like you're not having breakfast alone". Hang on. I thought the Internet, and Facebook in particular, was about connecting people.

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This online database was posted on february 6th 2018. It describes the ways young people can interact with others. It was published by saferinternetday.org.
This brings up a fair perspective on how useful online friends can be. It shows how internet friendships can bring you together with others safely and relatively harm free.

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This article was made on August 6th of 2015. This article explains how many teens are constantly communicating with other teens online. It was published by the Pew research center of internet and technology. According to the article, many teens make new friends online just as often as at school. And the purpose of this information is to prove that good friends can definitely be made through technology.

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Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech

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This report explores the new contours of friendship in the digital age. It covers the results of a national survey of teens ages 13 to 17; throughout the report, the word "teens" refers to those in that age bracket, unless otherwise specified. The survey was conducted online from Sept. 25 through Oct. 9, 2014, and Feb. 10 through March 16, 2015, and 16 online and in-person focus groups with teens were conducted in April 2014 and November 2014.

For today's teens, friendships can start digitally: 57% of teens have met a new friend online. Social media and online gameplay are the most common digital venues for meeting friends

For American teens, making friends isn't just confined to the school yard, playing field or neighborhood - many are making new friends online. Fully 57% of teens ages 13 to 17 have made a new friend online, with 29% of teens indicating that they have made more than five new friends in online venues. Most of these friendships stay in the digital space; only 20% of all teens have met an online friend in person.

Boys are more likely than girls to make online friends: 61% of boys compared to 52% of girls have done so.

Older teens are also more likely than younger teens to make online friends. Some 60% of teens ages 15 to 17 have met a friend online, compared with 51% of 13- to 14-year-olds.

The most common spots for meeting friends online are social media sites like Facebook or Instagram (64% of teens who have made a friend online met someone via social media), followed by playing networked video games (36%). Girls who have met new friends online are more likely to meet them via social media (78% vs. 52% of boys), while boys are substantially more likely to meet new friends while playing games online (57% vs. 13% of girls).

Text messaging is a key component of day-to-day friend interactions: 55% of teens spend time every day texting with friends

The vast majority of teens (95%) spend time with their friends outside of school, in person, at least occasionally. But for most teens, this is not an everyday occurrence. Just 25% of teens spend time with friends in person (outside of school) on a daily basis.

For many teens, texting is the dominant way that they communicate on a day-to-day basis with their friends. Some 88% of teens text their friends at least occasionally, and fully 55% do so daily. Along with texting, teens are incorporating a number of other devices, communication platforms and online venues into their interactions with friends, including:

Instant messaging: 79% of all teens instant message their friends; 27% do so daily.

Social media: 72% of all teens spend time with friends via social media; 23% do so daily.

Email: 64% of all teens use email with friends; 6% do so daily.

Video chat: 59% of all teens video chat with their friends; 7% video chat with friends daily.

Video games: 52% of all teens spend time with friends playing video games; 13% play with friends daily.

Messaging apps: 42% of all teens spend time with friends on messaging apps such as Kik and WhatsApp; 14% do so every day.

Video games play a critical role in the development and maintenance of boys' friendships

Overall, 72% of teens ages 13 to 17 play video games on a computer, game console or portable device. Fully 84% of boys play video games, significantly higher than the 59% of girls who play games. Playing video games is not necessarily a solitary activity; teens frequently play video games with others. Teen gamers play games with others in person (83%) and online (75%), and they play games with friends they know in person (89%) and friends they know only online (54%). They also play online with others who are not friends (52%). With so much game-playing with other people, video gameplay, particularly over online networks, is an important activity through which boys form and maintain friendships with others:

38% of all teen boys share their gaming handle as one of the first three pieces of information exchanged when they meet someone they would like to be friends with; just 7% of girls share a gaming handle when meeting new friends.

Of teens who have met a friend online, 57% of boys have made a friend playing video games. That amounts to 34% of all teenage boys ages 13 to 17.

