The Negative Social Psychological Impact of Overdependence on and Long Exposures to Computers - Essay Example

?Essay Plan The introduction gives an overview of the current status of computers or information technologies in contemporary societies. It explains briefly how these technologies negatively affect the society, particularly when computers are excessively used and depended upon in all aspects human life. Although computer knowledge seems to be providing some rationality and order to human thoughts, behaviours, and activities, it is actually a superficial entity founded on inflexible assumptions and principles, which are not human in any way. The second section, entitled The Negative Social Psychological Impact of Overdependence on and Long Exposures to Computers, gives a concise but substantial discussion of some of the most recognised empirical findings about the negative outcome of preferring computer-mediated communication over face-to-face interaction. There are several major unfavourable social psychological effects of excessive dependence on and use of computers, such as deindividuation, heightened occurrence of uninhibited behaviour, weakening of public self-consciousness, reduction of normative social or interpersonal pressures, nonconformity, and uncooperativeness. The next section, entitled Social Isolation and Alienation, discusses the effects of overdependence on computers on the larger society. Social thinkers, like Karl Marx and Erich Fromm, are mentioned to give more strength to the arguments that computerisation detrimentally affects the formation of social order. Three concepts are explored here, namely, order, computer knowledge, and language. This section demonstrates the power of personal interaction or face-to-face communication over computer-mediated exchange. The discussion suggests that the ‘human’ aspect of the interpersonal arena can never be captured by the computer-driven world; that there will always be a duality between ‘human’ interaction and computer knowledge. References Arnold, D. (1991) Computers and society—impact! The University of California: McGraw-Hill. Baird, R., Ramsower, R. & Rosenbaum, S. (2000) Cyberethics: Social & Moral Issues in the Computer Age. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Berdayes, V. & Murphy, J. (2000) Computers, Human Interaction, and Organisations: Critical Issues. Westport, CT: Praeger. Bordia, P. (1997) “Face-to-Face versus Computer-Mediated Communication: A Synthesis of the Experimental Literature” The Journal of Business Communication, 34(1), 99+ Bullinger, H. & Ziegler, J. (1999) Human-Computer Interaction: Communication, Cooperation, and Application Design. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Ellul, J. (1967) The Technological Society. New York: Vintage Books. George, J. (2004) Computers in society: privacy, ethics, and the Internet. The University of Michigan: Pearson Prentice Hall. Morley, D. (2010) Understanding Computers in a Changing Society. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. O’Brien, J. (1991) Introduction to information systems in business management. The University of Michigan: Irwin. Sanders, D. & Fry, R. (1981) Computers in society. The University of California: McGraw-Hill. Shotton, M. (1989) Computer Addiction? A Study of Computer Dependency. London: Taylor & Francis. What dangers are there for a society which depends on computer screens rather than face-to-face contact for its main means of communication? Introduction Present-day societies are becoming more and more dependent on technologies. ‘Internet’, ‘Google’, ‘Skype’, and ‘Facebook’ have become widely popular terms. The assumption is that computers can give instant knowledge or answers to almost all kinds of questions and, lately, provide adequate or, at best, lucrative employment. Since computers seem to offer an immediate access to knowledge or information, they have turned out to be substitutes for traditional knowledge-acquisition techniques, the pure knowledge foundation desired by classical Greece (Sanders & Fry 1981). Moreover, since computers are unrestrained by human eccentricities, their application sidesteps an array of ordinary activities and issues in putting in order everyday endeavours. Putting in order human affairs based on computer technologies give social institutions rationality and consistency. Emphasising this drive to transfer to computers task for setting up a strong social order, a number of scholars, like Jacques Ellul (1967), claimed in the past that ‘technological slavery’ would eventually emerge. This argument proposes that the current overdependence on computers has become dangerous to contemporary societies. The Negative Social Psychological Impact of Overdependence on and Long Exposures to Computers Social psychological impacts of overdependence on and lengthy exposures to computer communication at work have been explored by evaluating computer-mediated communication against face-to-face interaction. Not like the latter, the former is mostly textual or written (Bullinger & Ziegler 1999). Nonverbal cues to provide social context indications or meaning concerning status, age, or gender are absent. This absence impedes the effectiveness of communication and produces a veneer of obscurity and ignorance of the social context. Consequently, these circumstances have been assumed accountable for an observed higher prevalence of uninhibited, unpleasant, and unethical behaviour (Morley 2010). Primarily, computer-mediated communication at work produces a deindividuation condition, which consequently results in uninhibited behaviour. Heightened occurence of uninhibited behaviour in computer-mediated communication compelled Kiesler and associates to assume that fixation with the sending, composing, and receiving of messages results in an ignorance of the social context (Bordia 1997). Moreover, computer-mediated communication lacks the dissemination of social context cues. Consequently, computer-mediated communication has a depersonalising impact. Kiesler and associates compared this depersonalisation condition and ignorance of others because of preoccupation with computers, to deindividuation (Bordia 1997). According to Siegel and colleagues (1986), deindividuation also results in ‘unrestrained and unregulated’ behaviour, and they argued that “this technology-induced ‘deindividuation’ should lead to greater uninhibited behaviour in computer-mediated group decision processes” (as cited in Bordia 1997, 99). Other researchers, such as Matheson and Zanna (1988 as cited in Bordia 1997), draw further distinctions between private and public self-consciousness. They discovered that computer ‘dependents’ display lower public self-consciousness and higher private self-consciousness. Moreover, assessment of the social context was linked to public self-consciousness. The researchers claimed that: “low public self-awareness individuals interacting via computer felt fewer inhibitions and therefore were not concerned about responding more negatively toward the social context” (Bordia 1997, 99). This finding substantiates several other findings. The study of Kiesler and Sproull (1986 as cited in Berdayes & Murphy 2000), for instance, of responses that are less socially acceptable in questionnaires distributed thru computers and the report of Kiesler and colleagues (1985 as cited in Shotton 1989) of weakened attention span and focus on computer-mediated communication indicates lower public self-consciousness. Another negative impact of overdependence on computer is weakened normative social pressure. A number of findings appear to suggest that there is reduced normative social or interpersonal pressure in computer-mediated communication participants (Morley 2010). Primarily, they fail to achieve agreement immediately. Also, there is higher occurrence of change in judgment and compliance to group rules in face-to-face participants, and less consensus in computer-mediated communication ones (Morley 2010). These reports somewhat indicate weakened normative pressure in computer-mediated communication participants. These findings suggest that excessive exposure to and dependence on computers may cause problems of nonconformity and uncooperativeness in the society. Social Isolation and Alienation What kinds of citizens does the contemporary society require in order to operate efficiently and effectively? As stated by Erich Fromm, the type of individual who can go perfectly with this regime in one who “[is] willing to be commanded, to do what is expected, to fit into the social machine without friction; an automaton” (Berdayes & Murphy 2000, 139). Certainly, in this computer- and IT-driven age, a perfect individual would be, paradoxically, a socially isolated or alienated one. However, this individual is too much alienated since s/he is not aware that his/her own forces have contradicted or opposed him/her. In Karl Marx’s description of alienation, these individuals do not even realise that their ‘technological slavery’ have turned out to be self-sufficient, invasive, and aggressive (Arnold 1991). In fact, large numbers of individuals today view the computer as a supreme entity. In other words, the computer grants access to success, prosperity, and knowledge. Obviously, social order is established, yet at a great cost. Individuals have to contain all human attributes to conform to the inflexibly determined bounds of a computerised age (Ellul 1967). They should not trust their own talents, skills, and ideas. The regime should not be transgressed. The social order established by information technologies or computers is not merely narrow or restricted, but also deceitful. Computers build an untrustworthy order, for they possess or embody very few of human traits; at best, shallow, pragmatic attributes are adopted. More fascinating, the social order created by the computerised world is not even logical. Rather, computers build merely a facade of rationality. Computer knowledge, similar to any other kinds of knowledge, cannot circumvent the presence of language, even though the intention has been to separate computers or information technologies from this base of interpretation (O’Brien 1991). Hence, on the basis of the aforementioned argument, why should computer awareness, which testifies to a specific knowledge, be granted worldwide recognition? And why should people embrace this knowledge? Individuals, as argued by postmodernists, do not have to give in to collective knowledge when putting their lives in order. Rather, they claim that order is built through the personal or face-to-face interaction between individuals. The centre is intersubjectivity (Berdayes & Murphy 2000). Language is firmly attached to how social reality is understood and preserved. Certainly, computer principles, which weaken human rationality, demean this interpersonal arena. After this separation from a twofold explanation of social order and knowledge, postmodernists refute the existing characterisation of society that is advanced by computerisation. In order to prevent absolute alienation or detachment from the human state, advocates of postmodernism claim that individuals exist at the ‘boundaries of interpretation’ (Berdayes & Murphy 2000, 140). This implies that individuals should acknowledge that there are no precise principles for understanding human life. In other words, instead of limiting human thoughts, behaviours, and endeavours through the classification of knowledge, individuals should perceive and treat order and language to concurrently represent a variety of meanings. This multitude of meanings permits individuals to articulate their existence without hiding beneath the power built by computerisation (Baird, Ramsower, & Rosenbaum 2000). Any effort to transform language into an exact science is useless; furthermore, literal or rigid interaction is not needed or indispensable for order to thrive. Conclusions Computers will never be able to determine any form of social order unless it can process or understand even the most basic symbols or metaphors that are regularly dealt with by individuals. Hence, the questions are what will happen to information technologies or computers in the future once this fact is known? These technologies, similar to any other invention of the brilliant human mind, should function to serve its architects. A computer should be regarded to be restricted by its practical ability. And its practical ability is to process data or information and not create assumptions, theories, or knowledge. Computers and information technologies will lose its universal status once this division is unambiguously known. Read More