Social or Anti-Social Media?

Every week I send out a family email. I update our family on who is where and who's doing what.
I remind the clan about birthdays, anniversaries and milestones.
I send photos and video clips. I do all this to keep our family together no matter how physically far apart we are from one another.
When I lamented our family members mostly don't respond to the email, my son said that I should send the information out on Facebook instead. And since he's a man of action, he went ahead and made the family our own Facebook group. Along with that, he made me a personal Facebook page, and patiently explained how to use it.
I think I actually did use it on the day after he showed me, but I just didn't click with it, or perhaps the family didn't click with it, so that discouraged me. I need to see immediate results in anything I do. I guess I'm a tachlis girl - cause and effect, that's what I like.
I've never been on the page since, but I often get a Facebook message that says, "______ sent you a message on Facebook" or "________ wants you to be friends on Facebook."

Well, that's all very nice, but I don't want to be friends with folks on Facebook. I want to be real friends. I want to email, call or even have coffee with a friend and actually talk face-to-face (today they call it F2F).

So, until I understand better what social media is, I think I'll stick to just the social part.

Anti-Social?

I read an article that said that youth surveyed said they'd rather speak with their friends by SMS or through Facebook than in person. Isn't there something wrong with that? Does that sound like social media?

Someone told me today that some religious youth are having trouble not using SMS on the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest, when we go to the synagogue, hang around chatting at the kiddush and then spend the day singing, learning and enjoying a calm social life with our family. But these SMS-addicted religious kids can't get that social part, they feel they've got to SMS, no matter what the ten commandments say.

The same survey said that young people today prefer looking down than looking up. Of course, they're looking down, they're looking down at their cell phones. But for life, a person has to look up. For his soul, he's got to look at the sun, look at the smile of a friend, look up to the new day. He's got to look up to G-d.

So, I ask you. Is this new social media world SOCIAL? Or is it anti-social?