Communication: How Has it Changed
|
Technology has advanced exponentially over the past decade, this has changed the way people communicate with each other. Communication is essential in everyday life and instead of talking face-to-face people are more likely to speak over some form of technology. This has had both positive and negative effects on how people interact with each other. Social media, texting, and how it may affect society in the future.
Social Media was originally meant to bring people closer together but instead it ended up pushing people further apart. Keeping up relationships was one of the original uses of social media though now people use it more for popularity purposed. Teenagers on Facebook participate in what is called "friend-collecting behavior". This means users will “friend” as many people as they can just to have |
that they can just to have that many more friends, and to boost their own popularity which enforces narcissistic personality disorder. Users feel as though they are better than others just because of their “friend” number might be higher than yours. Most of their “friends” aren’t even people they know very well, instead they are acquaintances
users have only met once or not at all. On the other hand, these friends can also be a source of comfort, helping users feel they have an easily reachable friend if they need one. Even so, if a user begins to value their online relationships more than their physical relationships, users can develop a feeling of social isolation because there is no physical contact between two online friends. Social media is not only used for connecting with others but is also used to judge a persons personality. How many times have you “creeped” on a friend or someone you don’t even know and have made snap judgments based on what you see there? Well these online friends and sometimes potential employers are also making judgments on what you post and also judge us on our friends and
what they post as well. Scientists have also found that we are judged on the attractiveness of our friends, he more attractive your friends are the more attractive you appear. Social media gives people a way to connect with others across the globe if they feel like the people around them don’t have similar hobbies or interests. Social media is only one of many technological advances that have changed the way we communicate. Texting and general phone usage has affected us far more than it would seem.
Texting is a new way of communication that has really taken over how we communicate. People are more likely to communicate over a cell phone than they are in person. Face-to-face conversation is depleting because of this, why walk all the way to someone’s house to have a conversation when you can just shot them a short text. The main problem with texting is the lack of emotion on the screen because you can’t see the senders face or hear the inflections in their voice a text could be taken the wrong way. This can lead to arguments that would have been avoided if the senders had been talking face-to-face. Shorthand “text speak” such as TTYL (Talk to you later) or BRB (Be right back), and other quick thumb methods are also slowly taking over the way the younger generations communicate.This has the potential to affect the grammar of future generations as well as their written language skills.
Texting has also had positive effects on the world around us. It allows for easy communication wherever you are. When kids went out before texting was available parents might hear from them once or twice through a land line. Now, with texting, a parent can contact their child wherever they are, they even have the ability to track their child's movements via cell phone. However this could also impede on the trust between parent and child. Texting can have detrimental effects on communication but it has also improved communication in other ways.
So is technology better than paper? How has this change affected history? Can it? Back in the old days people would hand write letters. There was no way to send out a mass message, snail mail was the only way to go. These letters could then be saved by filing them away in a cabinet, but today e-mails are saved on computer files. So what happens as technology continues to advance, those computer files will no longer be accessible because the new technology won’t support the file. This happened with floppy disks: millions of files were saved on them but today if you wanted to retrieve those files it would be almost impossible. "When future scholars search for correspondence to better understand the great leaders and artists of our times, what will they find and how will
they find it?" (Duchene) There is great truth to this quote because what will we do? There won’t be any written records of what has happened and the technology might not have the proper attachments to support the “old” files. This could have some very detrimental effects on future society. We learn from the past but if we have no way to recall it, the past will repeat itself. This drastic change in communication may lead to this and if it does how will we move forward as a society.
There are perks to these recent technological advances but there are also many drawbacks. Social media is making its users feel like they are most important, the more friends they have the better; it doesn’t matter if you actually know the person. Texting has pushed us further from each other by making it possible to never have to confront someone face-to-face. And if this technology continues to advance we will lose our history. So let’s take a step back from all the technology around us and start smelling the roses. Let’s not let technology take over our interpersonal relationships, let us take control of our own lives.
Citations:
Duchene, Lisa. Probing
Question: How has technology affected written communication? September 10, 2007. Web. May 15, 2014. http://news.psu.edu/story/141346/2007/09/10/research/probing-question-how-has-technology-affected-written-communication
Faber, Sheryl. How Text Messaging Is Affecting Communication Between Parents & Children. 2014. Web. May 15, 2014. http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/text-messaging-affecting-communication-between-parents-children-11883.html
Fowlkes, Jasmine. Opinion: Why Social Media is Destroying our Social Skills. October 11th, 2012. Web. April 3, 2014. http://www.usatodayeducate.com/staging/index.php/opinion/opinion-why-social-media-is-destroying-our-social-skills
Human Kinetics. Technology can have positive and negative impact on social interactions. Dimensions of Leisure For Life. 2010. web. April 2, 2014.
