With the development of high technology, people can easily communicate with others through social media. For example, Line and Messenger are common apps that people use to chat with their friends or family. However, some people still tend to use face-to-face conversations, and many of them think this is a better way to make friendly contacts. Though face-to-face conversations and social media are both helpful for people to communicate, there are three differences between them.

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        First, time and space are huge obstacles in terms of face-to-face conversations; while social media have no restrictions at all. In order to converse face-to-face, people need to meet each other at the same time and place. Therefore, if there is anyone who cannot attend the appointment, other people are not able to see this person, not to mention conversing. On the contrary, social media are quite convenient. We can send messages or make phone calls whenever and wherever we want as long as we can use social media. Take me for example. I have a friend called Susan. She moved to America a few years ago. Since she is not allowed to come back to Taiwan, the only way I can connect her is via social media. Even though the time difference between Taiwan and America makes us hard to chat at the same time, we can still send messages to each other frequently.

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        Next, the communicators of face-to-face conversation are usually people around us, but those of social media can be from all over the world. In general, people chat with somebody that they are already familiar with, such as their friends, classmates, and family members. Likewise, most people won’t make conversations with strangers because we are shy and afraid to talk to someone unknown. On the other hand, people can communicate with those who are far from them in social media. If you want to be in touch with all kinds of people, social media can definitely help you a lot. For instance, in dating apps, there are people from different countries and have various cultures. It is easy for you to find new friends and communicate with them there.

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        Last, in face-to-face conversations, the emotion is showed directly through expressions and behavior of people; however, it is hard to understand the emotion of people in social media through the screen. When people are talking face-to-face, we can see the facial expression of each other, which means that we can sense the emotion revealed on that person’s face. Also, the tone of voice conveys the mood of the speaker. High and low tone may respectively represent good and bad mood. Moreover, the behavior or body languages that people do can express the feeling of them as well. In contrast, expressions of emotion would be extremely ambiguous in social media because communications are mostly done by texts, which are emotionless. If we did not add some emojis or additional characters in our messages, it is possible that other people misunderstand the messages that we want to convey as well as the mood or feeling of us.

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        In conclusion, face-to-face conversations and social media have three differences. The first one is the limitations of time and space. The second one is the locations of the communicators. The third one is the expressions of emotion. Because both ways of conversations have their advantages along with disadvantages, it is suggested that we use both ways, and it is of importance that we keep in contact with others.