Social Media and Technology - Essay Example

Lecturer: Social media and technology Technology is affecting the current generation in that most of the people around the world are busy with their social network be it doing business or just socializing. This has been seen to carry both positive and negative impacts in the society and culture. Wherever people go, they frequently text or go through mails by the use of handsets check. The cell phone and social media technology impact on cultural values (Turkle 04-05). This is evident when citizens are, in fact, linking with another group of people or relatives; they are even able to maintain several of their concentration on their handsets. Progressing skills also straightforwardly develops the everyday customs, like job, discipline, or just individual significance. In the current bureau, several citizens’ particularly younger citizens, go to their places of work listening to the songs with their headphones plucked in their ears. They frequently use their handset to embrace dialog with associates while performing their tasks. Several job givers think that this multi-task decrease work creation. Nevertheless, several students disagree that there are customs individuals can progress their capability to send a message while upholding the judgment contact among other individuals, but no inquiries have been done to confirm this situation. As know-how advances, individuals develop into extra reliant and devote much of their occasion on the newest communication gadgets to do much of the conversation and to flee away from conversing one on one with the individual nearby (Turkle 06-07). Know-how has altered the manner in which individuals convey messages. From my point of view, innovative know-how generates more resourceful habits of passing messages. In addition, everybody depends seriously on knowledge for communication further frequently than as was practiced in the past ten years. It is clear that our daily routine is affected by the use of these gadgets in that anywhere we go or whatever we do rotates on the phone. The manner in which people converse to each other has changed from script and transfer of corporal mail to a clack of a knob on an electronic mail. Since medieval era, Romeo and Juliet inscribed adorable letters as ways to show how much they loved each other. Uniting the internet with the mainframe, introduced the use of electronic mail. Moving the handset has developed into a customary routine for everybody since it is so simple to exercise, extremely suitable, and readily available whenever one needs it. The article discusses manner of trailing relationship to know-how can make citizens feel alone (Turkle 10-11). Technology has made human life so knowledge dependent in that nowadays no one can conduct a duty without the use of technology. With this rate, some of the past ways of doing things like texting could be forgotten completely due to the high use of social networks like Facebook and twitter (Bruhn 34-35). Technology has hugely influenced and changed how we communicate today. Our social fabric is said to weaken due to the influence of technology since people consider communication through social media more important face to face communication. The use of technology has touched all aspects of life and while at that revolutionized all these aspects. Ranging from business to medical and more importantly the ways of interaction, technology has stamped its authority in cultural values. Whether this is a positive thing or a negative thing is debatable. Some may argue that it is positive given that it is likely to increase the number of people one interacts with and also gives a lot of people chance to interact with people who would otherwise be impossible to interact with (Bruhn 37-38). However, it erodes the values of our culture. Others may argue that it weakens the social fiber as more people take to the social media to interact and socialize since it gives them the chance to hide their face while interacting thereby hampering their skills in face-to-face interaction. However, this is just one aspect of technology; technology is diverse and does not only involve social media. All these aspects of technology have different impacts on the human culture. For instance, video-video link communications impacts cannot be compared to social media e.g. twitter impacts. It is, therefore, important to consider such factors while engaging in a debate on the communication and technology. Other factors as well to consider will be the part of our lives that is going to be affected with which technology. Some technology may affect negatively on one aspect of our lives while it affects positively on another (Iida 56-57). Thus, one should not pass a blanket judgment on technology. Technology has impacted on our culture in terms of education, health care, and social relationships. With the invention of telemedicine, doctors are attending to patients using robots. This is not going down well with some patients who consider such kind of service delivery to be dehumanizing and dissocializing. Imagine a patient with voice problem struggling to communicate to a remote doctor through a robot; this does not give the patient the level of surety on their health, as the traditional doctor attendance will. For quality provision of health care, there ought to be a health doctor-patient relationship that should be built over time. This also helps in giving the patient social therapy that is important to patients especially the aged and the young. Using a video-video link to replace the traditional is going to kill this aspect of medicine which many people rely on to get well. Social media technology has eroded social relationship in our culture. That one is able to see the person they are communicating with is a good development but this cannot replace the feeling of physical interaction. For instance, parenting through a video link will not provide the children with the feeling of having guidance. A close relationship with the children cannot be developed through video links (Iida 49-50). Education, which is a very important aspect of the human life, requires direct supervision because it defines a lot about the future of the world. Leaving such an important interaction to video link may have far-reaching consequences. Some students would wish to have the teacher demonstrate physically to improve their memory. Imagine doing poetry using a video link, this affects adversely the understanding or intention of academics. Another very critical point is that it depends on speeds of the internet, when they are down, one may not be able to attend a lesson or the lesson may not take place at all (Singh 18-19). However, some of these problems have been tackled as will be discussed in the positive consequences of technology in our lives. Social media and technology has, on the other hand, impacted other cultures in a positive way. A doctor is able to reach many patients than if they would have to visit physically. This is because of the time saved for travelling. Specialized doctors may also get a chance to attend to patients that they would otherwise not be able to attend to e.g. a doctor in the U.S may operate on a patient in Kenya through the use of technology (Singh 21-22). One is able to meet very many people that would otherwise be impossible in the traditional way of communication. For example, one can have five thousand friends, giving someone the chance to interact with five thousand people. Imagine this person is coming from a village in Venezuela; the person will be able to interact with people from Australia, China, and South Africa. Technology has given a lot of people access to academic materials that would otherwise be impossible to acquire. It has also enabled people to access schools that would otherwise be impossible to attend. For instance, someone in Pakistan is able to attend Oxford University in Britain, in the traditional setting; this would be just a dream. In conclusion, social media and technology per se is neither bad nor good, how we use will influence how it affects our lives. If we abuse it then technology will abuse our lives and our relationships but it we carefully integrate it into our lives it will improve our relationships and lives. It is, therefore, impact on our cultural values depending on how we use it. Works Cited Bruhn, J. G. The Sociology of Community Connections, Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011. Print. Iida, T. Satellite communications in the 21st century: trends and technologies. Reston, Va: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. 2007. Print. Singh, V. Impact of information and communication technology on public life, Bangalore: University Science Press. 2009. Print. Turkle, Sherry. The Flight From Conversation. New York Times April 21, 2012: SRI Read More