Reality. The essential elements, for me, are real-time, instantaneous (or, at the least, regular) face-to-face presence and shared experience. Therefore, social media is – always and only can be – virtual reality.
As social media is here to stay (and, with it, digital connections and relationships) and, likely, to expand in scope and influence, as I live and learn, I labor never to confuse the two.[1]
© 2022 PRA
[1] For, given my social orientation (which, in our post-modern age, I am prepared to concede, may date me, consigning me to a bygone era), I find it, at the least, curiously interesting when people, who first and only connect via social media, write of having “met” or of “being in relationship.”