Digital Connectivity

Facebook boast some 500 million users and and counting. Twitter has around 145 million users and other networking sites boast of large numbers. Though these may seem common place in today's world, it truly staggering if we step back and look at those numbers. Over half a billion people all use one central website which allows them to connect to each other. There has been no other time in history when the world has been connected in such a wide scale.

Stats say that 1 in 13 people in the world use Facebook. They have to opportunity to find old friends that they haven't seen for years, speak with family they would never speak to normally, see pictures they couldn't access otherwise, and foster a sense of harmony by playing games with their friends, (and yes, this does work). Even the adding of random people, whether it be for apps or maybe just because you happen to like their profile picture can result in long lasting friendships. I can tell you from experience that a person I added on Facebook who I didn't know, changed my life forever and they still are. Without Facebook, I think my life would be in a very different and most likely more boring place.

But can Facebook connectivity replace real life connectivity? True, real life offers far less options, but can ({) ever replace a real hug when you really need one? And what exactly would happen if these networking sites crashed or something happened that didn't allow us to use it again. What if we couldn't Skype? Would all those connections be for naught? Would they die along with these sites? And what about things like Facebook and Twitter addiction, a negative side effect that affects the lives of those around us?

While all these questions may have more complicated answers than they at first appear to, one thing is clear: digital connections can never replace real life connections. However, the question of whether real life connections are better than digital connections are as the Buddhist say, a question wrongly asked. They can't replace each other and neither is better than the other. They do very different things and have different methods of delivery, but in the end, they still bring us closer. We are closer because of the digital era, and it is because we can experience both digital and non-digital connections simultaneously.