Reading Blog #1

A Virtual Life: How Social Media Changes Our perspectives

https://www.thechicagoschool.edu/insight/from-the-magazine/a-virtual-life/

I found this article to be extremely prevalent and fascinating. I think the article encapsulates a lot of society's relationship with social media very well. Social media can almost be like different identities or alternate lives compared to what people live in reality. Through most of the article I found myself thinking about the future of social media and things such as the MetaVerse. Will people end up choosing to live out alternative lives in a completely virtual world because that world seems more “shiny” as the article put it? I know already social media and phone usage takes up a large amount of people daily time and so many tools and resources that used to be used have been replaced by phones and websites on the internet. I think the paragraph talking about the balance between social media and reality to be extremely important and apply to lots of virtual spaces. While these spaces such as facebook, instagram or even the Metaverse can offer benefits and allow us as people to connect to other people from all over the globe, these interactions aren’t replacements for real life interactions. It is important to still have a balance and make sure that people continue to connect in real life rather than entirely through a virtual space. A good example of this mentioned in the article is love. Virtual dating sites, while offering a good way to meet people and connect with people you might not normally get a chance to, it also comes with pressing issues similar to social media such as catfishing and people portraying alternate lifestyles then they live. It raises the questions of how real most of these relationships that stem from online communication are.