Much more than for girls, boys use video games as a way to spend time and engage in day-to-day interactions with their peers and friends. These interactions occur in face-to-face settings, as well as in networked gaming environments:

16% of boy gamers play in person with friends on a daily or near-daily basis, and an additional 35% do so weekly. That amounts to 42% of all teen boys ages 13 to 17.

34% of boy gamers play over the internet with friends on a daily or near-daily basis, and another 33% do so weekly. That amounts to 55% of all teen boys ages 13 to 17.

When playing games with others online, many teen gamers (especially boys) connect with their fellow players via voice connections in order to engage in collaboration, conversation and trash-talking. Among boys who play games with others online, fully 71% use voice connections to engage with other players (this compares with just 28% of girls who play in networked environments).

All this playing, hanging out and talking while playing games leads many teens to feel closer to friends.

78% of teen online gamers say when they play games online it makes them feel more connected to friends they already know. That amounts to 42% of all teens ages 13 to 17.

52% of online-gaming teens feel more connected to other gamers (whom they do not consider friends) they play with online. That amounts to 28% of all teens ages 13 to 17.

Gaming boys are more likely than girls to report feeling more connected to other networked gamers.

84% of networked-gaming boys feel more connected to friends when they play online, compared with 62% of girls.

56% of boy gamers feel more connected to people they play networked games with who are not friends, as do 43% of gaming girls.

Teen friendships are strengthened and challenged within social media environments

Social media also plays a critical role in introducing teens to new friends and connecting them to their existing friend networks. Some 76% of teens ages 13 to 17 use social media and:

64% of teens who have met at least one new friend online report meeting a friend through social media.

62% of teens share their social media username as one of the first pieces of information they share as a way to stay in touch when they meet a brand new friend.

72% of all teens say they spend time with friends on social media; 23% say they do so every day.

Social media helps teens feel more connected to their friends' feelings and daily lives, and also offers teens a place to receive support from others during challenging times.

83% of teen social media users say social media makes them feel more connected to information about their friends' lives.

70% of social media-using teens feel better connected to their friends' feelings through social media.

68% of teen social media users have had people on the platforms supporting them through tough or challenging times.

But even as social media connects teens to friends' feelings and experiences, the sharing that occurs on these platforms can have negative consequences. Sharing can veer into oversharing. Teens can learn about events and activities to which they weren't invited, and the highly curated lives of teens' social media connections can lead them to make negative comparisons with their own lives:

88% of teen social media users believe people share too much information about themselves on social media.

53% of social media-using teens have seen people posting to social media about events to which they were not invited.

42% of social media-using teens have had someone post things on social media about them that they cannot change or control.

21% of teen social media users report feeling worse about their own life because of what they see from other friends on social media.

Teens face challenges trying to construct an appropriate and authentic online persona for multiple audiences, including adults and peers. Consequently, many teens feel obligated to project an attractive and popular image through their social media postings.

40% of teen social media users report feeling pressure to post only content that makes them look good to others.

39% of teens on social media say they feel pressure to post content that will be popular and get lots of comments or likes.

Some conflict teens experience is instigated online

68% of teen social media users (52% of all teens) have experienced drama among their friends on social media.

26% of all teens have had a conflict with a friend over something that happened online or over text messages.

Girls are more likely to unfriend, unfollow and block former friends

When friendships end, many teens take steps to cut the digital web that connects them to their former friend. Girls who use social media or cellphones are more likely to prune old content and connections:

58% of teens who use social media or cellphones have unfriended or unfollowed someone they used to be friends with, and 45% of teens have blocked an ex-friend.

63% of girls who use social media or cellphones have unfriended or unfollowed an ex-friend, compared with 53% of boys.

53% of social media- or cellphone-using girls have blocked someone after ending a friendship, compared with 37% of boys.

