Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Essay 1: "Losing Touch with Society?"


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. 

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