When you meet someone new, what is one of the first things you do? When you match with someone on Tinder? How about when you join a new club on campus? It’s likely that one of the first actions that come to mind is pulling out your phone to look up their Instagram or look at Quick Add on Snapchat to connect and learn more about others.

        Statista estimates that roughly 77 percent of the US population has some sort of social media account, whether that be Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and/or online dating apps. Many consider it weird for someone not to own social media or engage with people on the internet in some form.

       My grandmother always told me about how people would get together when she was young. People would all meet up on the weekends at clubs or diners and go dancing. She and her friends would go roller skating and go out to meet new people as a habitual routine. No one had a phone to text or posts to read about which places were popular on a specific night; everyone just went out and had fun.

        With the rise in technology and the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee, people are now able to connect one-on-one while being miles apart. We only need to read Twitter to know what everyone else is up to this weekend. If I’m bored, I can look at my phone and watch that cute video of the turtle eating a strawberry that my friends sent me in our group chat. I can look for organization updates in our Facebook groups and take funny videos of my friends and post to my Snapchat story for my other friends to view for the next 24 hours.

        We are connecting on a whole new interface that extends our social reach around the globe. Students studying in Dubai can post pictures everyone here in Baltimore sees and FaceTime their family members back home. Communities form because of shared Facebook friends and followers. The ages of social media users grow both younger and older by the year, and it becomes more accessible with the technology available to the public. There is even LinkedIn, a social media connection website for professionals in the workforce.

        The internet is our new community–a place where we can all meet and find entertainment, education, and friendship. Social media gives humanity an outlet to gain connections and experience both near and far from your current location or favorite place to get coffee. The most recently discovered medium for human interaction is truly and unapologetically world-wide.