Teens spend time with their closest friends in a range of venues. Texting plays a crucial role in helping close friends stay in touch

Along with examining the general ways in which teens interact and communicate with their friends, this report documents how and where teens interact with the friends who are closest to them. These "close friend" relationships loom large in the day-to-day social activities of teens' lives, as 59% of teens are in touch with their closest friend on a daily basis (with 41% indicating that they get in touch "many times a day").

School is the primary place teens interact with their closest friends. However, these best-friend interactions occur across a wide range of online and offline venues:

83% of teens spend time with their closest friend at school.

58% spend time with their closest friend at someone's house.

55% spend time with their closest friend online (such as on social media sites or gaming sites or servers).

Teens also use a wide range of communication tools to get in touch with their closest friend.

49% of teens say text messaging (including on messaging apps) is their first choice of platform for communicating with their closest friend.

20% say social media is their first-choice communication tool when talking with their closest friend.

13% say phone calls are the method they would choose first to talk with their closest friend.

6% say video games are their first-choice platform for talking with their closest friend.

Teens who live in lower-income households are more likely than higher-income teens to say they use social media to get in touch with their closest friend. Lower-income teens, from households earning less than $30,000 annually, are nearly evenly split in how they get in touch with these friends, with 33% saying social media is the most common way they do so and 35% saying texting is their preferred communication method. Higher-income teens from families earning $30,000 or more per year are most likely to report texting as their preferred mode when communicating with their closest friend. Modestly lower levels of smartphone and basic phone use among lower-income teens may be driving some in this group to connect with their friends using platforms or methods accessible on desktop computers.

Smartphone users have different practices for communicating with close friends

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of teens have access to a smartphone, and smartphone-using teens have different practices for communicating with close friends. Teens with smartphones rely more heavily on texting, while teens without smartphones are more likely to say social media and phone calls are preferred modes for reaching their closest friend.

58% of teens with smartphone access prefer texting when communicating with their closest friend, while just 25% of teens without smartphone access say the same.

29% of teens without smartphone access say social media is the most common way they get in touch with a close friend; 17% of smartphone users say the same.

21% of teens without smartphones say they make phone calls to their closest friend as a primary mode of communication, compared with 10% of smartphone users.

Girls are more likely to use text messaging - while boys are more likely to use video games - as conduits for conversations with friends

Compared with boys, girls tend to communicate more often with friends via texting and instant messaging:

62% of girls spend time with friends every day via text messaging, compared with 48% of boys.

32% of girls spend time with friends every day using instant messaging, compared with 23% of boys.

On the other hand, boys are much more likely than girls to interact and spend time with friends while playing video games:

74% of teen boys talk with friends while playing video games together, while 31% of girls report the same.

22% of boys talk daily with friends while playing video games, compared with just 3% of girls.

Phone calls are less common early in a friendship, but are an important way that teens talk with their closest friends

Some 85% of teens say they spend time with friends by calling them on the phone, and 19% do so every day. The perceived intimacy of the phone call as a communication choice means teens are less likely to use it immediately upon meeting a new friend, but they often prefer it when talking to close friends.

About half of teens (52%) indicate that a phone number for calling is one of the first three things they would share with a new friend, but just 9% indicate that this is the first thing they would share.

And when teens want to talk to their closest friend, phone calls are the second most popular method overall, with 69% of teens citing phone calls as one of their three choices.

84% of black teens say phone calls are one of the three most common methods they use to get in touch with close friends, compared with 69% of whites and 63% of Hispanic teens.

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American teens don't just make friends in the schoolyard or neighborhood - many are finding new friends online. Video games, social media and mobile phones play an integral role in how teens meet and interact.

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This article was posted on May 4th, 2019. It addresses the issue of becoming less sociable in real life when communicating through technology. It was written by Mark Engler. This article is against using technology to make friends, or rather, it discusses the idea of limiting their friends online so that they will not become a social outcast. It shows that there are ways to have both online friends, and still have many friends in real life as well.

