Pamela B. Rutledge's Seven Myths About Social Media And Relationships
1126 Words5 Pages
Human interaction, for the most part, is inevitable. Every day individuals build weak and strong bonds with those that they interact with. These interactions range from the person bagging their groceries, all the way to the person they will ask to marry them. In the days before social media, an individual needed to meet someone in person to build any kind of relationship. With the introduction of social media in the late 90s, things have changed. As of 2015 there are 1.96 billion social media users worldwide ("Number of social network users worldwide"). An entire network of users are available to be interacted with online. All of these instant connections seem great at first glance, however users are not turning to social media to create close…show more content… Pamela B. Rutledge writes in her article, Seven Myths About Social Media and Relationships, that it is a widely held false belief that "Social Media are destroying our social skills and replacing offline relationships." (Rutledge). The information in the article is provided without any evidence. Several claims are made such as "Research shows that social media have enhanced relationships." (Rutledge) However there is no link to any kind of research to support this claim, nor is there any citations to show any possible research done. The article presents seven more claims all to of which no evidence to support the claims are presented. This alone makes this article invalid as a source of information about social media, as well as the claims made that it can "enhance relationships"(Rutledge) to be not credible. However, relationships formed online often do not transfer over into the real world. These relationships stay virtual and do not allow for the enhancement past anything other than online interactions. According to the Pew Research center, 70% of teenagers have reported never meeting an online friend in person ("Teenagers in the United States who have met online friends in person"). Previous research presented by Internet Research Annual, showed that individuals are simply going to social for entertainment. Relationships are for the most part not being explored in the masses outside of social media. As well as previous reports from Therefore Ruthledge is incorrect to say that social media is enhancing