The word social comes with different connotations. Formerly, when the word social was brought up it conjured various images of people attending events and getting to know each other better. It also conjured up the concept of being able to effectively communicate with others. This idea has not changed, though the implementation of the idea has evolved quite considerably. Today, this word has such a different meaning.
Today, the word social almost always makes people think of social media. Web pages with people posting images of themselves, their friends and their families often come to mind, as do pages scattered with each user’s various thoughts as they occur. If you think about it, though, this term has not changed much. It just has become a concrete way rather than an ethereal one to enhance interconnectedness in a growing solitary world.
Social media was originally intended for a college-age audience, but it quickly exploded once businesses started using it to promote themselves. They found that this new method was significantly more useful to almost instantly connect with people and often ditched what they were doing or at least most of what they were doing before to attract new customers to concentrate their marketing or advertising efforts here. For them, it was less expensive and more impactful.
On the personal side, adults beyond their college years began using social media to reconnect with old friends, make new ones, and show off their careers and various activities. For them, this new method of communication far outweighed the advantages of making phone calls and reconnecting with friends and family that way. They could access their pages whenever they felt they missed someone or whenever they desired to know more about what was going on with their friends and family members.
These days, the word social has an entirely different meaning to kids and teenagers than it did to their parents. And their parents could say that it meant something different to their own parents too. The way people communicate as a country and as a community is always evolving, and so are people’s concepts of what makes someone or something social. It will continue to change and evolve, making life more challenging for some and easier for others. But one thing will always remain the same: the need to interact with others on a higher level, in a way that makes us feel connected and interconnected.