Silver and the "Quagmire" of Online Connections

To Silver, online connections are somehow inferior to connections made through face to face experiences. In his article, Silver references Robin Dunbar and his work with social media. "The Dunbar Number" refers to how many true friendships any one person can maintain at one time: 150. The flurry of social media makes it nearly impossible to forge any real, meaningful friendships for both of these men.

However, 'friendship' may not be the right word to describe the interactions we tend to have on today's social media. "In truth, and I credit LinkedIn with popularizing this term, they are connections," (Silver). These connections are fleeting. To Silver, thousands of Facebook friends, or "connections" mean little to nothing in the context of a person's life because a true friend is someone that cares about you, not just that you exist. In many cases, this is true. I am guilty of not being "friends" with every person on my Facebook friends list. However, I do value the potential connection that I could have with these people, should I choose to act upon it through social media.

Silver offers little to no perspective from the other side of his argument. How many of us have forged a relationship through social media? Online dating has become normalized in the last five years, but that is a fact that Silver ignored in his article. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, five percent of Americans in seriously committed relationships admitted to meeting their significant other online. Though online dating is not the same as social media, the connection made is still present. It was not caught up in the madness of social media. These relationships are real and strong while still being forged through the digital world.

By ignoring the potential of social media in impacting the real connections made, Silver makes himself sound like- to put it blundtly- an old man resistant to change. He can't really understand that younger individuals use social media to connect with real friends and to stay in contact with old ones. "Those of us who are inundated in social media tend to carry over that casual attitude when we meet new people, whether they be quick encounters or new co-workers," (Silver). To Silver, there is a kind of informality toward strangers that is inappropriate, all because of social media. This carries over form his attitude toward the connections on social media. They are quick, fleeting, and casual. There is little to no effort that has to be put into online connections, and that has affected how social media users are interacting with others in the real world.

Though I agree with Silver and Dunbar in some respects, I would argue that social media has been used to forge meaningful connections with others. With the use of social media, I do not believe that Dunbar's Number holds true. Now, social media users have the ability to stay in contact with as many people as they see fit to hold close. Online relationships can only be labeled inferior should the users not commit to forging these strong connections with one another.
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