The Mass Spread Of Technology And Social Media

People rely on technology to survive in today’s society. People feel like they have to always be on their phones to be accepted, but they are missing life as it passes right in front of them. For example, I tend to get annoyed when I try to have conversations with my little sister and she sits on her phone not talking or paying attention. I have to take her phone to get her to look me in the eye and talk about things. People in today’s society lack socializing skills and that is all thanks to technology.

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.

Tannen believes that much of this breakdown is caused by the lack of people interacting face to face. She feels that our high tech world infused with social networking, email, cell phones, texting and more has given people a way to communicate without actually connecting with each other. “The proliferation and increasing portability of technology isolates people in a bubble-” warns Tannen.

These drawbacks include too many people being reliant to talking online rather than in person and not verbally communicating with friends even though they are in the same room. Jasmine Fowlkes shows the reality in how social media is affecting our new generation through her article, “Viewpoint: Why Social Media is Destroying our Social Skills.” After discussing the results conducted by several researchers, Fowlkes states,“As more generations are born into the social age, social media will continue to be the favored communication form among young people. However, this shift may begin to affect their ability to properly communicate in person with peers.” Many start to rely on applications on our devices to talk to people, but this results in less verbal communication. In addition, Kelly-Fay’s Talktrack research study showed that conversations held in person are much more impactful than on social media. Rather than making social media a huge part of your life, Fowlkes wishes that people would look up from their phones and engage more with others since that could change their lives.

Today’s young adults have a lack of communication with friends and family because of technology such as social media, video games or television. In our society, parlor walls can be seen as those commodities. The large flat screen tv’s or IPads are today’s enthusiast. “Social media in our country and the globalizing world has become the voice, eye, ear, heart, and memory of the individuals. It has aspects which strengthen, weaken and include communication between the individuals and also it provides convenience for time and place.” This, according to TNS Digital Life Research that carried out a study in 2011 and held 1.938.059.098 people that were online. Researchers were able to test how many people prefer to communicate through social media or rather be involved in some sort of social media instead of actually going out and interacting. These studies show and give a glimpse of how many people are more interested to spend time on social media instead of building new relationships. Bradbury’s society and our society and similar because of the lack of communication we have because of some aspects of technology that are similar, which are the parlor walls and social media, television and video games.

The ease with which people are able to share and communicate over the Internet has had the effect that people no longer feel the need to interact in with one another in person because they feel that everything they want to do can be done over the Internet. An example can be seen in “Connectivity and its Discontents”, where we are introduced to Randy (Turkle 621). Randy’s younger sister was recently engaged to be married, something that most people would consider a significant event. She and her fiance decided to make the announcement to their family and friends via e-mail, something that made Randy feel very far away from his sister emotionally. Social media can also have the effect that constantly updating our information and giving second by second updates on the ordinary events of our daily

Every individual is in constant exposure to all sorts of different types of technology. This continuous display then creates a major decline in all social interaction. People are content with their lives and remain unaware of what’s really going on in the world around them. In modern day society this can also be seen. With technology becoming more and more part of people’s daily lives, it has become more evident that we are drifting apart from each other. Communication is now being done through the use of social media instead of talking face to face. All through the day the average person is using such devices as phones, computers, and TVs during their free time and also when working. Activities such as writing letters along with the use of things like newspapers are slowly being replaced with the use of newer technology. Even books are starting to be a way of the past just like in the

Technology today is more relied upon than ever before. If one needs to call someone half way around the world, simply take out a cell phone and dial their number. Within thirty seconds, one can be speaking to that person just as if two people were conversing face-to-face. In the same manner, one has access to endless knowledge and resources by the pushing of a few buttons or the click of a mouse. The usage of social media today is becoming more prevalent than ever before because of the convenience it offers. This convenience includes being able to instantly know where a person is, what they are doing, and how they are feeling. All of these instances have one main commonality : technology. The interminable technological advances one has

Today, socialization that involves real interaction is very rare because people have been reduced to interaction on social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Though there is nothing expressly wrong with technological communication, but over-relying on it can be a problem when it is seen as a substitute for face-to-face interaction. It takes away real life activities and can cause a breakdown in relationships. Constantly connecting through mobile devices is prone to disconnecting people from those physically around us.

