The
rapid growth of the Internet and the popularity of cyber culture have given
birth to a new term in our cultural lexicon, Digital Sociology. This stratum of sociology can be defined as
the socialization in modern day world through digital media, which has become
an integral part of everyday life and vastly contribute to social relations
nowadays. Digital means of
communications have become central to our daily lives and even mediate
formation of virtual institutions and social relationships.
Sociologists
have researched that this form of socialization has originated from the
Internet and the increasing trends of cyber culture. This has also facilitated
the rise of several issues pertaining to online communities, cyberspace and
cyber-identities. According to various researches, social media has formulated
the growth and development of virtual intimacy. For example, people often form
intimate relationships nowadays without having seen each other in real life,
through social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
Renowned
sociologist Sherry Turkle has dissected these issues relating to social media
and argues that the relationships established through online mediums without
any real life involvement whatsoever are often weak and prone to separation
than the ones that are formulated face to face in real life. This contrast
between the real and virtual world created by the cyberspace is termed as
'digital dualism'. While Turkle claims
that the virtual intimate relationships are not authentic, some have coined the
term 'augmented reality' to refer to the concept of reality as being altered in
some way by the use of digital media. (Jurgenson, 2012)
