Are New Modes of Communication Harm or Good - Essay Example

New Ways of Communication: Good or Bad? People cannot live completely isolated from the outer world as we all are social beings unable to function entirely on our own –and that concerns nearly all spheres of life. Connection with others is contacting, sharing experience and emotions, the tool that helps us on our way of self-actualization. We feel the need to connect as we need to build relationships with people around us, communicate and exchange our ideas and simply to get the sensation of not being alone – this makes us happy. “The history of your happiness is the history of your feeling connected” (Tugaleva). There are plenty of ways to connect nowadays, though the old traditional one is coming face to face for a conversation – it enables the fullest effect and the most genuine emotions. However, it is often impossible because of the distance, lack of time or other factors. Nowadays, technologies offer the mankind a thousand options and opportunities – for work, shopping, entertainment and communication. One doesn’t need travel to another part of the country or even the world to see and talk to his/her relatives as it is now possible to call them on the phone, e-mail them or write on Facebook. Keeping in touch with friends is also much easier via social networking technologies, and prompt professional communications are guaranteed as cellphones, faxes and computers are always at your fingertips. In general, technology has been playing a significant role in our lives recently, and its importance continues to increase. Growing popularity of the World Wide Web make us more and more addicted to the new ways of communication and connecting to people. In fact, our entire social life beginning with childhood is now dominated by technological means of communication, which produces a complex and dubious effect on us. Technologies as new ways of connecting to people may either offer opportunities or impose difficulties on people, and this issue is considered in works of Sherry Turkle and Adam Gopnik. Adam Gopniks essay, “Bumping into Mr. Ravioli”, offers a look at the issue of overwhelming technologies, perpetual busyness caused by them and the state of suspension in communication between people. Turkle elaborates on related ideas in her book, “Alone Together” (the fragment of which was offered for reading), promoting the idea that technologies crowd our lives overwhelming us and making us tired of life they make possible. Thus, technological means of communication and connection to the outer world produce an ambiguous mixed effect on our lives, often being a negative rather than positive aspect of the modern life. First, due to change in the way people connect, they dive into loneliness. It is probably the most disturbing aspect of the way in which technology changes the nature of human interaction; it is alienation and loneliness hiding behind the mask of “global conversation” and socialization. Being involved in networking via Internet and other similar technological means, we are able to keep in touch with people, keeping them in distance from ourselves at the same time. Concerning this aspect, Sherry Turkle wrote: “Digital connections and the sociable robot may offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship” (Turkle, 263). This actually means that although we are longing for communication and interaction, sticking closer to other people and establishing relationships of trust and intimacy with them, we distance ourselves from being really close – and digital connections allow us to be in touch and don’t require too much from us. This tendency of distanced and ever-busy friends is observed in Gopniks essay, too: “I was concerned, though, that Charlie Ravioli might also be the sign of some "trauma," some loneliness in Olivias life reflected in imaginary form” (Gopnik, 154). The described case tells that the tendency of loneliness despite many digital connecting devices already has an impact on young children. Talking with regards to his essay, one might state that the tendency of distancing has grown so considerable that it affects even children who make up their imaginary friend with a million of things to do and no time to call or hang out. Being engaged in an entangled web of digital technologies, people tend to go too far willing to make life more convenient – the use of digital means of communication has gone beyond the borders of efficient professional activity; sometimes it might impair genuine intimacy between people and even family relationships. This disadvantage of the hi-tech communication is illustrated in Turkles brief summary for Noras story: “We have long turned to technology to make us more efficient in work; now Nora illustrates how we want it to make us more efficient in our private lives” (Turkle. 277). As the author tells of a girl who chose to inform her dear brother about her engagement via email, the given quote implies that our never-ending desire for more comfort might sometimes be harmful when we transit it to such intimate spheres as family or just personal relationships (what is even more disturbing is that we can hurt our dearest peoples feelings yet without meaning to do that). Moreover, people tend to abuse technology turning connection to others into a chain of suspended or incomplete communication, and it even gets rather ridiculous than useful and comfortable. Thus, Gopnik writes: “Every device that has evolved from the telegram shared the same character. E-mails end with a suggestion for a phone call (“Anyway, let’s meet and/or talk soon”), faxes with a request for an e-mail, answering-machine messages with a request of a fax. All are devices of perpetually suspended communication” (Gopnik, 157). What it means is that abuse of technology to make the conversation convenient and adjust it to your convenience often ends up in perpetual distancing and delaying conversation not only with co-workers or acquaintances, but also with friends and relatives: we suspend communication, say hackneyed “Ill-call-you-later” phrases and often forget or dont want to do that for certain reasons. Due to change in the way people connect, authentic lifestyle was replaced. With numerous technological breakthroughs, people have forgotten how good and pleasant it is, to communicate with others face to face without having technology as a medium between them. That is why it has become a usual thing to delve into digital conversation even being in direct contact with real people – our whole lifestyle has changed. This habit of “being alone together” as Sherry Turkle calls it (Turkle, 2012) is rather disturbing tendency. “Authenticity, for me, follows from the ability to put oneself in the place of another, to relate to the other because of a shared store of human experiences: we are born, have families, and know loss and the reality of death” (Turkle, 267-268). Authentic communication is the thing possible only when taking place face to face with a real person in front of you, and technologies often make it impossible. Adam Gopnik writes in his essay: “It [the telegram] introduced something into the world which remains with us today: a whole new class of communications that are defined as incomplete in advance of their delivery” (Gopnik, 157). Nowadays, technologies attract us offering an opportunity to ‘suspend’ a conversation and relieving us form the necessity to speak directly looking in the eye. Thus, we tend to hide behind digital means of communication instead of using them reasonable and enjoying their advantages; we spend the whole day in connection with our devices and not to real people. However, we should remember that technologies are originally invented to make our lives easier. Online messaging, telephone connection and social networking were, in fact, meant to add to peoples comfort in everyday life – to make communication processes easier and faster. Regarding networking, Turkle states that it makes it real to communicate when we find it convenient and possible and “to disengage at will” (Turkle, 274). In other words, we are given an opportunity to organize our communication process in a very flexible and suitable way. However, Adam Gopnik focuses his attention on overload and artificially created busyness arising from all these electronic devices. He writes: “We are instructed to believe that we are busier because we have to work harder to be more productive, but everybody knows that business and productivity have a dubious, arms-length relationship” (Gopnik, 156). The busyness created by the rhythm of our life makes us end up in alienating and suspending our communications because of being simply overwhelmed. Turkle continues this line of thought saying that we resort to technologies to find time, but end up in becoming even busier (Turkle, 278). Thus, people find themselves locked up in the world of busyness and overwhelming technologies role in their lives, but fail to find a way out. Keeping in mind the quotes and considerations provided above, one could conclude that new ways of communication tend to be rather harmful than useful for peoples social and personal life, time management and psyche. However, it would be unreasonable to underestimate their great role in our world, but it should be taken into account that they are predominantly abused nowadays. Works Cited: Gopnik, Adam. Bumping into Mr. Ravioli, The New Yorker, 2002. Tugaleva, Vironika. The Love Mindset. Soulux Press, 2013. Turkle, Sherry. The Flight From Conversation, The New York Times, 2012, from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/the-flight-from-conversation.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2& Turkle. Sherry. Alone together, 263-278. Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together, Basic Books, 2011. Read More