Is Technology Ruining Our Friendships?

Picture this, kids are sitting around a table on their devices,not saying a word to each other. Today's society is replacing friends with technology. "Is Technology Killing Our Friendships?" states that people are constantly checking their virtual world and not interacting with each other. It also states they are spending too much time online and mistaking real friendships for online

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.

Social media and technology has improved the ability to stay connected with each other from far distances. In the article “Text or Talk: Is Technology Making You Lonely? By Margie Warrell” the author states “ online technology is a magnificent tool for staying in touch with people across miles time zones and years.” In

Did you know that 94% of teens who have smart phones use it daily instead of hanging out with their friends in public? Do you think that technology is killing our friendships in public? Teens are using social media to much, teens are not hanging out with their friends and they are not doing things in the real world like going out to a theater to watch a movie. Yes, because 76% of teens use social media and not hanging out with their friends.

Social media has guided us to believe that we need to be connected to others. “…the social media revolution has not made us feel more connected, less lonely, or replete with friends” (Barna Group). Social media has input certain beliefs into the minds of people while also taking away that time that could be spent with friends and family. Social media has allowed people to put on fronts and believe that these are the only means of communication.

In “The Limits of Friendship” by Maria Konnikova, social media has significantly changed the way we interact with friends and family. Everybody thinks that using social media is the best way to talk to friends and family, however, in my opinion, they are wrong because it doesn’t give you the face-to-face connections we need as humans for social interaction. On the other hand, the great thing about using social media is you can connect with more people, but in a superficial kind of way. Therefore, we do not get the face-to-face interactions with our friends and family. We, the people that are addicted to social media, learn that without face-to-face conversations we wouldn’t have a normal “social” life outside of social media. The question

Have you ever had a friendship with someone ruined? Would you ever want that to happen again due to technology? Most would think that technology is supposed to bring us closer to one another, however that is not always the case. Technology originated around 2.5 million years ago with the discovery with how to give a stone a cutting edge, and around 500,000 years ago man discovered how to tame fire. The first mobile cell phone was invented by Martin Cooper and the first mobile cell phone call was made on on April 3, 1973. ¨In 2002 only 10% of the world’s population used cell phones and by 2005 that number had risen to 46%.¨ Although technology has benefited the world in many ways, one being the fact that people can find love on the internet, the negative impact it has had through social media, and cellular devices, should not be overlooked.

I feel that friendships have changed dramatically from what they used to be years ago. I can remember being a child who didn’t have a phone and the only talking I did with my friends was at school. The text message has taken the effort out of a friendship. When we wanted to talk with a friend we had to actually have a face-to-face meeting and spend quality time with them. Now with a few key strokes and a little bit of time, we can send a long paragraph of what information we are wanting to share. The text message has enabled us to spend less time with the physical relationship with our friends and give us more time to be able to do the more important things in our life. William Deresiewicz states “Friendship is devolving, in other words, from a relationship to a feeling” and I could not agree more. The amount of effort we put into a friendship is defined by how much time we have available to spend on our Facebook page talking to others.

76% of teens use social media of these 71% use Facebook, 52% use Instagram, and 41% use snap-chat. This is about teens who are always on social media and not getting off their phone, and who do not make true friends offline. We should not not be on social media all the time because it could ruin your friendships.

However, like genetics, it also has many negatives. Technology does improve the world’s ability to communicate quickly and easily, but it also separates people socially. Social media and smartphones for example, have dramatically reduced human interaction. Everyone would rather communicate online than in the real world. According to Pew Research Center, “Roughly two-thirds of U.S. adults (68%) now report that they are Facebook users, and roughly three-quarters of those users access Facebook on a daily basis” (Smith and Anderson 1). This a huge portion the the American population that is using Facebook alone. There are many other social media platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest that attract even more users. The more people use these services, the less they interact with others in person. Aldous Huxley once said, “Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards” (Huxley 1). Before the technology that exists today, people were unable to communicate with others that weren’t in their area. Now, people tend to communicate with those around them less. As technology continues to improve, this situation will only become worse. Preventative action must be taken to prevent this from destroying human

Considering all the friendships lost it is clear to see that technology is destroying our friendships. People are so busy connecting online that they are missing out on new, amazing chareristics in life and on true genuine friendships. Kids mistake their “friends” as true friends on the internet, as a result it leaves them hurt and heartbroken. Online communication can get in the way of creating

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.

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Instagram, and Flicker was invented to keep us in touch and keep us closer to our family and friends. But according to How Facebook ruins Friendships “we took our friendship online” (Bernstein). First we began communicating more by email than by phone and then switched to instant messaging or texting. By joining social Medias online

Social media improves the way people communicate with others. It allows them to meet new people. At the click of a button, millions of strangers all over the world who would have never met otherwise are able to connect with each other. Many people believe that internet friends are not as valuable as real life friendships. However with websites like “skype” and instant messaging sites, long distance friendships can be as intimate as real life friendships because social media allows friends to see each other face to face and spend quality time together whenever they want to. Because of this, internet friendships should no longer be considered taboo and should be seen as normal human relationships, “It’s entirely possible to have hundreds of

Just when we thought communicating with others could not become any more complex, most of us find ourselves engaging in forms of communication that we never imagined. Instead of calling our friends on the phone, we send them a quick text message. Rather than having face-to-face meetings, we are able to meet via webcam or video chat. As opposed to asking people about their days, we already know what they’re up to by “friending” or “following” them on their social media platforms. Despite all the change in communication patterns that has occurred within our own networks, advancements in technology have also changed the way we interact with people of other