In what ways has social media affected your relationships with friends and family?

[Abe]

[Easyâ„¢]

it didn't affect my relationship with friends , and i never put family in my social networks !! that not legal in my own privacy policy !

[alscoor]

It's an interesting question. Social Media is a new form of media. And when new media is introduced to society, it changes the whole of society. There is no opting out. The ones who are on social media start building new ways of communicating, augmenting their ways of connecting but also exposing more as a result.

Social brings news ways of connecting in a more meaningful fashion, more authentic.
The flipside is that it also brings new opportunities for deception.

It technically ads pressure as all of a sudden your social media profiles become an external representation of yourself and you have less control on who sees it. Hence the constant scandals about privacy.

Social will affect your relationships with friends and family in 2 ways:
- It will expose a new face of you, the part that you decide to expose there. Building almost a new facet. How much of yourself you are ready to expose on this media will dictate how similar this image is to you.
- If you are nervous about openness, social will be a source of stress. I believe a BBC news article discussed that certain social media (Facebook mainly) generated an abnormal amount of stress on people who were on it.

Now you could think, as Kyle thinks in South Park, "F@#$ Facebook", but there is no opting out of social media. You can refuse to be on it. But it will still impact your life because people around you will be.
So I would ay, embrace it, and be smart about your privacy settings. Keep the controversy to a minimum if you are nervous about the reactions of your close circles.