IS TECHNOLOGY MAKING US MORE SOCIABLE?

Social media have seen enormous growth in recent years and while users are multiplying so too are critics, who are voicing their concern over – and resistance to – this new way of socialising.

Is new technology making us more or less sociable? Are social media a threat to everyday human contact or do they simply provide us with a shared space that allows us to maintain relationships, communicate and access information and entertainment?

Meg Pickard, Head of Digital Engagement at The Guardian (Guardian News & Media), will discuss all the above issues and more in a presentation we are organising in Athens focusing on social media.

Following her visit to Athens, Meg Pickard will deliver a second presentation in Thessaloniki on the theme of Content, Communities & Collaboration: How The Guardian is making media social, organised in collaboration with the Journalists' Union of Macedonia and Thrace Daily Newspapers (ESIEMTH).

In this presentation Meg Pickard will talk about the ways in which The Guardian, one of the top UK newspapers, uses social media and the role social media can play in modern journalism. The presentation is aimed at journalists, journalism students as well as the general public, and is being held as part of ESIEMTH's Cultural Foundation programme of seminars, workshops and lectures under the title New Media.

Both events will be held in English with simultaneous translation into Greek. Admission is free.