A Text Message From My Life

Technology has made communicating difficult and has slowly ruined people’s friendships and relationships. Henry David Thoreau says, “Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very intervals, not having had time to acquire any new values to each other.” Interpersonal communication with people is fading away with time, but simultaneously, technology has given people connection with those far from them. Although it does have its advantages, technology has ruined the connection and intimacy people once experienced in a pre-digital age.

Technology has been a large part of American culture for the last 200 years and continues to grow more each year. This has made a large impact on our everyday lives and how we interact with one another. The U.S. alone sends over 6 billion texts each day! (Textrequest). This takes away quality time engaging with friends and family. Phones and other devices have taken over our way of communicating, thus affecting our relationships with others.

Technology has a huge impact on our lives. Now more than ever, we have unlimited knowledge and data at our fingertips and numerous and longer connections with people globally. With social technology, our society has adapted to a new age and is basing itself around an endlessly advancing and fast-paced scientific world. Technology has a huge impact on our social interactions and day-to-day routine, creating a culture of physical discommunication and digital conversation.

Now day’s kids sit in front of a screen in their room for hours talking into a mic, talking to some random person they found online. Not only do we see this happen on TV with the main characters little brother, but also when we walk in the door of our own house. There was a TED talk that I recently watched where the speaker was a mom and her daughter had invited some friends over to hang out, but what she actually meant was turn and stare at a phone. As what Sherry Turkle said, “And what I've found is that our little devices, those little devices in our pockets, are so psychologically powerful that they don't only change what we do, they change who we are.” What she says is that we cannot survive without these little devices in our life. The ability of our social connection in real life is disappearing. For example, when they hang out with each other in person it’s not face to face anymore, it’s back to back, they text each other instead of talking. Some might say we are running from our problems with the help of technology. When you have an issue with someone you don’t want to come right out and confront them because you don’t know how they will react, so you text them. But when you do this you don’t put any emotions into it, maybe a few exclamation points and a sad face, then ending the heated text message with a heart, but in the end did you really get your point a crossed to them or did you just tell them that whatever they did make you a little sad and you won’t do anything about it, giving them the chance to do whatever they did again. Technology is breaking us down as people. (SO

Technology abolishes human interaction with one another. Human interaction becomes less frequent as technology advances. Many people have access to technology. For instance, walk into a diner, or a fast food restaurant, and then discover a group of people at a table all on their electronic devices. People need to be more aware of how technology is affecting the relationships among people. People are going to lose their friendships because they failed to separate their cyber life from their social life.Melissa Nilles describes her experience as a nightmare that was actually reality. In the “nightmare,” she lost many opportunities because of being attached to her cellular device.

In society people may feel wrong or deserted. Is technology good for society though? Is individuals are safe when they use it, and are they respectful when they use it? A lot of questions are always being asked about the technology people use every day. Sometimes there are answers, but most of the time people don’t get the answers they need. There will always be one main question about technology for the rest of time however. Is technology good for society? Technology has become the substitution for human intimacy and interaction with one another and the emotional challenges about being limiting.

Our frequent use of technology is rewiring the way we think and behave. We are losing our capacity to empathize and be considerate of other’s feelings. While we are losing some of what makes

Chatfield (2015) expressed that, “We began to weave constant availability into our conception of public and private space; into our body language and everyday etiquette (“I’ll get there for midday and give you a ring”)” (para.8); such statement made me agree with the author. We are constantly using devices to be up to date with the latest happenings anywhere, anytime, in which persons have become emotionally attached to their devices. It is important to be aware of current events and so it makes it convenient to always be connected. Also, another point made by the author was that, “…digital technologies mean my relationships with others and the world are extended and amplified beyond anything even my grandparents knew” (Chatfield, 2015, para.14). Although digital technology was invented for a faster and more efficient ways to communicate, it has made our lives less physically connected with others due to the lack of physical interaction. In the past, our grandparents had the pleasure of having verbal communication through physical connections, in which they were able to pick up on social cues, for example: facial features, gestures, body language and proximity; however, at present communication takes place with the connection of the internet with little to no social cues (Stewart, 2013). Digital technology is currently and

