What are the Impacts of Social Media?

There many new ways to communicate with each other than of face to face interaction, is this changing the way we talk to each other? My parents have said many times, "back in my day we didn't have cellphones or computers" and that we are losing our ability to effectively to communicate with one another in person.  I feel that I still communicate with other people just fine. On the other hand, I do have some friends who sit in front of their computers all day on Facebook and Twitter, and when it come time to do speeches or meet someone they don't know they choke up. I think that is because they are used to saying everything behind a computer screen, not having face to face conversation has seemingly deprived them of the ability to socialize away from the computer screen. There are also other very serious issues with social median in regard to depression as depicted in this video.

Although social media seems to have these negative effects on people, it is also very useful to many people. It allows us to keep up on certain events we would otherwise not know about if we did not have access to certain social media sites. We are also able to communicate with relatives and friends that we do not have the opportunity to talk to in person. I have relatives in Norway and thanks to social networking I can communicate with them although they are across the ocean. So the question I have is, does Social media a positive thing in society today, or does it deprive us of normal face to face communication?