Technology Leading to Social Isolation

Technology is becoming detrimental to our abilities to communicate, and empathize with each other. In these days Individuals rarely have a reason to communicate with one another face to face, because they usually communicate over texts or emails. This is a problem because the younger generations lack the empathy that you can only gain through conversation with others. A lack of empathy will eventually erode a person’s feelings of connection with society and they will become a self-made outcast, disconnected from society because people are too difficult to empathize with. This Paper will attempt to counteract the detrimental effects of technology on society.

When was the last time you checked your Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, or any of the numerous social media platforms available? If you are like myself, it was not more than 10 minutes ago. In today’s society, one cannot simply live a life without the distractions caused by social media. I cannot go to dinner with friends without them whipping out their phone every chance they get. I cannot enjoy a chapel service without seeing someone glued to his or her phone. It is close to impossible to have a full conversation with someone without them snatching their phone up to check a notification at some point during the conversation. People think social media is bringing them together, but in reality it is doing the exact opposite. Social media is designed to keep people connected and up to date with one another; however, somewhere along the way it has created a barrier to face-to-face interaction, and has instead enabled a false reality to hide behind that lacks any real sense of human connection. Social media is slowly destroying human interaction by creating addiction to cellular devices, creating insecurity within people, and creating social anxiety.

What will we be like if we continue to develop intimate relationships with our devices? Will we be more connected than ever, or more alienated? In “Can You Hear Me Now?”, by Sherry Turkle, a professor of the social studies of science and technology, argues that technology has made people more connected, but has also made us more alienated from each other. How now, when in public people mostly want to be alone with their personal networks, or devices. People used to talk to one other as they waited in line, or rode on the bus or subway. Now we spend that downtime checking emails, responding to messages, or scrolling through our social media feed. Turkle says, “People become alienated from their own experience and anxious about watching a version of their lives scrolling along faster than they can handle” (p. 508). Our devices are increasingly becoming a part of us, an extension of our mind. Turkle does an amazing job at showing her case by stating evidence that is very relatable, along with real life examples, and feelings that her audience has felt while dealing with their devices.

Imagine a life without technology. Now, imagine growing older and not having interaction with family and friends on a daily basis. Further imagine being confined to your home or hospital due to an illness or disease. These scenarios can cause loneliness and a disconnection to the outside world. The need to connect to other people is a desire that everyone experiences. Connections can be through face-to-face conversation or virtually. One should not make the determination that technology is causing a private world. Technology is not a deterrent to social isolation, but rather a promoter for social interaction and the inclusion of everyone to gain, maintain, and keep meaningful relationships. Regardless of the many benefits that technology offer to people around the world, there is still speculation that technology is promoting an isolated society.

We live in a time considered to be the “Age of Distraction”, although this age has many opinions on the effects it has on the people. Technology seems to be the main point of discussion when coming to terms with “distraction”. Some authors, such as Alina Tugend and Abigail Leichman, have written articles explaining technologies negative effects on people. Tugend claims that people who multitask with technology the work they produce is usually of lower quality. Leichman focuses more on the fact that people disconnect from one another when they put their focus into things like iPods. However, Jordan Kramer claims in his article that technology hasn’t made people less social. Even before people had accessible technology such as phones and music

Although technology can help us express ourselves and stay connected with others, this doesn’t mean we have to use it all the time, and have it be all we ever do, and become addicted. Social media allows us to stay in contact with and maintain long distance relationships, or if you just want to text a friend about plans over the weekend or on a break(Doc 2). But we can use this to create more opportunities of face to face interaction rather than mindlessly scrolling through unimportant feed. Statistics show that our

In order for humans to be social, we must take action. Over the years, technology has been blamed for poor human interaction skills.My grandma is always bugging us about the technology that we use,she says that, “We hardly go outside.” This in fact is true, studies have proven how easily distracted we humans get with technology. Family gatherings have not been the same ever since mom bought you that new phone.Think about it, slowly but surely we are disconnecting ourselves from

One can argue that social media lets us connect to one another. Yes, this is true to some extent but social media can also be the source of people driving each other away. When we are so busy having our noses in our phone constantly we miss everything that goes on around us. We lose a sense of communication when falling into this temptation of always having to know to what is happening on our phone. Thomas Freidman stated that he feels technology is dividing us instead of uniting us after experiencing a taxi ride gone wrong in the sense of the driver constantly chatting on his phone. After Apple introduced the iPod it seems the world has slowly drifted to a state silence. In Steve Johnson’s essay Social Connections, he tells of the time before

