Using social media to find old friends and reconnect
Sometimes you lose touch with friends, and lucky for you, today there are tons of ways to reconnect, and rekindle old friendships. One of the most effective ways is through social networking sites, and social media. Let's take a look:
First, to understand why social networking is perfect for reconnecting with old friends, you have to ask yourself why you lost touch in the first place. Most people can tell you it is because you moved off to college, went to different towns, got different jobs, married people from different places, or simply had changes in interests. Nine times out of ten, friendships that end, that you want to rekindle, did not end because of a fight, or a misunderstanding but because your lives too you in different directions, sometimes physically, sometimes just mentally.
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Why social networking works so well: It is a great medium for overcoming those differences. Let's look at some specifics.
Distance: Distance has no effect on social networking. Whether your friend is in the house next door, or across the world from you it makes no difference in your ability to talk to each other, share photos, have chat conversations, etc. The internet makes distance irrelevant.
Time: One of the reasons some friendships fail is that you just do not have enough time in the day to do all the things you need to do, and cultivate friendships. To have a phone conversation with someone can take several minutes. To pop on your computer and send a little note over can take a matter of seconds. And, you can communicate and reconnect in the middle of the night your time, and mid day theirs. Time becomes much less important.
Interest levels: When it comes to social networking, you have a way to each reconnect to your level of interest. If you for example want to know everything they have been up to, you can take the time to browse through all of their photos, read all of their notes, check out their blog, read their wall postings, about me lists, etc. If they just want a quick update, they can see your status bar, or chat with you for a few minutes. There is not going to be any awkward moments where you are sitting across from each other trying to think of something else, anything else, to talk about.
As you can see, social networking sites are a great medium for getting back in touch with people. In some cases you will want to reconnect further, and will take it a few steps further, meeting up, and hanging out, etc. However, in some cases you just want to fulfill your curiosity and see how they are doing. Great social networking sites to use for whatever you intentions are include: MySpace, Face Book, and Twitter. Each offer different ways and levels to reconnect. Check them out!
