Reality vs. Virtual Reality

So after a short long hiatus, I am back again folks. Apologies for the second time for going MIA with no explanation (people in my real life will tell you I do that more often than I would like, unfortunately). I had to take some time to make money in the real world and get my life together, but let's just pick up where I left off.

Do you ever get annoyed at a friend or significant other who rarely puts the phone down or makes eye contact with you while talking because they are too busy updating a status or reading twitter feeds? Or maybe you've been annoyed that every time you log onto facebook you're getting updates about someone else's relationships. If so, you'll get a laugh out of the video after the jump.






Last night, I watched "The Future of the Internet" on CSPAN with the Twitter co-founders (I know, I am such a dork...). I found it really interesting though and it really touched on some important topics regarding technology/ social media/ the spread of information & expansion of communication that fascinated me.

It's really difficult to understand our use of social media and how our online personas affect our real world relationships. We all know those people who live on facebook, constantly update their status (while still commenting on everyone else's), feel the need to put up pictures about EVERYTHING they do, or use the internet as a form of PDA for their relationship (I really don't care that you and your "boo" are cuddling and watching a movie right now...). But the connection between our online presence and our real world personalities becomes a complicated matter to study when trying to tie the two together.

Some of us keep it simple, rarely updating Twitter or facebook, and hardly participating in social media at all, but on the other end of the spectrum are the SMO (social media obsessed), who can't put their phone down and spend every spare moment in front of a computer. These are the people who are more likely to become complacent about their online persona (likely those who often forget Lesson 1). But these people also tend to forget that what they do online can affect how they interact with people in the realm of reality, which can cause massive problems in interpersonal relationships, as seen in the video above.

Psychologists have already confirmed that facebook increases jealousy in relationships. The more time you spend on facebook actually correlates with the deterioration of your relationship. Ever seen those people constantly posting about their significant other as if they are ready to get married any day now, and then all of a sudden you see a wall post that they've broke up? Facebook was just their front, the perspective they wanted the world to see and wanted to believe themselves, but in reality their use of that tool likely affected their relationship in a negative way. Not that this is the case for all relationships on facebook, but you have to admit social media can sometimes cause more harm than good when emotions are involved. Ever check up on your boyfriend or girlfriend on facebook and were annoyed at a post they put up? Ever have an argument over a relationship status? It's a phenomenon sweeping the nation, and people are forgetting to keep consistency between what they put online and what they are portraying to those in their real life.



There's no overall lesson in this post today, but I think its important for each of us to take some time out to think about what our purpose is in using social media and how it connects to the personality we portray on a daily basis in the real world. In case you've ever had some difficulty keeping your online persona out of trouble, below is a comical video about facebook etiquette. Maybe  you can share it with some people who could really use the tips.