I'm So Totally, Digitally Close to You: ReflectionSocial Media began influencing our communication and relationships as early as 1969, when the first provider of Internet services to US universities. In 2002, Friendster, the first social media site available in the United States, was created and gained over 3 million members in just over 3 months. A year later, MySpace was launched. In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg, a 24-year-old Harvard student, created Facebook, an online social networking service. This service was originally a way for students to interact. Today it is the largest social networking service in the world, allowing over a billion users to connect by posting photos, sharing links, and comments that all appear in a "News Feed" that broadcasts this information to all your virtual friends. For the current generation, this new way of communication is making it easier to never lose touch with anyone you've ever met. It also allows anyone on this platform to create new relationships with people they are interested in connecting with over the internet. In "I'm So Totally, Digitally Close To You" by Clive Thomas, he discusses how social media has both positive and negative effects on relationships with friends and acquaintances. Thomas pays close attention to the Facebook website. Discusses the pros and cons of the level of privacy, environmental awareness, and effects on “loose tie” relationships created by websites like Facebook. Explain how this constant online communication, ambient awareness, gives you a sense of someone's thoughts, actions, and experiences without actually being present. Thomas draws on trusted sources such as Zeynep Tufekci, former assistant professor of sociology at the University of Maryland...... half of the paper ......if you meet someone for the first time who you befriended first online, it really takes the step away from getting to know you. You already know where they come from, their age, hobbies, beliefs, etc. You no longer have to physically talk to someone and pick their brain, you just have to search for their blog. Relationships built on environmental awareness make you feel a new level of intimacy, but is it really intimacy or is it just something that makes you feel a little less alone? Asking if someone is environmentally aware is a bit like asking “Do you have a Facebook?” Side note: Humans created social media, so we can't blame social media for our participation in it. It's an event fully participatory. We are the ones who make up social media. So it is unfair of us to blame it as an entity, because we participate in and are the creators of the media we blame.