Technology is one main reason why people have disengaged from social life and become more isolated. People have learned that they do not need to actually talk to someone physically to make a new friend. This is a problem because the idea of going up to someone and starting a conversation will slowly become unknown. This will consequence in the extinction of the traditional human interaction people used to have. Turkle believes that when people use “the advantage of screen communication,” and technology to reach out to others, there is a downgrade in the quality of the relationship (Turkle 374). There is no certainty in knowing if someone is being genuine or if they are even who they say they are online. People have learned to use technology

But this has ceased to exist after the introduction of Smartphone 's and the internet. People prefer to chat in the many social media offered on the internet and accessed by their Smartphone 's, play games, listen to music and even blog than strike a conversation with a person sited next (Tuckle, 2011, 23). As much as people are communicating more, a threat of communication becoming more of quantity than quality is emerging. As much as the use of Smartphone 's and internet has expanded people socially and geographically, it drives people from authentic relations. Too much use of Smartphone 's and web results in declining people social circle. It is a fact that the more time people spend on their Smartphone 's and the internet the less time they has with their families, friends and other people in the society.

Humans seem to no longer possess the ability to interact effectively with others in person and technician Ms. Gray’s anecdote about her daughter suggests the same predicament. I, myself, am a victim of technology, but I acknowledge the fact that I’ve allowed to overcome my life. Like Ms. Gray said, “[technology] is a double-edged sword.” (The New York Times) Technology can either help or hurt us, but again contingent upon our own actions. Richtel discusses how humans are losing the ability to acknowledge and identify social cues. Caciappo in “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” uses two situations to convey his point. People can use Facebook to organize social events or people can go on Facebook to escape social events. People blame technology for destroying people but it’s the same instance with guns and violence. Do guns kill people, or do people kill people? Does technology kill social interactions or do people’s lack of strong will kill social interactions? Indirectly, technology affects happiness because it slyly suppresses the one aspect that makes us human; free will. People surrender their free will to technology which gives it the infamous title of socializing

Social media is making individuals less social being that it prevents hand-on conversations with others. According to the article, "In our digital world, are young people losing the ability to read emotions?", it states " Children's social skills may be declining as they have less time for face-to-face interaction due to their increased use of digital media, according to a UCLA psychology study." Also, " All the lonely Facebook friends: Study shows social media makes us MORE lonely and unhappy and LESS sociable", announces that "The

Albert Einstein once said that “it has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” Unfortunately, evidence from the research that people have done proves that he is right. In current studies, scientists are conducting experiments to determine whether or not social media is ruining our social skills. Many people are not aware that most of these studies are showing results that, yes, social media is a large interference when it comes to communication skills. People are texting rather than talking face to face, and due to this, they are losing the ability to clearly understand what the other person is implying (“Negative Effects...). After this skill of understanding others through gestures is reduced, the risk of hurting relationships because of a misunderstanding is increased. This is becoming a larger problem because while communicating by technological means, people are not developing the social skills and sympathy that are required to communicate with other human beings. In a world where communication is primarily dominated by technology, people, specifically teens, should educate themselves on how social media can ruin and create problems in their communication and social skills.

As a dominant factor of our society amongst teenagers of this generation, technology cause a lack of communication and social skills. Technology plays an important role in our society, but the more and more it is over-used, the less face-to-face interactions occur. Nowadays, teenagers tend to prefer a phone call or text, rather than a real-life conversations. Technological attachment is a major part of our societies reality. Due to social media and technology use by our generation, communication and social skills are making their way to becoming a more challenging aspect for us to learn. Personal interactions are becoming more obsolete as teens now prefer communication thru methods such as social media and instant messengers. The newest forms of technology can be overwhelming, with technology having the power to execute almost any command one may wish via cell phone or computer. Due to this, in person conversations and communication is fading away from our society and the meaningfulness of interaction and conversation is becoming less and less important. This rids our brains of enjoying the simple real life pleasures of conversation, and making real life connections with one another more challenging to have. This has led to the decrease of communication skills amongst people, especially young teens, in our society.