Friendship at your fingertips: can social media be good for your health?

I wrote recently about the dangers of social media. But now I want to look at the advantages, and I believe there are several.

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In fact, having grown up at a time when the internet and social media did not exist, I think it has dramatically improved our lives for the better. There are dangers, but it's up to each one of us to use these relatively new tools sensibly.

As an analogy, cellphones can distract us from productive activity, and they should NEVER be used while driving a car. However having one with you while you're driving alone can make you much safer – if, for example, your car breaks down in a remote area.

The same goes for social media. Just because there are dangers doesn't mean we should abandon it altogether.

Virtual friends

One of the main complaints of social media detractors is that the relationships built via social media are not "real". They give a virtual, false impression of friendship. And this can indeed be the case – most worryingly when fake personas prey on children.

You might have hundreds, even thousands of friends online, but no one around to hold your hand when things go wrong. And on platforms where people use bots to "friend" people or follow accounts, many of your social media friends or followers may not even be aware of your existence.

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The key is engagement. Social media CAN help you make real, flesh-and-blood friends if you use it to engage with people. The key is to put less importance on how many likes or follows you're getting and to focus more on what other people are posting about.

Twitter friendship

I made a real flesh-and-blood friendship through Twitter – which is ironic, as on the surface Twitter could be seen as one of the most vacuous social media platforms. You can't have a deep conversation in 140 characters (as it was then) – but you can share links, images and memes.

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I was quite active on Twitter a few years ago, and there was one person who seemed to share the same opinions and humour as I did. Wasi lives in London, but she said she was coming up to Glasgow to do a course and wondered if there was any chance of some part-time work in the juice bar I was running at the time. I said I thought there might be.

I felt I could trust Wasi. I knew from her posts that she was reasonably well-educated and had work experience, and that she communicated well socially.

When she arrived in Glasgow, we met for the first time. We got on really well – as I knew we would. In fact we got on like a house on fire. She worked in my café (which I no longer run, by the way) and when she returned to London we kept in touch by email. She came up to visit me and some other friends a few months ago.

Hacking brings a new friendship

About a year ago I received a Facebook friend request from someone I didn't know and had never heard of. I'm usually wary of such things, but I noticed that we had a couple of Facebook friends in common and a shared interest – hillwalking. So I accepted.

A few days later I got a message from this new friend, Kathleen, saying that her account had been hacked and it was the hacker who had sent the friend request – and that she'd understand if I wanted to "unfriend" her. She said she was obsessed with hillwalking and that she only really posted photos of her hillwalks.

Luckily I like looking at hillwalking photos, so I didn't unfriend her.

A few months later, we actually met on a hillwalk. We laughed about how we'd become friends due to a Facebook hacker, and luckily we got on really well. We're now the best of friends and we often go walking together.

Social media can lead to real life friendships.

Global connections

Another great benefit of social media is that you get to connect with people from all over the world. This can diminish international stereotypes and help people from different cultures understand each other.

I now get to communicate with people from all over the world in ways that I wouldn't have dreamt of when I was younger.

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In the 1990s I travelled across Asia in a LandRover with four other people. When we left the UK, in 1995, the internet was just in its infancy. I had an account with compuserve.com (remember them?).

I was very nervous about travelling through Pakistan, and I posted some of my concerns online. I was amazed when someone actually living in Pakistan replied, and we had a conversation!

There was no Facebook in those days and our conversation was in the format of lines of text on a dark screen!

There are wider repercussions to this global connectivity, and I see most of them as positive.

More fake news… or more critical thinking?

A few decades ago, if there was a war in an overseas country, the only source of information about it came from the newspapers or the broadcast news, with their foreign correspondents. Now, we get tweets, Facebook posts and, of course, Steemit reports from people who actually live in those war zones, competing with the "official" news reports.

Some of those social media posts are from propaganda outlets – just because it's on social media doesn't make it the truth. But then, just because it's on CNN or the BBC doesn't make it the truth either.

I think the panic over "fake news" stems from the traditional media channels fighting to retain their authority in a world where people can get information from the other side of the planet in an instant, at the click of a mouse.

A bigger social circle

A few years ago I started using Meetup to find walking and hillwalking events. I have met hundreds of real flesh-and-blood friends via that platform – friends who share my interests and whom I meet every week.

I meet people from all walks of life through Meetup, and from all over the world. People visiting Scotland sometimes join a Meetup group to see parts of the country they might otherwise miss.

Sometimes it's more fun exploring places in a group than on your own, or with an expensive guide. I've learned how to climb and to belay with a Meetup group, and it cost me nothing. I have even launched a Meetup group of my own.

An indoor bouldering session with a Meetup group .

Before Meetup existed, I used to meet most of my social group through work and through hobbies, and alcohol was often involved. I didn't even have the guts to join a mountaineering club – I thought I would have to be super-fit, and I feared that they might be elitist (as some of them were in the past).

I think that online social media outlets like this are giving people who might have felt lonely or disconnected in the past new real-life ways to connect with others who share their interests.

Positive ways to use Facebook

Ironically, I probably would have moved away from Facebook if it wasn't for Meetup. I use it mainly for fun and sharing hillwalking and mountaineering stories with the friends I've met through Meetup. And we often use Messenger for organising events outside Meetup.

I realise that in using social media platforms like Facebook I'm exposing myself to social profiling and data mining. In the early days of Facebook I felt that there was already so much information about me online that it didn't make much difference anyway.

There is certain information I deliberately hold back from Facebook, such as the educational institutions I attended, and previous employment. This is not because I want to keep it secret – I just have no desire to chum up with former employers on Facebook.

Facebook has lots of positives – just don't let it rule your life!

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I have reconnected with some people I knew in the past via social media, and I think this is one of Facebook's great strengths. I can chat with a childhood friend whom I hadn't seen for 30 years. I know that she has a good job, makes terrible puns, has a habit of appearing as a contestant on TV quiz shows, and that her family is well. I can keep in touch with overseas cousins whom I can't afford to visit very often.

Facebook and Instagram have hiking and mountaineering groups where you can interact with people who share your interest, get advice and share information about weather conditions, suitable gear – all kinds of things.

And there are gear exchange pages. I got my first pair of winter walking hillwalking boots for £10 through Facebook. I was lucky, as they were a perfect fit, and I've worn them several times.

Not bad for £10.

Yes, there are negative aspects to social media and it's important not to let it consume you. But there are also many positives. As long as it's used wisely, social media can help you build real friendships and participate in group activities.

I believe social media can improve your mental and physical health: but the key is to use it sensibly.

All unsourced photos were taken by the author.

Read Part 1 of this post here