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To the Teacher

At its core, social media holds out the promise of connection. A key idea behind Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and other platforms is that we can create rich networks of friends, receive frequent updates from people in our lives, and build a sense of community.

On sites such as Facebook, it is common for someone to have hundreds of "friends." Yet, in reality, the experience does not always live up to the hype. Despite this ever-present promise of community, many people feel isolated and alone. Although people may have hundreds or even thousands of online "friends," they may have few actual people in real life that they can rely on. All of this raises the question, is social media strengthening our communities, or is spending time on our phones and computers actually harming our ability to connect in person?

This lesson consists of two readings. The first reading explores the experience of connection online, asking whether or not social media helps make us feel more connected to one another. The second reading examines the data regarding how social media affects our mental health, looking at studies of the possible positive and negative effects of social media usage, especially for young people. Questions for discussion follow each reading.

Note: This lesson is Part 1 of a series of lessons on social media.

Ask students to share one word or reaction they have when they hear the phrase "social media."

Alternatively, make a visual web of their reactions by writing the term "social media" in the center of the board, circling it, then asking students for their associations with the phrase. Write down students' associations without comment in the space surrounding the circled phrase, and connect their words with a line to the center. Once responses have slowed, step back and look at the web.

Ask students: What patterns do you see here? What does this web say about our reactions to social media?

Tell students that today we'll read and discuss two short pieces about social media and its impact, both positive and negative.

Reading One:
Experiencing Connection, On and Off-Line

At its core, social media holds out the promise of connection. A key idea behind Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and other platforms is that we can create rich networks of friends, receive frequent updates from people in our lives, and build a sense of community. On sites such as Facebook, it is not uncommon for someone to have hundreds of "friends." Yet, in reality, the experience does not always live up to the hype. Despite this ever-present promise of community, many people feel isolated and alone. Although people may have hundreds or even thousands of online "friends," they may have few actual people in real life that they can rely on.

All of this raises the question, is social media strengthening our communities, or is spending time on our phones and computers actually harming our ability to connect in person?

One commonly held view holds that spending too much time on social media is detrimental. Many influential people-ranging from Pope Francis, to U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to actress and singer Selena Gomez-have warned that overuse of social media can be harmful and isolating. In a recent interview with Stephen Colbert, Michelle Obama stated, "We have to get off the phone and knock on doors and talk to each other face to face.... We can't rely on the internet to tell us about the world."

For reasons like these, people of all ages have begun limiting their time on social media and focusing instead on building relationships in real life. In a 2017 article, Teen Vogue's Beauty and Health Director Jessica Matlin documented the increase in young people logging off. She writes about a student named Faith, 17, who moved from a Philadelphia suburb to a new school in New York City. Faith said that it was hard to make friends. She felt insecure about this, so she used her phone to share stories to make it seem to her friends back home that she was making lots of friends and having a great time. "In reality, I was struggling," she said. The story goes on to tell Faith's story since then:

Now that [Faith has] found her own crew, she's grown more skeptical about social media. She also doesn't feel compelled to get it all on film. At a Coldplay show, she sang instead of Snapped ("I'd rather enjoy the music"), and sitting down to a recent dinner, she and her friends piled their phones in the middle of the table ("It made the night so much better")....

"Young adults are beginning to take a more mindful approach to social media," says Jacqueline Nesi, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studies teens and social media. "This may explain the rise in apps like SelfControl and Anti-Social." (Both prevent you from falling into a Facebook hole.) And that no-phones-at-dinner policy? Nesi says we are likely to see it popping up on more tables....

Ananda, 17, had the kind of Insta-following that any start-up would kill for. Before long, it became a total chore. What started as a place to share vegan recipes and cute outfits quickly became her "brand," something that demanded daily upkeep. Her fans constantly direct-messaged her with praise and invites to meet up.

"It was really sweet," she says. "At the same time, it was so time- and energy-consuming-it wasn't how I want to build friendships." As she started posting less, her following dropped. ("That gave me anxiety," she says.) Finally, she just closed her account. "I do miss it, but I have time to spend with my real friends."

