The users of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, are replacing face-to-face contact in this century. Do you think the advantages of this way outweigh the disadvantages?

It is claimed that modern technological tools for

communication

, including social media,are gradually replacing direct contact among

people

. From my perspective, the drawbacks of

this

trend totally overshadow its merits.

To begin

with, it is true that the emergence of social networking websites and applications

such

as Facebook has revolutionized the way

people

contact one another. To be more specific, nowadays, regardless of geographical distance,

people

from most places on the planet can send messages or make use of video calls to keep in touch with their loved ones, eliminating the need for

people

to gather in one place for face-to-face conversations. In terms of business, thanks to the invention of online-based

communication

tools, including Facebook and Viber,

people

working in enterprises can conduct their meetings via the internet,

also

eliminating the need for

people

to be in the one place to conduct a meeting.

As a result

, face-to-face conversations are gradually being replaced by virtual

communication

exchanges.

However

, the aforementioned merits are totally eclipsed by the potential negative drawbacks of

this

trend.

Firstly

, in

this

technological era, with the development of online

communication

tools, it can be seen that many

people

are substituting their real-life relations with digital

communication

. In fact, a large number of young

people

nowadays tend to prefer making friends via means of social media,

such

as Facebook and Twitter, to gathering in a real place. In the long term,

this

would gradually alienate

people

from communities, which could even lead to social isolation and a lack of many interpersonal skills.

Secondly

, the literacy skills of many

people

could

also

be negatively affected due to the lack of social interaction and ways to transmit formal messages. It is true that most individuals, especially teenagers, often use informal language with several emoticons when communicating on social networking.

Consequently

, their ability to read and write in situations that require formality is greatly reduced. In conclusion,

although

social media has brought some benefits to society, the drawbacks of overusing

such

advanced technology to replace real-life

communication

are much more significant.