Falola warns social media weakens human relationships

Professor of History, Toyin Falola, has warned that social media creates an illusion of human connection, allowing people to feel socially engaged while lacking the meaningful relationships and community bonds needed to support them in times of difficulty.

Falola spoke on Saturday while delivering a lecture titled “Globalisation and Social Clubs” at the Ibadan Social Group’s Golden Jubilee anniversary.

He argued that digital platforms could give users the feeling of being socially connected without providing the depth, trust and mutual support that characterise genuine human relationships.

Falola decried that people could spend hours on social media or accumulate hundreds of professional contacts without necessarily having anyone to turn to when faced with serious personal or professional difficulties.

He said, “Platforms are built for involvement, not solidarity, and these are not the same thing at all.

“The platforms are incredibly adept at providing the emotion of social contact, the hit of recognition, the sense that you have been seen, while consistently failing to provide the content of it.”

The professor said the decline of face-to-face associations had wider consequences for community life, noting that neighbourhood groups, professional societies, civic clubs and other voluntary organisations had traditionally provided spaces for people to build trust, exchange knowledge and sustain relationships beyond family and commercial interests.

According to him, globalisation had weakened some of these structures, while digital platforms offered convenient but often less demanding alternatives.

He likened the experience to a form of social consumption that offers immediate satisfaction but may lack the substance of enduring human relationships.

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Falola also noted that the pressure to remain mobile and competitive in the global economy could make long-term community involvement more difficult.

He said professionals were increasingly encouraged to pursue opportunities across locations rather than invest years in relationships and institutions rooted in one place.

“The individual who lives in one location, who forms connections slowly over years, who invests in local institutions over decades, is less competitive, by the operational logic of the global economy, than the person who chases opportunity wherever it materialises,” he said.

He added that this trend could leave individuals professionally accomplished but socially disconnected.

Falola maintained that social clubs remained important because membership involved more than visibility or maintaining a list of contacts. It required reciprocity, continuity and a willingness to contribute to the lives of others.

He explained that a member was not merely a user or subscriber but someone whose participation created responsibilities and expectations within a community.

The academic argued that physical institutions could offer the depth of engagement that online platforms struggled to reproduce through repeated conversations, shared activities and relationships built over time.

He, however, clarified that the argument was not for rejecting technology but against treating digital communication as a complete substitute for meaningful social interaction.

Falola challenged social organisations to demonstrate the distinctive value of meeting physically and sustaining relationships over time, stressing the need to ensure that expanding digital connectivity did not come at the expense of genuine human solidarity.