Internet and social medias have recently revolutionized our day-to-day way of living.
Most of the people have now a facebook, twitter, instagram or pinterest accounts.
They are able to present their passions, pastimes and opinions.
In some way, communications become faster and more efficient.
We are able to make or keep contact with other people more easily.
We have friends in multiple part of the world.
I keep in touch with friends who actually live in Chile, USA, Germany, Russia, Morocco and Turkey.
In fact, they aren’t only virtual friend.
I have met them in real life.
I have sometimes some news from them, and then if they or I travel, we’ll meet again.
In this way, social medias are allowing us to be more curious and open to other people, cultures, and ways of living.
Thanks to social medias, we become more and more cosmopolite.
And to my mind, it is one of the most important benefits of the use of the new technologies.
However, some well-founded criticism are nowadays arising for the changes that involving new social medias.
For example, a recent research-study reveals that the proliferation of virtual friendships doesn’t erase, even cause, real loneliness.
Being more virtually connected with other people may lead to the multiplication of superficial contacts and weak relationships.
More than that, the recent politic events (the “Brexit” and the American election) have demonstrated how deeply could the news being manipulated and distorted.
Some historians and sociologists have named this phenomenon of reality distortion the Post-Truth Era.
Despite these problematic changes, I think that live without the opportunities offered by social medial should be a mistake.
But we have to be conscious that all we say, write or publish on the Internet is in some way public.
A really simple way to have an appropriate virtual comportment: behave yourself on social medias as you behave in the street or in another public space.
You will certainly not show a picture from you doing a weird thing to everyone in the street.
In the same way, you will not insult in front of 400 persons someone who doesn’t please you, or have different opinions from you.
This little tip helps to keep silent about private opinions and avoid emotional inappropriate reactions on social medias.
In addition, we must be careful with any information we found online, and be conscious that we need to search contradictory sources to really understand something.
To conclude, Internet and social media have moved the frontier between public and private spaces, and we must adapt our behaviour to this major evolution.
February 2017
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