Richie Siegel

Op-Ed Published in the Chicago Tribune

by Richie Siegel

The college admissions process for the class of 2016 is thankfully over, save for those still on wait lists. With social media growing rapidly, much of the intimacy of delivering good news about college — and pretty much everything else — has disintegrated. These days, when applicants are admitted to college, their friends and followers now know instantly. Many post “Official _____ Class of 2016” while others revert to ALL CAPS and an annoying overload of !!!!!!!!!!s. Even if someone doesn’t post news about his acceptance, a quickly growing string of “Congratulations!!!” will flood his wall, thanks to Facebook bundling topically similar posts.

This fragmentation has led to an exponential loss of intimacy. Long before the Internet, most news, good or bad, was shared by phone, allowing for plenty of intimacy. Texting and chat rooms took over next, which decreased the intimacy of conversations, but allowed for more accessibility and frequency. Then Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and more texting nearly obliterated the need for the previous methods of communication. One can now talk to 10 people at the same time while posting updates on his life in 140-character form.

The accessibility and ease of the current methods of communication have their advantages, but the disadvantages seem to be growing. When the “Congratulations!!!” start coming in, most of the time those writing the word haven’t spoken recently to the person they are congratulating. There is also the distinct possibility that no true friendship exists. With many people heading into college with more than 1,000 Facebook friends, standards for a friendship have fallen dramatically. Today, if you meet someone for 10 minutes it’s fair to assume you will be Facebook friends in a matter of hours.

In 2010, New Yorker columnist and best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell wrote about the downsides of social media in the context of the Arab Spring. Gladwell asserted that social media create “weak ties” that will not sustain the pressure and hardships needed to foster social change. These weak ties are helpful for networking, but when applied to friendships, they do not withstand the ups and downs a friendship encompasses.

When someone posts on Facebook the good news that he was accepted into college, the gratification from having dozens of people “like” the status is real. But it is worth considering if having 50 people like your status superficially is more valuable than having five close friends congratulate you in person.

As an avid user of social media, I am not exempt from these pitfalls, but intimacy seems to be shifting from real intimacy to virtual and theoretical intimacy. The next time something happens that feels “status-worthy,” think about sharing the news only in person. I bet that the gratification from sharing the news with another human, not a computer, greatly exceeds that of posting it on Facebook and seeing that 50 people took a second out of their day to like your good news, before moving on.

Richie Siegel is a high school senior at Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan and willattend Pitzer College in the fall.