Is internet changing inerpersonal communication?

As professor Catherine Steele spoke of her research and the switch from "virtual barber shops" to the internet bloggs and other blogging websites in order to keep communities togeher, I have started to think to how the internet communications affect us. Which is  what brought me to thinking about how the Internet is changing social lives as

 we know it today. I am not questioning the easy availability of the internet and how it has  improved connections with different people all over the planet, but I am questioning to how Internet have and still is slowly changing nature of interpersonal communications.

According to Tom R. Tyler’s article about Social issues the primary use of the internet is communications, and we might even thing that internet will have positive outcomes in lives of individuals, for the simple fact that it increases the frequency as well as quality of interpersonal communications. On the other side, because electronic communication is so easy and in the close proximity for most of us, it may possibly cause weaker social connections. In today’s society internet has become a tool to connect with other people, meet new friends, and even possibly develop romantic relationships. It appears that in the near future the internet will erase communications that are face-to-face.

It is so much easier to speak to someone over text message, google messenger, email, than to actually take the time and meet the person in a physical setting where two of you can speak face-to-face and catch up. I  often instead of calling my friends I text them, because in my head it seems faster and easier to do, or even send them an email since I am always surfing the internet. I can possible use one of the Aristotle’s ethical principles to guide me. The Golden Mean principle states that morality can be found between two extremes. Of course, “mean” does not apply when it comes to murder and adultery, but pretty much anything else. Everything can be managed as long as it is done in moderation.

At the end, I cannot blame internet or technology in general for my lack of interpersonal communication between my friends and myself, but I can blame myself for not balancing the two. I can use internet and current technology to keep contact with friends that are in a different country as well as for work and school purposes, but the friends that are in my near proximity, those relationships I need to nurture and devote more face-to-face interactions if I want to save my interpersonal communications with my friends.