Social media websites have long shed their image of sweaty teens carving out false identities in a bid to harass celebrities and update the world on their daily breakfast menu.
Recent political upheavals around the world have demonstrated the impact sites like Twitter can have with regards to uniting people and creating a universal forum where breaking news can be spread and civil movements can be born.
Of course the main focus of social sites is to connect people, and this is why they can be of invaluable worth to expatriates.
Expats who uproot themselves and travel to a new country often suffer from homesickness and culture shock, afflictions that can hit even the most hardened individual.
It’s more than natural to feel uneasy when you are away from your family, friends, and sense of familiarity. A number of methods can be sued to tackle these problems, but certainly in today’s hyper-technological landscape the internet and all its arms of connectivity is surely one of the best ways of staving off the blues of loneliness.
A recent interview in The Telegraph with British expat Alexandra Lawrence underlined the benefits of using these sites. She spoke of her experiences with social sites: “I can honestly say that without social media sites I would probably be insane by now. To cut a long story short I found so many local and worldwide connections and, dare I say it, even some friends, thanks to the networking provided by the likes of Twitter and Facebook and for that I sincerely thank them.”
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