Taylor
Ann Lawhead
Professor
Christopher Brown
English
1B
20
February 2013
Losing
Touch with Society?
People today are more in tune with technology than ever
before and we use technology in almost a religious fashion now. Everywhere we
go there’s a smartphone or a tablet within reach. Technology in this generation
has seems to have taken over almost all parts of the world. Whether it is a
social networking site, much like Facebook or Myspace to bring people together,
a technological device, there is very limited personal interaction. Although
there is very limited to no face-to-face interaction with another person, I see
all these technological advances as a way to keep connected with people that
you could not normally get to interact with if it weren’t for a cell phone,
social networking site, or even email. In a poll taken by
TIME, 84% of people said that they could not go a single day without their
phone. In a separate poll, it is found that there are almost 488 million users
of Facebook mobile. While many people see that the time spent in front of this
technology as damaging to the human brain, but studies have shown otherwise. Everything
has an intent that created it, technology is no exception. Although popular opinion suggests that
technology is harming the way people interact with each other and the way the human
brain works, on the contrary, it has enabled social interactions that would
have never happened had technology not existed and has helped the skills of
those who use it.
When social
networking was invented, its use was to bring people together and to keep a
connection. By having this advantage, “Facebook is changing the way we
communicate with our friends” (CBSnews). Because of distance we
are able to share many intimate moments together through social media; however,
some people believe that people “may be missing out on experiences that help
develop empathy, understand emotional nuances and read social cues like facial
expressions and body language” (NYTimes). This however is not true as social
media can bring people together and develop empathy towards individuals that
are not nearby. For example, my cousin from West Virginia and I had not spoken
in almost 12 years, but because of Facebook we reconnected and have grown very
close. Due to being able to talk through social networking sites, my cousin and
I have realized how similar we are; for example, how we both were dancers in
high school and how we wish to work with special needs kids when we are older. Although
it may not be a face-to-face in person interaction, without this technology, we
would not have this connection that has been established. When Mark Zuckerberg
created Facebook, he had said that “you could share information with the people
you care about”, and that’s exactly what we are using this technology for (Mark
Zuckerberg). Although this technology can be used for good, some people use it to
damage other peoples’ lives; like online bullying. A person that does this
would be what Julian Dibell would call a griefer, someone who “is the one
player whose fun depends on finding that elusive edge where online levity
starts to take on real life weight” (Dibbell, Griefers). This type of person gets
off on the fact that the damage they are doing to a person on the internet, is
actually effecting them in the real-word, and that to them is exactly what they
want. A prime example of this would be from a story that happened in 2007 when
a mother made a fake MySpace account that ended up causing a young girl to
commit suicide. ). The harming that was done over the internet by this mother
of a former friend, was causing a real-life dilemma for the 13 year old victim.
Cyberspace has in some points come to be a place where one can damage another
one’s life without physically seeing them in person, with some sort of barrier
being created; a social networking account. Although there are the people that
use the technology of social networking sites to inflict pain without having to
do so with a face-to-face interaction, there are more people that use the sites
to do what they were created for; to share information and to keep a connection
and interaction with the people they care about.
Technology has advanced so much in the past years that
they have become our end all be all information tool. While some people have
argued that the time spent in front of technology is harmful to the human
brain, there are scientific studies to prove otherwise. According to Dr. Gary
Small, a neuroscientist and professor at UCLA, “technology can train our brains
in positive ways. Surgeons who play video games, for example, make fewer
surgical errors. Those who play video games have improved reaction time, better
peripheral vision.” Although it can be looked at that technology is harmful if
spent too much time in front of, it is actually very helpful. Without it, it
would not being helping out the people it does today. Brains are malleable,
much like computers. If we spend a lot of time engaged in a repeated mental
task, the neural circuits will strengthen. While it is shown that technology
can be very useful and helpful at times, others will argue that it is damaging
to the people in society and that as time goes on, people have start to become
more reliant on their computers, including the internet and cyberspace and all
that it entails. Mark Slouka states that the new technology “threatens to make
us stupid, makes us collectively, gullible as children” (Slouka 2). For example
phones can be used to send pictures and communicate. Joseph Sexton, interviewed
by the New York Times, states that
“basically [he is] walking around with a minicomputer in [his] pocket” (New York Times). Since the phone has
many applications, people can use social media apps on their phones such as
Facebook to find out what other people are doing and what is happening in their
lives with the swipe of a finger. “People have argued that 54% of teens would
text rather than talk face-to-face which is only 33%”. This can cause a problem
because a text doesn’t portray emotion or have any tone in the language. The
downside of such immersion in technological devices is that they’re not having
conversations, looking people in the eye, or noticing verbal cues. Although
some people believe it is socially impairing to teens and/or adults to use so
much technology, I believe that it is more useful in helping the human brain
which can be used for so much; for example, being used to help surgeons and to
help reaction time which can be very imperative.
In conclusion, although popular opinion suggests that
technology is can be harmful to how people socially interact and how the brain
thinks, to contrary belief it actually helps social interaction and how it has
improved the with how people learn. Technology is a great way to keep in touch
with people from long distances, make connections with people that are
acquaintances, and help train the human brain. However in order to make use of
these benefits, society needs to use technology in moderation and not use it as
a means to all form of human communication. Technology will only get more
sophisticated here on out, it’s up to the people to not let it take over their
lives and use it efficiently.