"Social media relationships aren't real relationships," says Faith. "It's always weird when you see someone who follows you and you follow back, but you don't say 'hi' to each other when you see them in real life."

[ https://www.teenvogue.com/story/why-young-adults-are-taking-a-more-mindful-approach-to-social-media]

Despite such testimonies to the benefits of taking breaks from social media, not everyone agrees that online community is inherently unhealthy-or that offline friendships should count as being a valuable part on one's "real life," while online connections are disregarded. For years, young people have maintained that social media can provide real connection. In a 2018 article for The Washington Post, Common Sense Media parenting editor Caroline Knorr offered five benefits of social media. She wrote:

For a few years, many teens have been saying that social media - despite its flaws - is mostly positive. And new research is shedding light on the good things that can happen when kids connect, share and learn online. As kids begin to use tools such as Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and even YouTube in earnest, they're learning the responsibility that comes with the power to broadcast to the world....

It lets them do good. Twitter, Facebook and other large social networks expose kids to important issues and people from all over the world. Kids realize they have a voice they didn't have before and are doing everything from crowdfunding social justice projects to anonymously tweeting positive thoughts ....

It strengthens friendships. Studies, including Common Sense Media's " Social Media, Social Life: How Teens View Their Digital Lives" and the Pew Research Center's "Teens, Technology and Friendships" show that social media helps teenagers make friends and keep them.

It can offer a sense of belonging. While heavy social media use can isolate kids, a study conducted by Griffith University and the University of Queensland in Australia found that although American teens have fewer friends than their historical counterparts, they are less lonely than teens in past decades. They report feeling less isolated and have become more socially adept, partly because of an increase in technology use....

Online acceptance - whether a kid is interested in an unusual subject that isn't considered cool or is grappling with sexual identity - can validate a marginalized child.... One example occurred on a Minecraft forum on Reddit when an entire online community used voice-conferencing software to talk a teenager out of committing suicide.

[ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2018/03/19/5-ways-social-media-can-be-good-for-teens/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.74d64c1a442a]

Such arguments suggest that social media use can have both positive and negative aspects. Whether we experience it as helpful or harmful has a lot to do with how we engage, who we relate with, and what boundaries we decide to set for ourselves in our daily lives. Instead of passively accepting the platforms as they are, we can be critical in how we engage, recognizing that if social media offers the promise of community, it is a community that we must create for ourselves.

For Discussion

1. How much of the material in this reading was new to you, and how much was already familiar? Do you have any questions about what you read?

2. What are your reactions to Faith's story about cutting back on social media and feeling closer to friends? Does her story resonate with you - or not?

3. Have you ever agreed to stow your phones when you're having a get-together with friends? If so, what effect did it have?

4. If you use social media, do you take breaks from it? Why or why not?

5. What are your thoughts about the five benefits of social media cited in the Washington Post? Do they resonate with you? Why or why not?

6. What are some arguments that social media decreases meaningful connection? Have you experienced any of these trends in your community?

7. What are some arguments that social increases connection and has positive benefits? Do these ring true in your experience?

8. Do you see generational differences in how different people look at the appropriate use of social media platforms? How would you characterize how your views might differ from those of your parents or teachers?

Reading Two:
The Research on Social Media and Mental Health

Reports about people's experiences on social media are often anecdotal. They rely on individual stories about how a given user might feel. But can we get a bigger picture take on social media's overall effect? What does the research say about social media's impact on our mental well-being?

In an article in the September 2017 issue of The Atlantic entitled "Has the Smartphone Destroyed a Generation?," San Diego State psychology professor Jean Twenge examined some this research. Focusing most of her attention on the more negative impacts of social media on mental health, Twenge generated a media firestorm with her portrait of how social media increases our isolation. She wrote:

The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers' lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health. These changes have affected young people in every corner of the nation and in every type of household. The trends appear among teens poor and rich; of every ethnic background; in cities, suburbs, and small towns. Where there are cell towers, there are teens living their lives on their smartphone....

Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. It's not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones....

The Monitoring the Future survey, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and designed to be nationally representative, has asked 12th-graders more than 1,000 questions every year since 1975 and queried eighth- and 10th-graders since 1991. The survey asks teens how happy they are and also how much of their leisure time they spend on various activities, including nonscreen activities such as in-person social interaction and exercise, and, in recent years, screen activities such as using social media, texting, and browsing the web. The results could not be clearer: Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy.

There's not a single exception. All screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness. Eighth-graders who spend 10 or more hours a week on social media are 56 percent more likely to say they're unhappy than those who devote less time to social media. Admittedly, 10 hours a week is a lot. But those who spend six to nine hours a week on social media are still 47 percent more likely to say they are unhappy than those who use social media even less. The opposite is true of in-person interactions. Those who spend an above-average amount of time with their friends in person are 20 percent less likely to say they're unhappy than those who hang out for a below-average amount of time....

Teens who spend three hours a day or more on electronic devices are 35 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide, such as making a suicide plan. (That's much more than the risk related to, say, watching TV.)

[ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/]

Twenge's article, shared by many concerned parents, prompted a wave of responses from other psychologists. Many noted that the research is more nuanced than the uproar around the inflammatory article made it seem. In a 2017 article for Psychology Today entitled "No, Smartphones are Not Destroying a Generation," Assumption College psychology professor Sara Rose Cavanaugh questioned whether smartphones and social media were purely negative in their effects.

Emerging evidence indicates that like every other question psychologists can think to ask about human behavior, screen use and its association with psychological well-being varies based on a multitude of contextual and personal variables-for instance, how you use media, when you use it, and what else is going on in your life... [One study] by Andrew K. Przybylski and Netta Weinstein uses a careful design that takes into account these sorts of factors and concludes that "moderate use of digital technology is not intrinsically harmful and may be advantageous in a connected world."

Nowhere is Twenge's bias more obvious to me than in some research that she actually does review but then casts aside as seemingly irrelevant to her thesis... In the introduction to the piece she notes that this generation has sharply lower rates of alcohol use, teen pregnancies, unprotected sex, smoking, and car accidents than previous generations. This is what a destroyed generation looks like?

Moreover, there is good reason to think that smartphones and social media may have positive effects as well as negative effects. Routinely feeling connected to your social peers could have beneficial effects.... For instance, teens can find other teens interested in the same social movements, connect with teens across the globe on interests like music and fashion, and feel embedded in a social network filled with meaning.

[ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/once-more-feeling/201708/no-smartphones-are-not-destroying-generation]

Twenge herself acknowledges that social media may have contributed a decrease in some behaviors that have traditionally made parents and guardians anxious, writing that "Some generational changes are positive, some are negative, and many are both. More comfortable in their bedrooms than in a car or at a party, today's teens are physically safer than teens have ever been. They're markedly less likely to get into a car accident and, having less of a taste for alcohol than their predecessors, are less susceptible to drinking's attendant ills."

A final point to consider in the debate over social media and mental health is that the platforms themselves have agendas--since companies like Twitter, Snapchat, and Facebook make more money when people use them more, regardless of the impact on happiness or mental health. In a 2018 article for the BBC, investigative reporter Hilary Andersson argued that social media companies are deliberately addicting users to their products for financial gain.

"Behind every screen on your phone, there are generally like literally a thousand engineers that have worked on this thing to try to make it maximally addicting" [said former Mozilla and Jawbone employee Aza Raskin.]

In 2006 Mr Raskin, a leading technology engineer himself, designed infinite scroll, one of the features of many apps that is now seen as highly habit forming. At the time, he was working for Humanized - a computer user-interface consultancy.

Infinite scroll allows users to endlessly swipe down through content without clicking.

