Email, Twitter, Facebook,
MySpace, YouTube, Tumblr, blogs (of course), and scores of others—all part of
the new and wonderful ways we can now connect with one another electronically,
each with its own culture and unique set of rules. In one sense, the planet has
never been more interconnected. And yet, this interconnectedness, while wonderful,
hasn't come without cost (Lickerman, 2010)
The
first trend we can’t help but notice is the fact that communication has become
more rapid than ever. Forget about
writing letters, even about writing emails to your loved ones, now most people
prefer texting. This is in fact one of the most effective and fastest
communication methods. But how does texting shape our relationships? First of
all, people expect to receive an answer much more quickly than before. An email
writer expects to receive a reply in 24 hours to 48 hours at most. A texter
expects to receive a reply right away. But is this good for our relationships?
According to experts, it is not good at all, because it reduces the
significance of social interaction and if love is concerned, it reduces longing,
and therefore degrades romance.
Another
trend is the fact that we meet more people online than in real life. Although
dating sites aren’t new, they are becoming more and more popular. This is a
much simpler, quicker method to meet someone, so much so you can even afford to
be picky. Now you can even meet someone in online games or forums, not to
mention all the social media sites which are growing more and more popular. People
have also begun to Google each other before even meeting face to face. Now you
can know a lot about a person by simply typing in their name into your browser.
By simply browsing through a person’s Facebook or Twitter page, you can learn
more personal things than ever about someone. Not to mention that the trend in
social media is to overshare information (Moisan, 2012).
These are just quick
samples of technology’s impact on society. In the formation of our social
circles and relationships, it also has its great impact. Here is what I’ve got.
Isolation.
Much
has been written about the dangers of Internet addiction. From pornography to merely surfing the web, the
Internet is clearly the television of the 21st century, an electronic drug that
often yanks us away from the physical world. Like any addiction, the real cost,
for those of us who are truly addicted, is to the number and quality of our
relationships with others. We may enjoy online relationships using social media
sites like Facebook or Twitter, for example, but the difference between these
kinds of interactions and interactions with people in the physical world is
clearly vast. As long as we expect no more from these online relationships than
they can give, no good reason exists why we can't enjoy the power of social
media sites to connect us efficiently to people we had otherwise not touch. The
problem, however, comes when we find ourselves subtly substituting electronic
relationships for physical ones or mistaking our electronic relationships for physical
ones. We may feel we are connecting effectively with others via the Internet,
but too much electronic-relating paradoxically engenders a sense of social isolation (Lickerman, 2010).
We
know that human interaction is important. People should not be isolated. Humans
are genetically designed to gain satisfaction from meaningful relationships
with real people. And as a result, receive many benefits from doing so. For
example, babies who are handled frequently when they are young grow bigger,
have better muscle development and are generally healthier than babies who
receive little or no physical contact.
Another example can be found with
people who have lots of friends in their life. These people are much more
likely to be happier, healthier and live longer than lonely people. Whatever
the reasons may be for these mental and physical benefits, the fact remains
that there is something about real human interaction that completes us, as
without it, our body
and life slowly starts to break down.
Weakening family ties. Although
technology has made global communication possible, but paradoxically, it has
also resulted to weaker family ties. Whereas in the past a family would sit
down, eat dinner together and talk, nowadays, it’s far more common to sit in
front of the television and eat without talking. If you do talk, it is usually
not about anything significant, since neither you nor the other person wants to
be distracted from what you are watching. And that’s if you’re lucky, as most
of the time you will be told to stay quiet (ssssssh!). In some families they
don’t even sit together, as there are ready instant meals that they can eat
whenever and wherever they want.
Individualism. Unfortunately,
this weakening family tie is not confined solely to dinner time, because as
after dinner, each family member will go their separate ways usually returning
back to the TV, going on the Internet, playing a computer game, listening to
their iPod or chatting on their cellular phone. They become individualistic.
