New Ways of Communication - Good or Bad - Essay Example

Plzz do the following revisions: The body format of the essay should be like this: Topic Sentence Introduce first quote Insert first quote Interpret first quote Transition Introduce second quote Insert second quote Interpret second quote Concluding For the body paragraph plzz have the first quote from gopnik, and the second quote from turkle. And each body paragraph should have different reasons how new ways of connecting people lead to positive possibilities or negative possibilities. The number of sentences should not be limited by the format, I need the above format, and any additional details that are necessary for that paragraph. New Ways of Communication: Good or Bad? The development of new technologies has been providing all the more new ways of communication and connection between people. The distances are becoming faster and easier to overcome; contacts are easier to establish; new acquaintances and connections surround us everywhere, 24/7. 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 is now dominated by technological means of communication, which produces a complex and dubious effect on us. However, the contour of things used to be different even a century or two ago: Adam Gopnik states that the key to the changes in our overall lifestyle and social behavior lies in invention of telegrams and trains (Gopnik). Yearning to reduce distances and draw closer together, people have invented technologies that have taken roots in the world’s developed communities so firmly that they might have a devastating effect. So what are those multifaceted impacts the new ways of connection between people have? Advantages: promptness and intimacy Talking of the positive effects of globalization and growth of technological means’ of communication role, one should focus foremost on professional and personal relationships that experience these effects. Development of communication technologies offers a wide array of new opportunities in terms of professional development, increase in work speed and productivity. Having cellphones and all other means of communication at hand, employees and employers are able to ensure high performance and capability of handling all the tasks they face. A cellphone has literally become the key tool in solving all the job-related issues. Need to arrange transfer service for your foreign partners? Just make a few phone calls. Haven’t received an invoice? E-mail the supplier. Generally, connecting to people in a new high-tech way, we get promptness and relative simplicity. Another plus of communication via technology is the possibility to stay close in a way to those whom we love and care for. How would you know that your good old grandma living in a satellite town needs medicine to be bought? It’s scarcely probable that a carrier pigeon would be as efficient as a simple phone call – we are not in the Harry Potter universe and there’re no smart messenger owls. To add more, digital connection means provide a good opportunity for those who are too shy to strike up an acquaintance outdoors or talking to a lonely charming girl reading a book in a small café. Although many people would be rather sceptic towards this idea, there really is a possibility to find a partner via digital means of communication. Keeping this in mind, we approach the conclusion that all the splendor of technological means of communication lies in its efficiency and convenience. Changing our way of connecting to other members of the society in such a way, we are meant to feel closer to others (even being far away from them), more socialized and achieving more success in life, for technologies were invented to make the life of the mankind easier and better. However, what is meant to improve conditions we live in has been tending to have a negative impact in recent years. Negative impacts: loneliness Probably the most disturbing aspect of the way in which technology changes the nature of human interaction is alienation and loneliness hiding behind the mask of “global conversation” and socialization. The issue of the harmful effect of digital communication (especially that taking place in the Internet space) has been becoming all the more discussed and examined as this disturbing phenomenon of the modern social life might undermine the global “digitalized” community on the whole and personal relationships as well as mental health of many nations in particular. Being involved in networking via Internet and other similar means, we are able to keep in touch with people, keeping them in distance from ourselves at the same time. “Our networked life allows us to hide from each other, even as we are tethered to each other” (Turkle). 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 to others because of networking culture and text messaging practice. Many of us could probably even recollect such moments when they realize that they feel much more comfortable in various public places plunging into cellphone chit-chat or texting – to create an illusion of being busy and feel more confident in the face of real offline conversations that they could come across all of a sudden in the street. In fact, due to 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. This habit of “being alone together” as Sherry Turkle calls it (Turkle, 2012) is rather disturbing tendency. 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). Nowadays, technologies attract us offering an opportunity to ‘suspend’ a conversation and relieving us form the necessity to speak directly looking in the eye. I would suppose that this fear of real intimacy and direct contact with people originates from earlier changes in the way social interaction is organized. Fearing of being offended, disapproved, neglected or laughed at, people prefer to lock themselves up in the ‘safe’ type of conversation where they will have time to think over their replies and think of how they will be looked at and understood. Nevertheless, “the quality of online communication is impoverished in comparison with the physical, real world face-to-face communication” (Morgan). This also concerns the issue of building relationships through the Internet social networks. The relationships built in this way cannot offer the full array of feelings and experiences. “A love relationship involves coming to savor the surprises and the rough patches of looking at the world from another’s point of view, shaped by history, biology, trauma, and joy. Computers and robots don’t have these experiences to share” (Turkle, p. 268). This means that that unique “background” and personal peculiar shades of feelings and emotions cannot be shared via digital media. Among the gravest consequences following the switch to digital communication there is an impact on personal relationships. Let’s imagine a couple sitting at the restaurant table busy with texting. To my thinking, it looks sad. Why go and visit your lovely grandma when you can always talk to her on the phone? Why enjoy communicating with your real offline friends hanging out in a cozy coffee shop when you can sit at home talking online? As it turns out, our newly-adopted communication habits impair our real relationships. Failing to maintain balance between the old school real-life communication and the new digital connection, people tend to experience isolation from their partners, friends and real world as a whole substituting it with comfortable digital reality where they are in complete control of how close they let others get to them. And in conclusion, I would like to recall one brilliantly relevant quote from Amelia Gray’s book: “Tess realized one of the great modern dating sadnesses: everyone is so used to the comforting glow of the computer screen that no one can go so far as to say "good morning" in public without being liquored up” (Gray). Works Cited: Gopnik, Adam. Bumping into Mr. Ravioli, The New Yorker, 2002, p. 80. Gray, Amelia. AM/PM, Featherproof Books, 2009, Web. Morgan, Branwen. Is technology making us lonely? From: http://www.abc.net.au/health/thepulse/stories/2011/11/03/3353184.htm 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, Basic Books, 2011, pp. 1-3. Read More