"If you don't give your brain time to catch up with your impulses," Mr Raskin said, "you just keep scrolling."

He said the innovation kept users looking at their phones far longer than necessary. Mr Raskin said he had not set out to addict people and now felt guilty about it. But, he said, many designers were driven to create addictive app features by the business models of the big companies that employed them. "In order to get the next round of funding, in order to get your stock price up, the amount of time that people spend on your app has to go up," he said...."So, when you put that much pressure on that one number, you're going to start trying to invent new ways of getting people to stay hooked."

"You have a business model designed to engage you and get you to basically suck as much time out of your life as possible and then selling that attention to advertisers."

Facebook told the BBC that its products were designed "to bring people closer to their friends, family, and the things they care about." It said that "at no stage does wanting something to be addictive factor into that process"....

[Yet] last year Facebook's founding president, Sean Parker, said publicly that the company set out to consume as much user time as possible. He claimed it was "exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology."

[ https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44640959]

Ultimately, promises of connection offered by social media platforms are sales pitches. But real community is not a product that people can buy. Whether or not we use technology in creating our own communities, we can be aware that the platforms we might choose to use are by no means neutral.

For Discussion

1. How much of the material in this reading was new to you, and how much was already familiar? Do you have any questions about what you read?

2. According to the article, what does research indicate about the impacts of social media on young people?

3. Does the article reflect your own sense of social media's impact?

4. Some critics argued that the article entitled, "Has the Smartphone Destroyed a Generation?" was unduly sensationalist. What did you think?

5. Do you think social media is partly to blame for rising rates of depression and anxiety among young people? Why or why not?

6. What possible changes could be made in apps to make them less addicting?

7. Are there any changes you would make in how social media platforms are structured?

Ask for volunteers to share one thing they like about social media, and one thing they think should change about social media.
Research assistance provided by John Bergen.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Does Social Media Make Us More or Less Connected?

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To the Teacher At its core, social media holds out the promise of connection. A key idea behind Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and other platforms is that we can create rich networks of friends, receive frequent updates from people in our lives, and build a sense of community.

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This online database was posted on 8/15/2015. It gives charts as to how often online friends meet or interact with each other. This entry was written by suren ramasubbu. This contributed to the claim that  children can make friends through technology. It does this by proving that the third largest way that people, and kids worldwide, communicate with new people. It shows that children communicate a lot through technology, and that it's not much better or worse than having a real life friend.

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I recently met a high school friend after decades. Education, career and family had split us across continents, but the age of communication helped us stay connected through the various milestones of our respective lives. When we met after nearly 25 years, it was as if we had never been apart. I returned home with a throat sore after non-stop chatting, much like we used to back in school.

A couple of years back, I met a person whom I had known through the net. I seemed to have more to talk about to her online than in person. After a couple of hours of labored conversation over coffee, we parted. While we continue our online tete-a-tete with as much verve as before, I doubt if we would meet in person again.

Another "online friend" suddenly disappeared from my online radar. While he appeared active on social networks and such like, he did not return calls, or reply to my emails. I am still raking my head over what I did wrong to have alienated him.

Are relationships more complicated in the digital era? Has the definition of relationships changed?

The net offers us an opportunity to know more number of people (without actually needing to "know them"), with very little effort. Sherry Turkle, Professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology at the MIT, believes that the Internet offers us the illusion of " friendship without the demands of companionship". This satisfies the momentary expediencies of modern life in that we get instant attention and are heard at all times, given the pervasiveness of the net over all time zones, and consequently, we are never alone. But is "not being alone" the same as "not being lonely"?

The perception of online friendships and in-real-life ("IRL") friendships seems to depend on the age of the user. While digital immigrants (such as I) subscribe to John Suler's belief that people "separate their online lives from their offline lives", the digital native, growing with Facebook and Instagram finds distinctions between on- and offline friendships more ambiguous. Social network sites have tied digital identity more firmly to the "In real life" iteration.