Twitter, 995 followers. Instagram, 974 followers. Facebook, 551 friends. Snapchat, 329 friends. What do these numbers mean? Popularity? Beauty? Intelligence? These numbers mean nothing. All these ‘followers’ and ‘friends’ I have really aren’t my friends, they are just people I met once or twice, someone I went to school with, or someone I don’t even know. So why do we sit on social media and scroll for hours at a time? Is it because were bored? Alone? I’m not saying that technology is evil, it has made amazing advances, and can keep us in contact with people or help us to meet new ones. Technology makes us alone because it interferes with our basic human needs such as interaction, affection and attention.

This world had become more, and more dependent on the new technology. People around the world are adapting to this new technology and they like it, but the new technology it’s destroying social interactions. I have experience situation where I work at, the place where I work is in a Mexican restaurant, they are families that come together to talk about their lives, experiences, personal event etc.… but now day’s mostly young adults are on their phones and they don’t pay attention. They think that their phones, iPad, music player, or any other device is more important than their family. In my own opinion when you have the time to get together as a family, they should talk about what happened today in their day, are there any problems that we can help, or even just talk. Or even more shocking, the new technology is making people more lazy than ever I would say, because for example in a situation where you have to choose to either go outside and play soccer with your friends, but instead you choose to stay inside playing soccer, but in the computer which you only have to move your hands, in the other hand if you go outside you can play and actually move your hands, legs and even talk and laugh with your friends. I myself think that it has impact my life in good and bad way. The good thing about the new technology is that I have more contact with my family in Mexico; I can connect my phone through Bluetooth in my car, I can transfer my YouTube

First, we develop a high level of self-insecurities by comparing ourselves to others. Downgrading ourselves enables us doubt who we are as a person and creates conflicts in our personal and social lives. Then, we grasp a sense of judgement. Because we are quick to judge others, solely by glimpsing at the profiles or the newest iPhone, it distracts us from the person’s actual personality. Finally, our world has become anti-social as technology increased. Our communication and social skills have greatly diminished, due to the fact that we focus more on how we network electronically instead. Rather than writing notes by hand with pen and paper, we type everything we do. Due to technology, these results proves that it has taken control over lives, but we must learn to adapt more

Most people in the world today are distracted by cell phones, tablets, and computers. Without any of those items there wouldn't be much connection going on. Technology hinders personal communication, which negatively impacts our age- group. Data shows that those who use the internet frequently spend over 100 minutes less time with friends and family than non-internet users, according to Norman H. Nie and D, Sunshine Hillygus in their paper “ The Impact of Internet use on Sociability.” The internet actually distracts from the communication skills are gradually lessened. Technology negatively affects us by perpetuating the mindset of immediate satisfaction. We as people will not be positively impacted by communicating through a computer screen, if we already do not have the self-confidence to socially interact in reality. I believe the advancement of technology has negatively impacted our social interactions because it detaches us from what is happening around us. The world must learn to embrace technology without allowing it to negatively impact the creation of functional adults in

Technology is making everyone feel more alone. Technology is being proven to make people feel alone. Teens spend so much time on social media and looking at a phone screen. “Teenagers are in fact the ones that should be developing social and communicating skills which are emphasized in many future jobs…”, from the “Does technology make us more alone?” article by Maginandre.

Society has blown technology and its use out of proportion. For manifold a telephone is the first object they reach for in the morning, and the last they see before closing their eyes. Not only that but the amount of time spent using technology throughout the day is insane, “People spend an average of 8 hours 21 minutes sleeping a day – but spend an average of 8 hours 41 minutes on media devices” (Madlen Davies). People are using devices all the time, everywhere. Walking down the street odds are everyone has been in the position where they are physically run into by a person distracted by the electronic that's being used. Also during time that was previously spent socializing is now being spent engulfed in electronics. Family dinner time is being filled with heads faced down. Children are being ignored by parents to distracted by devices to pay attention to those around

Constant technology and social media is a tightrope walk, one gust of wind, one misstep and it can be catastrophic for society. Technology has the potential to make our society a better place but it also could lead to the downfall of humanity.