With its tremendous reach, social media is playing an increasing role in intercultural communication and understanding for many people around the world. As a result, the social networks serve a number of useful purposes for those exploring new places virtually or in their travels.
According to Mark Zuckerberg, “If Facebook were a country, it would be the sixth most populated country in the world.” There are over 500 million users in the world with a population of 6.8 billion, which means that about 1 out of 14 people have a Facebook account. One impact that social media has on intercultural dialogue is providing a common medium for exchanging messages, and many people around the globe use the Internet to communicate and collaborate. There are more than 70 translations available on the site, and about 70 percent of users are outside the U.S. The University of Rhode Island details the impact of social media on intercultural adaptation in a senior honors thesis.
Although the thesis could not verify that social media was useful in dispelling stereotypes, the study did conclude that social media is responsible for creating a universal community that provides companionship to a worldwide population. Social networks have a number of useful purposes, among them, they prepare immigrants and exchange students for adaptation into the new cultures they are about to experience, and they lessen culture shock. Part of that adaptation process entails learning the customs, colloquialisms, stereotypes, issues, and manner of thinking common to the land of their new residence, and social media is perfectly suited to help with this task.
One blogger, Josh Rose conducted an informal poll by asking his friends if social media made them feel closer to people or farther away from them. One man’s answer summarized the results. “I’m closer to people I’m far away from, but maybe farther from the people I’m close enough to.” Josh concluded his post by commenting, “The Internet doesn’t steal our humanity it reflects it. The Internet doesn’t get inside us; it shows what’s inside us.”
Oddly, it seems that social media has a paradoxical impact on American culture. It allows us to bond with those who are culturally different then ourselves, yet, it also allows us to distance ourselves from those we are more culturally similar too. Perhaps there is a cost to everything, and the price of expanding our cultural paradigms may come at the expense of strongly valuing those of our own culture.