As the use of technology surges, mankind’s behavior evolves in a strange way. People have paid so much attention to being up to date with social media, friends and the news that they have lost the ability to communicate and have an actual conversation. Additionally, our compulsion to the Internet has resulted in the tendency of people getting paranoid, not being able to self-reflect and be who they actually are. The pressure of perfection we have inhibited from the Internet has cost us the simplicity of life and what it has to offer. We walk on ground that has held us, fed us and grew us, and yet some of us don’t have a single ounce of gratitude. We talk to people and vent to them but when it’s our time to listen, we only pay attention to what matters to us. We have grown into a selfish species that only thinks of themselves and what benefits them because the Internet has thought us to be efficient instead of passionate.

Moreover, not only does technology interrupt social relationships and slowly eliminate empathy, but it also is a colossal distraction from daily activities and responsibilities, and leads users to waste a lot of time. In the article, “Attached to Technology and Paying a Price”, by Matt Richtel, Mr. Campbell had been waiting for one of the most important emails of his life for several days until one day “he finally saw it while sifting through old messages” and realized that the email had appeared in his mailbox 12 days ago. Mr.Campbell states how “It’s hard to miss an email like that, but I did.” This shows that Mr. Campbell was not entirely focused at the task at hand and was somehow distracted by technology. Richtel explains how “the message had slipped by Mr.Campbell amid an electronic flood: two computer screens alive with e-mail, instant messages, online chats, a web browser and the computer code he was writing”. The job that was intended to done with his devices was not and instead distractions like instant messages

Technology has their difficulties, it has made communicating default and made us degrade our friendships. Henry David Thoreau says, “Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very intervals, not having had time to acquire any new values to each other.” our communication with people are weakened by technology, but it gives us connection with other people. Although it goes that it helps us communicate with people it has produced a demeaning value of friendship and overlooks the ethic of friendship.

Imagine going to an amazing concert. It’s something someone would want to remember right? So, this person may grab out their phone, take a few pictures, record some videos, and tweet or something. But, are they really witnessing the true excitement of that concert? I don’t think so. Everyone is so sucked up in technology that we don’t take the time to notice the significance of life around us. It’s a shame that someone could miss out on so much because they were so intrigued by a video of a cat that their friend tagged them in. Everyone believes that technology is making life better, when we are really losing sight of what really matters around us. Families don’t talk as much because the TV is on, people don’t go out on real dates, and people are too busy trying to get the perfect picture of something, that they miss the true beauty of what is really there.

“Little by little, Internet and mobile technology seems to be subtly destroying the meaningfulness of interactions we have with others, disconnecting us from the world around us, and leading to an imminent sense of isolation in today’s society.” (Melissa Nilles “Technology is Destroying the Quality of Human Interaction”) Because of technology, the interactions with other people have no meaning, and that we are no longer in touch with the world that we live in. Since technology makes it easier to connect and converse with friends, family, etc. it gives people the opportunity to avoid face to face interaction at all, which leads to isolation and loneliness. This is because as human beings, physical touch is something that we

Similarly to what we learned from Postman technology is increasing becoming more and more ingrained into our lives. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but we should be conscious of how we use and how much we use it. I’m not saying everyone should take a day to unplug yourself from technology because in today’s world that just isn’t possible, but if we can understand how technology affects our connections with people it will become easier to ease of of technology so that everyone can make those new connections even though they may lose old connections through

Technology has revolutionized communication and the world like nothing before. The Internet has given the world a freedom never explored in the past. The Internet has broken communication barriers to an extreme level. Now day’s two people from two different countries can talk or chat without interactions. Internet has given people the ability to connect forever through social networking. Some of the biggest world social networking services are Facebook and Twitter. Through technology communication is made much easier, but the communication with the people that are right next to us might be getting weak. Technology has its positive and negative impacts on society. It could keep us informed, but it could also affect anyone’s communication life. Even though it’s an easy communication barrier it’s being over used by society every day. The Internet has charge everyone and everything over the years, it has giving us the ability to be informed on a much deeper level. Families are losing their communication, but not just because of technology. Not everything is positive when it’s about technology. It could help us connect no matter the distance, but we could lose communication and relationships. The world has not yet notice that losing important face to face communication because of technology it’s important.