How People Can Feel the Love and Form Friendships on Social Media

The Real Housewives of Atlanta's Cynthia Bailey has has some emotional on-camera moments —  like dropping her only child, Noelle Robinson, off to begin her freshman year at Howard University in Washington, D.C., or her divorce from ex-husband Peter Thomas. And while she says she "doesn't have regrets," she has said that filming all of it was pretty intense. Her best piece of advice came from Housewife godfather Andy Cohen, who told her to never read what they say about you on social media. 

"The best advice was: 'Don't read what they say about you on social media,'" Cynthia said. "I had a couple of tough seasons, he was like, ‘Cynthia, stop reading, block them, who cares, don’t focus on them, don't worry about who's against you, girl, worry about who’s with you. When we talk about social media, it’s a lot of the negative stuff that we talk about, but one of the things that really makes my day, is, you know, when I post something, it can be a quote or anything, and I recognize some of the instagram names at this point, because as soon as I post, you all are right there like, 'Yay!' lifting us up, and it means a lot because we definitely get criticized a lot, and we all have tough skins at this point. But we still have blood running through our veins."

Of course there are the trolls, and other horrible stuff happening on social media. But it can also be a beautiful thing.

As one report explains, social media can help us all feel less isolated. For example, it benefits those with a chronic illness, who can research and monitor their health online, and also “connect with others who understand what they’re going through.”

Social media strengthens relationships, and although “80 percent of our Facebook time is spent checking how successful or bald people we went to high school with are now,” it serves another important function — “keeping us close to the important people in our lives. A study of 900 college students and recent grads found that 47 percent of participants said communicating with friends who live in a different state or country was very important to them.”

Like Andy says, forget the trolls. You can use social media to spread joy. “In an analysis of Facebook post data, researchers found that moods spread on Facebook, and positive status updates actually have a bigger impact. Each positive post spreads another 1.75 positive posts."

Forbes goes even further into the benefits of staying active online, saying it’s good for major news alerts, it's a valuable tool for sending safety messages, it helps you follow organizations and causes you like, and helps you connect with friends and family globally. “Social media does have plenty of uses for good purposes,” it reports.

It can also help our overall mental health by “relieving social isolation and loneliness by opening up new communication pathways, can inspire healthy lifestyle changes, can make social support and interventions possible, and can strengthen existing relationships.” And you can always meet those online friends IRL, too.

Take that, trolls!

Continue celebrating Galentine's Day with Bravo by watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta's Cynthia Bailey and The Real Housewives of Potomac's Karen Huger create magic as they interview each other on Housewife to Housewife.