The invention of the internet is without a doubt, a huge leap into the future – with the utopia-like idea of information sharing easily accessible for all had allowed people to be connected virtually. We can share ideas with people on the other side of the world, as if they were just discussing it in front of us. We can listen to music with a friend from a totally different country, as if they were right beside us sharing a side of the headphones. We play games, in the virtual space. We talk, as if we were having a face to face conversation with Skype.

But does that make us much more connected to one another as a human to another human?

Even with the world seemingly smaller every day due to the discovery of the internet, it seems that physically we have began to drift further and further away from one another. Over-dependency of the internet has led people to be holed up in their rooms. Sure, everyone is connected in a sense, but not to one another. We are much more connected to the virtual space than we are in the physical space.

Based on a study, a person would spend on average 37 minutes a day in offline socializing in 2011. The trend has shown that it has been dropping, through the years, and will continue to drop even further in the years to come.

However, one may also conclude that it is not easy to make a blanket statement if the effects are positive or negative. It is clear that all the extra time spent online does take up the time one may use for other activities. This however, makes it exceptionally difficult to view that the internet is truly connecting people, as humans are after all social creatures that desires the warmth of actual company.