The brilliance of social media is that it allows people to stay connected no matter where they are in the world. It used to be that unless one physically met up with a friend or had access to an international telephone, staying in touch was nearly impossible. In first grade, my best friend Morgan moved to India and I had no feasible way to stay in touch with her. Our friendship faded quickly. I could not have imagined that just a decade later, social media would solve this issue.
However, inventors like Nikola Tesla did see this coming. In 1926 he predicted that technology would eventually advance so rapidly that one day people could be geographically separated, but still communicate as if face- to- face. He was right.
Tesla's 1926 vision: "We shall see & hear one another as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances" #Rewire @EthanZ #NHsmc
— Jessica Dunne (@JessicaMDunne) February 14, 2016
This past semester, I studied abroad in London, England. I was worried that I would get homesick and not be able to handle four months in another country. I was also worried that I wouldn’t be able to retain my job on the #SyracuseU official social media team. Luckily, I found the 6 best social media apps for keeping in touch when abroad. Through social media, I could call home for free using FaceTime audio, share photos with my Syracuse friends, and collaborate with my social media team. I was also able to communicate with my best friend studying in New Zealand!
How cool is technology that I can FaceTime @gib_kin before my morning final in London while she is in New Zealand getting ready to go out
— Jessica Dunne (@JessicaMDunne) December 10, 2015
Everyone should feel secure when studying abroad and social media have made this possible. Friendship no longer has to be defined by location, as it truly has no border.
Really related to your post having just gotten back from abroad as well, and also relied heavily on social media to keep in touch with friends and family. Its amazing that we had this technology to keep in touch with our friends and family despite being on the other side of the world!
Jessica– I have so many things to say about this post that I almost don’t know where to start (almost). Firstly, your title is very clever. Secondly, I appreciate your personal connection to this post. I too studied abroad for a short period of time and also live far enough from home that visits are not an option so I completely agree with your point that social media is helping us connect across differences. However, I would challenge you to think about how staying connected with the people back home is affecting your relationships with those physically around you. This was the topic of my post and my suggestion is that while social media is definitely strengthening some relationships, it often does so at the expense of others. The classic example of this would be hanging out with your “friends” in Syracuse while constantly texting your “friends” back home and I use air quotes not to suggest that they don’t exist but rather to invoke the question: to what extent does the friendship exist? Are we limiting ourselves from forming deep, meaningful relationships because we are spread too thin across literally hundreds of Facebook friends and Twitter followers? Just some food for thought! Great work here.