Are we too connected to be connected?

Well obviously today is special because I like numbers and 11-1-11 is pretty neat. Just wait for ten more days and I might throw a party for the date! (At least in my head I will). 

Anyway, I've been thinking. Is social media bringing us closer together or further apart? Let me explain.

Today I saw that I had some new followers on Instagram. I was instantly excited and thought, now we can share our little moments with each other via photographs. But then I thought, well why not show each other things in person? Why not talk in person? Why not call each other instead of rely on each other's blogs or social media sites to find out what's been happening? 

Well there could be some reasons:

1. It's easier to check for updates on your phone than to schedule a date and block out hours of your night to hang out during the week.

2. With the internet, you can see (at once) what many people are doing rather than one person or a small group of people. 

3. With blogs, you get a larger sense of what is going on at a particular time. When you meet someone in person, you don't talk about all the little things that go through your head when things happen. 

4. You get to see another side of a person that sometimes is difficult to capture in real life.

5. You are essentially still having alone time, while being sort of social.

But then again...

1. We hermit ourselves.

2. Internet can be impersonal and you miss the body language, tone, pitch, everything that physical, real communication gives.

3. You read things so you already know what's going on, so you don't feel as much need to ask.

4. Sometimes people don't sound like themselves in writing and you wonder what the deal is. This is why I particularly enjoy reading  blogs where I can hear the person saying things out loud. (She's pretty good at sound effects).

5. It's a double life. In my case, a triple life. (This one, the other one, the real life). But I try to be genuine in all of them. I keep thinking of merging my blogs so I don't have so many selves, but then I couldn't go deep into thought like I do on this one, and I couldn't focus so much on fashion and music as the other one. So there. I gotta keep 'em separated. 

In any case, I obviously enjoy being online and getting the inside scoop on people I know, and sometimes people I don't. (The people I don't have a lot to offer in terms of style, projects, insight).  Who knew that you didn't need experts to tell you everything, but instead, real people who do things and see things and write about them?

Whatever you do, make sure you step out of the virtual life and into the one you've led up until before you had all of these technologies. And then go sit down at your computer and keep on reading. :)