What Has Caused the Increased Use of Digital Technology over the Last 2 Decades and What Effects Has This Had on How Communication Occurs?

From these articles, I think that the basic argument that is being debated is psychologists Lauren Donchi and Susan Moore argued that online friendships hurt adolescent development. "It's a Boy Thing: The Role of the Internet in Young People's Psychological Wellbeing,” indicates the side effects to adolescents’ use of Internet. They conclude that "all well-being measures were negatively related to Internet focus." The article points out that time spent with online friends displaces offline relationships and time online negatively affected both emotional and social factors. However, Professors of Communication Patti M. Valkenburg and Jochen Peter affirms that online friends do no damage psychological wellbeing in the article"Online Communication and Adolescent Well-being: Testing the Stimulation Versus the Displacement Hypothesis." They even point out that online friendships can enhance offline relationships.

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

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.

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

When people spend all their time communicating via internet it does not develop the skills they need when it is time to speak with someone in real life. In essence, using technology for unreasonable amounts of time causes everyday responsibilities, such as sleeping and communicating with people, to suffer.

Today, anyone can rekindle old flames with social media or update their status to keep distant friends close at heart. Somehow, Maggie Jackson sees facilitated communication as “clashing streams of rapid-fire imagery, floating in limitless cyber-worlds” that loosen any grip on intimacy (546). It’s understandable that face to face moments are deemed an essential aspect of connectivity. Still, a digital barrier seems minute in many circumstances. Every year college students drift far from home in the pursuit of higher education. For most, leaving family behind is extremely difficult and can even hinder the way a student manages emotions. With powerful tools like Skype and instant messaging, communication isn’t so difficult. Although looking at a screen isn’t “the real thing”, it allows people to feel closer and connected. A few glances at funny pics of mom or a second to see what a friend posted about their life back home can give a feeling of comfort to those that need it. This is progress. This is proof of successful innovation. Yes, focus is briefly split into “alternative virtual universes” but the benefits of cyber-mingling far outweigh the small cost of attention (Jackson 547). Focus dispersed between real and computerized life should be seen as a positive symbol of cultural

The book talks about how internet can deepen friendships, using social media to become more aware of a friend’s day to day life. (Berger, 204, p. 551-552). Social media helps most friendships, I always loved seeing the pictures my friends would post while we were apart as it almost allowed me to be with them or sometimes my friends would post pictures of us together just to say they missed me. As my friends and I have graduated high school and entered college, we may not see eachother very much within a year. Social media is one thing that allows us to always keep in touch. We may not see eachother everyday like before but things like snapchat allow us to stay in touch. Technology really has been able to form and improve friendships. Along with keeping in touch, social media also helped me reconnect with friends Id lost contact with. My senior year of high school one of my friends from second grade reached out to me via social media. We met up one day and out friendship rekindled, I gained another valuable friendship because of social media. According to the book the fear of internet causing isolation is false, if anything internet users seem to have more friends than nonusers (Berger,

Since devices are always readily available people no longer make conscious choices to communicate, they just do. The online world takes up all of our attention. This constant connection skews our view of reality. In the online world, anything is possible but people begin to measure their success in reality by what would be possible if they were always online. People shaped in a world of quick responses measure success by the number of people they reached that day. We deny ourselves downtime in order to have more time for communicating.

How has communication changed in the twenty years? Communication has change in many different forms in this past years. People inventing new technology that can provide us different resources of communication with our distance families and friends. One of these devices that help us communicate are the cell phones.

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.

Having a disability maybe challenging, persons whom are faced with these issue have learned to embrace and overcome their struggles. Recently, social media outlets such as Instagram, Facebook and YouTube are constantly empowering people with disabilities. This group of people were once excluded in society because of the lack of knowledge and social interaction. Over the years we have seen the positive changes that social media has reflected on people with disabilities by included them in all social Artistry form, whether it maybe dance, music, or acting. We all need to be more accepting to others for who they are and not what society portray us to look and what normal.

The urge to be connected has become more of an addiction than a form of convenient communication; due to the amount of time people spend on technology. This causes a severe disconnection with others around them. People spend more time looking at the “perfect” lives of other celebrities, that they forget to enjoy what is around them. If people spend more time looking up from their screens, they could make more friendships or companionships with other people. Imagine all the possible conversations you missed because you were too busy talking to people through a screen, instead of those around you. People often use their means of technology as a way to distract them or avoid talking to others. Perhaps this is due to the social disconnect they have with others around them. If people spend less time on technology, more connections with people would form. You would have more time to do things you want to do, such as reading, exercise, or more. Instead of connecting with people through technology, we should make connections with people close to us the top priority.

“Spending too much time online could lead to social isolation, loneliness and a negative outlook. These types of psychological symptoms could eventually lead to more serious health concerns, such as heart disease, cancer and dementia.”

Young adults’ reliance on the internet has developed into an addiction, resulting in teenagers to feel isolated and disconnected from their peers. In an experiment conducted in “The Effect of Social Network Sites on Adolescents’ Social and Academic Development: Current Theories and Controversies” June Ahn “found that longer use of the Internet was related to increased depression, loneliness, and smaller social circles.” The younger generation lacks genuine socialization because of the extensive amount of time teenagers spend isolated in their own virtual world. The lack of physical interaction has taken a toll on youths’ ability to develop social skills and friendships. With a lack of these social skills, today’s youth will experience trouble socializing, affecting their ability to create and maintain friendships. Furthermore, in Keith Hampton’s article “Is Technology Making People Less Sociable?” he reveals today’s youth, “spend so much time maintaining superficial connections online

Social sites are a beneficial way to communicate, however, it affects a person’s ability to communicate face to face with others. Many people spend much of their leisure time online rather than connecting with the offline world. In a specific article, a participant spends several hours each day updating her profile instead of talking face to face with others (Livingstone 399). Being online more than offline, decreases people’s abilities to interact with others who are disconnected. Furthermore, by communicating online also contributes to misrepresentation, which leads to misreading a text, leading to mixed emotions of a person who wrote the message. Therefore, social networking reduces an emotional aspect between people as it is hard to tell what a person is feeling through text. In addition, people lack confidence talking to an individual physically rather than virtually. In an