Since the invention of the Internet and with the great developments of science and technology and information technology, human beings have entered information era. Under such a background, social media, as emerging ways of communication, which can be seen on this planet. From WeChat, QQ in China to VK in Russia and Twitter in Western countries, no one on this planet can be excluded from the effect caused by social media, let alone their relationships. Social media, as it is shown literally, are platforms created by telecommunication runners for people to boost their relationships. However, social media undoubtedly has effects on the relationships both positively and negatively while improving them.
From the positive perspective, social media plays important role in improving relationships. Take WeChat in China as an example. On this platform, people can greet to their friends by sending text, using voice and even video calls, which greatly improve the efficiency of communication and save much time. Besides, WeChat has no limitation of space and time. To put it specifically, people can set up a WeChat group which contains at most 500 group members and allows them to share their opinions, express their ideas, and convey their emotions. What is more. WeChat has no limitation of distance. For instance, one of your relatives is studying abroad, you want to communicate with him or her, just with the help of system of video and voice calls, you can easily get in touch with him or her without going far away. Some companies make good use of this social media to do their business. They establish the enterprise groups on which staffs in this company, even the highest decision makers, collect information and get feedbacks from their supervisors and their clients, even some information about their potential partners and counterparts, which not only contributes to the operation and management of enterprises, but also helps to grasping the market situation and seizing the best opportunity. Social media can also be used in other aspects. Online dating, for example, is increasingly popular among young men and young women. Through this platform, youngsters share their photos and some personal information to seek their best couples for marriage, which has solved marital problems of bachelors. Some schools and training institutions have set up online groups and online assessment system, through which students can share their acquisition with their classmates, and teachers collect feedbacks from their students and then provide targeted guidelines for their students and make accurate and objective assessment on students' academic work. It is because these colleges or institutions have applied social media to assist them with their academic research and teaching that both of their quality of teaching and academic research have significantly improved and the relationships between tutors and students have tied more firmly.
In terms of negative effects, so much can be said about this. Social media makes its good ways to boost relationships while deteriorating them. There are many people who would like to make profits through these platforms. WeChat business, for example. Users promote their goods through WeChat friend circle and groups, such a behavior is so annoying that each groups ban it. Some illegal criminals steal or cheat your accounts by dressing up as one of your relatives or friends and getting in touch with you for profits. Some cult and extremist ideologies are spread by these illegal criminals through social media to worsen social contradictions, which cause great social unrest and damage people both mentally and physically. Many people would like to publish their private information and some photos on the social media platforms. This is a not a good habit, because some criminals can use this information to commit crimes and our privacy is unable to be secured. There are still some odd phenomena in modern times. People are just staring at their cellphone screens instead of caring about their relatives and friends. There is a vivid sentence that can be used best describe this phenomenon. “The furthest distance in the world is that I am sitting next to you and talking to you, but you are staring at your mobile phone screen”. In this way, the relationship between people is more distant. People would rather stare at screen their mobile phones rather than pay visit to their families, relatives and friends, which makes relationships tense and does harm to family and group harmony.
Overall, we cannot deny the fact social media does produce significant effect on relationships, but this is not absolutely right. To what extent does social media make effect on relationships is determined by how we use social media and how we view them, and it is also determined by what specific means that we adopt to maintain or boost our relationships with people.