The Pew Research Center finds that 57% of American teens make new friends online. But, is making friends without seeing them really a digital phenomenon? In the pre-tech era, my high school assigned to each of us a "pen pal" from a different country, and we wrote letters ("snail mail" in digital parlance) to each other. These letters helped us become aware of each other's cultures and lives in times that predated the availability of information at the touch of a glowing screen. So, how is online friendships different from pen-pal friendships of yore?

Considering that I never met my Norwegian pen pal and stopped writing to her in a year, it is obvious that I did not consider her my friend, as against the high school friend mentioned above, with whom I have remained in touch through decades. Pew Research finds that most "digital friendships" stay in the digital space with only 20% of teens having met an online friend in person. Furthermore, it seems that real-time friendships are considered more valuable than digital friendships even among the natives - best friends (or "best friends forever", BFFs as they are referred) meet most often at school and homes, although online meetings come a close third.

So, is the Internet bad for relationships, as a digital immigrant commonly believes? Apparently not. But for the net, I could have never kept in touch or met my high school friend after a quarter of a century. But even if there is no physical separation, the digital native seems to find online interaction with real-life friends beneficial - 83% of teen social media users believe that social media makes them feel more connected to their friends' lives. 78% of online gaming teens (mostly boys) feel more connected to existing friends with whom they play games. There are people who have admittedly found BFFs or even life partners through the net.

So, is the Internet completely conducive to relationships? At the risk of repeating myself, apparently not. Relationships are largely based on spontaneity and more importantly, honesty - every stumble, hesitation or stutter in a face-to-face conversation reveals our nature in subtle ways, perhaps even without our volition. This honesty makes real-time relationships more trustworthy and hence more permanent. The Internet, on the other hand, affords us the opportunity to edit ourselves and hide behind a screen, so that what-you-see-is-what-you-get may not be a complete picture of ourselves.

Online interactions can also adversely affect existing relationships - 68% of teen social media users report to have experienced drama among their friends on social media and 26% of all teens have had a conflict with a friend over something that happened online or over text messages.

A final biochemical reason that places online friendships below IRL friendships is the absence of physical intimacy. The cuddle hormone, oxytoxin, released during a simple hug can never be released in a facebook "like" or a "{ }" during an online chat. A shoulder on which to cry can never become an equivalent metaphor in the online world, in terms of the comfort it can offer during troubled times.

The digital era is here to stay and pervade all aspects of life. Relationships are no exceptions. The Internet is undoubtedly an invaluable link between people separated by distance. But this link must be built on a stronger foundation of intimacy and familiarity and a balance of online and offline interactions will pave the way to better relationships in the world.

Co-authored by Lakshmi, a Mobicip blogger who occasionally tends to put herself on trial at the intersection of technology, education and parenting.

Mobicip helps parents and schools by way of powerful parental controls for the iPad, iPhone, and other mobile Internet-connected devices. Learn more at www.mobicip.com.

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technology life handbook education parenting  internet social media children parents friendship teenagers family

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I recently met a high school friend after decades. Education, career and family had split us across continents, but the age of communication helped us stay connected through the various milestones of our respective lives. When we met after nearly 25 years, it was as if we had never been apart.

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This video was uploaded to youtube on march 31st 2020. It simply points out some game sot play that you can meet other people on. It was uploaded by a youtube channel named Esquire Middle East. It shares the fact that games can be used to make friends that can play other games with you as well. It just shows that making friends online isn't very hard at all, it just takes knowing the right place to find them.

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This video was posted on a nonprofit, and after searching for the date, I could find nothing. This video interviews teens, asking them how they feel about using social media to communicate. It was posted on, and made by Common Sense Education. According to the video, a lot of children feel that its very practical to be able to see, and communicate with your friends without seeing them in real life. It proves that making friends through technology, even if they're not new friends, can be very helpful.

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Teen Voices: Friendships and Social Media | Common Sense Education