Bob Schwartz

Social media began as a supplement to other media and social life. Social media came in some domains to dominate.

Some have observed that social media are out of balance, supplanting personal face-to-face. An emblematic modern picture shows people sitting around the same dining table, each one with a phone in front of them, busily “talking” to someone else not present.

Right now, in large parts of America and the world, that gathering of friends and family is a memory. Social media is the primary, to some extent only, means of mingling and gathering, whether for personal relations or for business.

At least for some isolated people, there may be a sense that they took live and in-person socializing for granted, just a little bit.

They say you don’t miss your water till your well runs dry. In the next chapter of this unprecedented novel, people will get back to getting together, gathering around that table. Maybe a little balance will return, and the phones will be put down.