Is Social Media Drawing People Closer Together

Is internet bringing people closer during the pandemic?

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The other mean solar day I was impressed by an interview in the documentary The Mail service-Pandemic Era past Japanese director Ryo Takeuchi. When Qi Yue, the director of Lenovo's Wuhan base, talked near COVID-19 prevention and command in the manufacturing plant, he posed an interesting question, "Has the internet shortened the distance between people, and are people more than willing to understand each other?"

Equally the pandemic has swept the whole world, the prevention and control measures have greatly reduced face-to-face up advice. During this menstruum, considering the concrete distance, the net has therefore played an essential role in communication. Information technology is necessary to think about the role of the cyberspace in interpersonal relationships.

On the ane hand, the internet serves as a low-cost but efficient platform for maintaining and developing connections. On the other hand, it is a space total of fragmented information, and then the bits and pieces of information accessible to a person make it difficult to grasp an overall picture of the person or event involved.

As the pandemic has made social distancing a necessity, the internet is connecting people closely through instant communications merely also weakening common understanding due to an overwhelming amount of information and half-truths.

According to the 46th China Statistical Report on Net Development issued by China Internet Network Information Center in September last year, at that place are 940 one thousand thousand netizens in Red china by June of 2022, 1-5th of the earth's total netizens. During the pandemic, great changes have taken identify in the cyberspace-based socializing. New forms of social activities have emerged one after another, such equally "cloud party."

Besides, true words, photos and videos on the internet testify how people from all walks of life fight against COVID-19. The internet offers people opportunities to express their feelings and develop strong empathy which brings people closer during hard times.

But it is increasingly evident that positive feedbacks about the internet today are overshadowed by its negative impacts. Get-go, the right to free speech communication is abused in net. With an anonymous identity, users regard the cyberspace as their playground so that they commit verbal violence confronting innocent people without scruple. During the pandemic, when the precise movements of some confirmed cases are exposed, various conjectures and malicious gossips about the cases keep cropping up online. Then netizens are set to gauge and criticize them as a guardian of morality and this is how cyber bullying happens.

Second, cyberspace-based social media have gradually aggravated social anxiety because of a sense of loss arising from comparing oneself to others. Varied functions of social media like comments and retweeting enable people to enjoy beingness the center of attention in internet. All the same, users also suffer from these functions. Compared with their popular friends, they may feel anxious and even humiliated when getting no likes or comments after sharing their delicate words, photos or videos online. As a result, they may draw a decision that nobody understands or cares about them, and the sense of loss prompts users to go inaccessible to others online.

3rd, users lose patience in distinguishing betwixt true and faux information on the internet. Resources sharing and user-oriented services characterized by the internet expose each netizen to a mass of information, but incomplete pieces of information and tailored messages ordinarily atomic number 82 to bullheaded obedience, misunderstanding and even complacency. A lot of false information was distributed surrounding COVID-19. Distrust is likely to generate insecurity.

Terminal, truth seems to have become less attractive than emotions on the cyberspace. Netizens prefer giving total vent to their feelings about a person or an event rather than because and analyzing evidence or details beginning. Without whatsoever serious scientific evidence, rumors about the origin of the coronavirus fly on the internet, so negative emotions stirred past the rumors in the cyberspace are running high. Therefore, a growing rift among countries does impairment to common understanding and increases altitude between nations.

How the internet affects relations amid people during the pandemic is related to usage of the internet. Although it helps maintain interpersonal relationships through instant communication, the internet besides created barriers to mutual agreement considering of its negative impacts. In lodge to make full use of the net to enhance mutual understanding, only truth needs to exist told, although this is non easy to ensure.

The author is a postgraduate of Shandong University. stance@globaltimes.com.cn