There are tons of reasons that technology helps our societies to advance, and us, as a public, remain informed. It helps us make new discoveries, and pass information along in a quick and efficient manner.
While all of this is true, at the same time technology has become a huge part of society, so huge, it is beginning to prevent people from having the ability to connect with someone face to face. So many people, specifically the young generation, relies so much on texting, facebook and email for communication that they are rapidly losing the ability to converse with each other, in a way that isn't through some small transmitting dev ice. Now, instead of picking up a phone and calling a person, humans have the ability to write out a message and send it to them, without ever coming into contact with them at all. Because of this people are loosing a sense of social grace, and becoming more and more introverted.
It angers me. I don't have a phone, so I have not entered the texting phenomona that is sweeping the nation, but I am around it all the time. It makes me a little sick. To know that people are forging friendships with others, through a series of short, impersonal messages. How is anyone supposed to really know anyone else?
They can't. But more than frighten me, it scares me. Knowing that at the rate that our society is going, soon there will be less and less face to face contact, and more people won't even feel the need to leave their houses. I don't want that to be what the world turns into.
People can't really live that way. It's all virtual, one demensional and shallow. The depth of human frienship and companionship is lost, and it's a problem that we can only fix about society together, as a whole.
What kind of world are the children of future generations going to grow up in? A world where no one can talk to anyone else, and the only way to connect is through impersonal messages?
That's not what I want for me, that's not what I want for my future children and that's not what I want for the world I live in.
This article essentially sums of my views on the topic discussed. I additionally hate to see people use technology to consciously ignore others--like pretending to text when you don't feel like talking to someone, or plugging into their MP3 players. We're loosing our ability to interact and deal with others.
ReplyDeleteI agree. These new social networks and new electronic messages are definitely impairing our ability to socially interact. Although they can be convenient, they have also taken a toll on our connections with other people.
ReplyDeleteI disagree! On the whole social networking can be seen as inherently shallow, but on the other hand it is, as you said, forging a whole new path of relationships that can be formed. Anybody that *has* a relationship over a social networking site is pretty much just stupid; there's no denying that. But as a tool for the future to connect with people in a whole new way it is exciting, though of course not been mastered at all.
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