http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/excerpts/technology-can-have-positive-and-negative-impact-on-social-interactions
Jones, Richard. How Does Social Media Affect Our Relationships?: Interpersonal Communication in the Digital Age. May 12, 2013. Web. April 3, 2014. http://www.richardgjonesjr.com/blog/2013/5/12/how-does-social-media-affect-our-relationships-interpersonal-9.html
users have only met once or not at all. On the other hand, these friends can also be a source of comfort, helping users feel they have an easily reachable friend if they need one. Even so, if a user begins to value their online relationships more than their physical relationships, users can develop a feeling of social isolation because there is no physical contact between two online friends. Social media is not only used for connecting with others but is also used to judge a persons personality. How many times have you “creeped” on a friend or someone you don’t even know and have made snap judgments based on what you see there? Well these online friends and sometimes potential employers are also making judgments on what you post and also judge us on our friends and
what they post as well. Scientists have also found that we are judged on the attractiveness of our friends, he more attractive your friends are the more attractive you appear. Social media gives people a way to connect with others across the globe if they feel like the people around them don’t have similar hobbies or interests. Social media is only one of many technological advances that have changed the way we communicate. Texting and general phone usage has affected us far more than it would seem.
Texting is a new way of communication that has really taken over how we communicate. People are more likely to communicate over a cell phone than they are in person. Face-to-face conversation is depleting because of this, why walk all the way to someone’s house to have a conversation when you can just shot them a short text. The main problem with texting is the lack of emotion on the screen because you can’t see the senders face or hear the inflections in their voice a text could be taken the wrong way. This can lead to arguments that would have been avoided if the senders had been talking face-to-face. Shorthand “text speak” such as TTYL (Talk to you later) or BRB (Be right back), and other quick thumb methods are also slowly taking over the way the younger generations communicate.This has the potential to affect the grammar of future generations as well as their written language skills.
Texting has also had positive effects on the world around us. It allows for easy communication wherever you are. When kids went out before texting was available parents might hear from them once or twice through a land line. Now, with texting, a parent can contact their child wherever they are, they even have the ability to track their child's movements via cell phone. However this could also impede on the trust between parent and child. Texting can have detrimental effects on communication but it has also improved communication in other ways.
So is technology better than paper? How has this change affected history? Can it? Back in the old days people would hand write letters. There was no way to send out a mass message, snail mail was the only way to go. These letters could then be saved by filing them away in a cabinet, but today e-mails are saved on computer files. So what happens as technology continues to advance, those computer files will no longer be accessible because the new technology won’t support the file. This happened with floppy disks: millions of files were saved on them but today if you wanted to retrieve those files it would be almost impossible. "When future scholars search for correspondence to better understand the great leaders and artists of our times, what will they find and how will
they find it?" (Duchene) There is great truth to this quote because what will we do? There won’t be any written records of what has happened and the technology might not have the proper attachments to support the “old” files. This could have some very detrimental effects on future society. We learn from the past but if we have no way to recall it, the past will repeat itself. This drastic change in communication may lead to this and if it does how will we move forward as a society.
There are perks to these recent technological advances but there are also many drawbacks. Social media is making its users feel like they are most important, the more friends they have the better; it doesn’t matter if you actually know the person. Texting has pushed us further from each other by making it possible to never have to confront someone face-to-face. And if this technology continues to advance we will lose our history. So let’s take a step back from all the technology around us and start smelling the roses. Let’s not let technology take over our interpersonal relationships, let us take control of our own lives.
Citations:
Duchene, Lisa. Probing
Question: How has technology affected written communication? September 10, 2007. Web. May 15, 2014. http://news.psu.edu/story/141346/2007/09/10/research/probing-question-how-has-technology-affected-written-communication
Faber, Sheryl. How Text Messaging Is Affecting Communication Between Parents & Children. 2014. Web. May 15, 2014. http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/text-messaging-affecting-communication-between-parents-children-11883.html
Fowlkes, Jasmine. Opinion: Why Social Media is Destroying our Social Skills. October 11th, 2012. Web. April 3, 2014. http://www.usatodayeducate.com/staging/index.php/opinion/opinion-why-social-media-is-destroying-our-social-skills
Human Kinetics. Technology can have positive and negative impact on social interactions. Dimensions of Leisure For Life. 2010. web. April 2, 2014.
http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/excerpts/technology-can-have-positive-and-negative-impact-on-social-interactions
Jones, Richard. How Does Social Media Affect Our Relationships?: Interpersonal Communication in the Digital Age. May 12, 2013. Web. April 3, 2014. http://www.richardgjonesjr.com/blog/2013/5/12/how-does-social-media-affect-our-relationships-interpersonal-9.html