Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl
the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects,
then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and
observations.
Today's article doubles as a fyi for my generation and younger, and a comfort to the older generations. It's a discussion of friendship and how distance affects it, specifically that it's still hugely important. The article is the result of a 16 month study based on over 1.7 million Twitter users. It seems that even with large and varied social networks, stretching beyond their home areas, these people are still interacting mostly with people near home.
The fyi I think is here for my generation and younger is: just because you have a widespread, varied social media presence doesn't mean you have a solid set of friends/acquaintances. If you don't have friends you see on a regular basis, then maybe you should think about whether you're getting the social support most humans need for optimal functioning. While I think most people know this, I feel like it might bear saying to younger people, and those who aren't all that great at measuring how they're feeling.
The comfort for the older generations is this: clearly, the rise of social media hasn't destroyed local communities and in-person social interaction. If it had, people would likely not be bothering to spend time with nearby people, when there are so many interesting other people further away. People are becoming more globally minded, but they're not eschewing opportunities to interact in real life with people because of it.
I do think globalization, as they call it, is a good thing overall. In generations past, it was all too easy to be entirely unaware of world events, or even regional events in a region that wasn't yours. But if you look at the maps in the article, people from the four cities kept tabs on regions of the country well beyond their own. And while this study limited itself to US borders, I have friends who casually talk about their acquaintances in Southeast Asia, and a friend who married a guy from Thailand. On a personal note, my first friend (who actually merited the word) is from England. And on my text-based computer game, I sometimes play with a girl from the Pacific Islands. Her English was sufficiently good that I figured she was just a kid... and she is... but she's also something like 16 hours different than my local time.
This is, honestly, really cool to me. We all share this world, and the more acquainted with each other we are, the more we consider each other human and "like me." The less "other"ing that occurs, the better, in my opinion. The more differences we accept as normal, the easier it is for autistic people and others with disabilities to be considered "human like me." Also, ideally, the fewer wars we all get into, the less racism, class-ism, even age-ism, maybe.
Today's article doubles as a fyi for my generation and younger, and a comfort to the older generations. It's a discussion of friendship and how distance affects it, specifically that it's still hugely important. The article is the result of a 16 month study based on over 1.7 million Twitter users. It seems that even with large and varied social networks, stretching beyond their home areas, these people are still interacting mostly with people near home.
The fyi I think is here for my generation and younger is: just because you have a widespread, varied social media presence doesn't mean you have a solid set of friends/acquaintances. If you don't have friends you see on a regular basis, then maybe you should think about whether you're getting the social support most humans need for optimal functioning. While I think most people know this, I feel like it might bear saying to younger people, and those who aren't all that great at measuring how they're feeling.
The comfort for the older generations is this: clearly, the rise of social media hasn't destroyed local communities and in-person social interaction. If it had, people would likely not be bothering to spend time with nearby people, when there are so many interesting other people further away. People are becoming more globally minded, but they're not eschewing opportunities to interact in real life with people because of it.
I do think globalization, as they call it, is a good thing overall. In generations past, it was all too easy to be entirely unaware of world events, or even regional events in a region that wasn't yours. But if you look at the maps in the article, people from the four cities kept tabs on regions of the country well beyond their own. And while this study limited itself to US borders, I have friends who casually talk about their acquaintances in Southeast Asia, and a friend who married a guy from Thailand. On a personal note, my first friend (who actually merited the word) is from England. And on my text-based computer game, I sometimes play with a girl from the Pacific Islands. Her English was sufficiently good that I figured she was just a kid... and she is... but she's also something like 16 hours different than my local time.
This is, honestly, really cool to me. We all share this world, and the more acquainted with each other we are, the more we consider each other human and "like me." The less "other"ing that occurs, the better, in my opinion. The more differences we accept as normal, the easier it is for autistic people and others with disabilities to be considered "human like me." Also, ideally, the fewer wars we all get into, the less racism, class-ism, even age-ism, maybe.
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