The result of this technological bubble in general is that people
are having less dace to face communication, and more indirect communication via
intermediaries such as computer screens and telephones (Haracz, 2012).
Virtual identity. Another
impact of technology is the virtuality of one’s identity in different social
media and networking sites. One is not being true to yourself. In the same way,
everything you can see in social media and other technologies may not be as
true and cannot be trusted. One can hide his or her identity or can create a
new identity in one’s account far apart from one’s true self. Hence, you are
playing with your identity, expressing yourself so much as trying to purify a
neutral self-suitable for broadcasting to the viewing mass. It is the art of
self-censorship in an attempt to handle the collision of life contexts that
normally remain separate (Haracz, 2012).
Dangers. Making our meaning clear electronically
presents extra challenges. For example, we write things like "LOL"
and "LMOA" to describe our laughter, but they're no real substitute for hearing people
laugh, which has real power to lift our spirits when we're feeling low.
Confrontation are also made easier using
electronic media and as a result, relationships falter. People are often
uncomfortable with face-to-face confrontation, so it's easy to understand why
they'd choose to use the Internet. Precisely because electronic media transmit
emotion so poorly compared to in-person interaction, many view it as the
perfect way to send difficult messages: it blocks us from registering the
negative emotional responses such messages engender, which provides us the
illusion we're not really doing harm. Unfortunately, this also usually means we
don't transmit these messages with as much empathy, and often find ourselves sending a different
message than we intended and breeding more confusion than we realize
(Lickerman, 2010).
It is therefore recommendable that amidst technologies, we still have to
communicate in person. In-person interactions, though more difficult, are more
likely to result in positive outcomes and provide opportunities for personal
growth. When we find ourselves tempted to communicate that way because it feels easier, we do not realize that the
outcome is often worse - romantic break-ups, firings, or even arguments
going on electronically, which are hard to solve.
Etiquette. For transferring information
efficiently, the Internet is excellent. For transacting emotionally sensitive
or satisfying connections, it's not. Even when we are all careful to use the
Internet only to exchange information, problems can still arise. People tend to
delay answering emails when they don't have what they consider to be good
answers or when they want to avoid whatever responsibility the email demands of
them. But this is like being asked a question in person and rather than
responding, "I don't know" or "I'll have to think about
it," turning on your heels and walking away in silence. It's far easier to
ignore an email sender's request than a request from someone made in person because
an email sender's hope to get a response or frustration in not receiving one
remains mostly invisible. But it's every bit as rude.
Our
"emotional invisibility" on the Internet perhaps also explains so
much of the vitriol we see on so many websites. People clearly have a penchant
for saying things in the electronic world they'd never say to people in person
because the person to whom they're saying it is not physically present to display
their emotional reaction. It is as if the part of our nervous system that
registers the feelings of others has been paralyzed or removed when we are
communicating electronically, as if we're drunk and don't realize or don't care
that our words are hurting others (Lickerman, 2010).
Distraction. As I quote from Adam Briggle’s article Dear Facebook, technologies became
also become distraction to us.
"…What
I see there are not thoughtful people forming a convivial cyber-community.
Rather, I see people distracted from distraction by distractions. I see
fragmentation and partial-attention disorder galore. I see a lot of scurrying
along the surface, commenting on the fleeting moment and forgetting it as soon
as the relentless newsfeed pushes it south of screenshot. There may be an
orienting logic, an iron anchor in this post-modern crush of information … (but
we still lose focus). Each friend collected gets less of our time. We are spread thinner than the screen
itself. (Briggle, 2010).
Isolation, weakening family ties,
individualism, virtual Identity, danger, etiquette, and distraction – these are
some of the great impact of technology in how we form our social circles and
relationships. For the negative impact, it is but unfair to blame technology
alone. If truth be told, we users are the ones who dress social media and
technology like a clown. For all the talk lately of how technology shapes our
society (machine makes history!), it is still the case that our tools (the
technologies) reflect our image more than re-make it.
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