Effects of Technology on Interpersonal Relationships - Essay Example

?Effects of Technology on Interpersonal Relationships The passing of time certainly brings with it so many changes in lifestyle, communication and interactions between people. One of the most rapidly developing industries is the technological industry which shell out new gadgets every month or so to feed the seemingly insatiable hunger of technophiles and even ordinary people who just want easy access to information and communication. Being social beings, people have a deep-seated need to establish personal relationships with others. Being able to talk to someone, to be in the company of another human being to share experiences, feelings, ideas, etc , to belong… all of these are basic social and emotional needs that need to be fulfilled. The fast-paced life of people today keeps human relationships on a standstill most of the time. The many things that occupy our time – family, school, building a career at work, etc., have made rushing from one place to another and always lacking time for everything common features in most people’s lifestyles. However, the human need to be connected to others is always present, and so people have turned to technology, specifically the internet, or mobile phones to fulfil this need. Family and friends have become more accessible and available in just a click of a button. The internet also offers a myriad of opportunities for meeting more people, relaxing with online games, sharing pictures and videos and an outlet to express innermost thoughts and feelings to share with others. The question of how technology affects interpersonal relationships is becoming a popular issue nowadays. The generation gap between the older people and the younger generation is broadening. Older people are accustomed to candid conversations with eye contact and are usually adept at reading body language and nonverbal gestures. The young people of today are very much into technological communication via texting, internet chatting, tweeting, etc. and are engaged with their mobile phones, Ipods, Ipads and other gadgets. When brought together, the older people may complain that the younger ones are lacking manners because they do not know how to give due attention to their companions. It is as if they live in their own worlds, with their gadgets as their gateway to reach their friends. Michael Bugeja’s book on the Interpersonal Divide meticulously describes how the technological age has affected humankind, most especially its humaneness in interacting with others. What prevail right now in terms of technology are computers, the internet, mobile phones, television, radio and other media paraphernalia. These things physically separate people from each other but provide a way for them to connect using technology. In Chapter 3, Bugeja explains how the proliferation of computer-mediated communication affects our views, expectations and interpersonal relationships. In computer-mediated communication, so many of our personhood becomes filtered that the communication lacks social cues. It then prevents the establishment of strong interpersonal collaboration and trust especially in cyber environments where invisibility is an option. Thus, when people chat online or send text messages, a lot of miscommunication may take place when the received messages are interpreted differently from how the sender meant it. This is because the text do not show people’s tone of voice, facial expression or non-verbal gestures which contribute to the clarity of the message sent. Media and technology saturate the lives of people with so many tasks they can do simultaneously and that makes them feel productive at a faster rate. When they log-out from the virtual world and re-join the real world, they may find it difficult to be accustomed to it for some time. The real world has three dimensions- up, down and breadth. It also offers intricate human sensations experienced in person. Bugeja also explains that interpersonal skills become the result of physical formats in the real world such as touch, eye contact, smell, space (ex. Seating plans), body movements, time to pause and wait,objects, colors, intonation, etc. which may not be present at all in virtual environments. Technology provides instant gratification in terms of communication. As opposed to long waiting time for letters that have been mailed in post offices, an email goes through cyberspace in just seconds. However, it still lacks the personal touch. E-mails can only be read on the screen whereas handwritten letters can be touched, smelled, read and kept, to be read again later. Bugeja contends that interaction using technology misses the point of having action between people. This means interaction involves physically coming together and spending time with each other. In Chapter 4, Bugeja discusses the impact of media and technology over the course of history. For example, the invention of the telegraph increased the speed of news. Before that, journalists travelled to the place where news can be “scooped” and time elapses before they deliver it to people. Many advantages can be reaped from the innovation of various technologies. One is speed and another is convenience. The invention of the telephone saves a person much time and effort to travel to a loved one and the telephone becomes a convenient instrument to at least hear the beloved’s voice and express the thoughts and feelings they want to each other over the telephone line. In a way, the telephone helps sustain relationships between people, although they are physically apart. The invention of the printing press also significantly increased the production of books, making knowledge more accessible to people. The birth of other media tools such as radio, printed newspapers and television ushers the advent of marketing. It was a glorious opportunity for businesses and manufacturers to sell their wares and be noticed because of the overwhelming increase in viewership of their ads. Media and technology were instrumental in shaping the desires of people and manipulating their choices with seductive advertisements. So powerful was media that it somehow dominated the attention of people, leaving little time for interpersonal relationships. Children were enamoured by television because of all the vivid images they see and the interesting new things that they learn from it, but it takes much time away from their regular play with their peers. Educators and concerned adults then questioned the effect of too much television on children and hence, the debate on the positive and negative effects of media ensued. Chapter 6 highlighted the ideas of McLuhan who lyrically explained the impact of electronic media on the evolution of human beings. He foresees that people will biologically evolve into “information systems” and predicts the future possibilities of media and technology’s role in the lives of people. This may be observed in libraries. Students have been trained to be computer literate but now lack skills to be socially literate when they ask for information. Their knowledge of library use has been so ruled by technology that they do not know the basics of searching through card catalogues. Librarians who have been updated with current trends in library science now become techno-translators and information mentors and seem to know how to find knowledge and information in the right places more than the students’ professors whom Bugeja has described as thinking more “like Pentium rather than Plato”. Educators should still provide what the students need and not what they want. Students today need knowledge but want entertainment. With advancing technology, the line between knowledge and entertainment becomes blurred because applications (apps) cater to the interests of the youth to make it more attractive, hence, lucrative for business. Finally, Chapter 9 talks about the repatriation to the village, or in other words, regaining our humaneness with the awareness of the dangers media and technology can pose to our interpersonal relationships. Bugeja agrees that technology surely brings a host of advantages to make contemporary life easier, more convenient and make people better informed and connected, but like in everything else, moderation is key to well-being and happiness. It is very common for people nowadays to spend much of their day (and even nights!) in front of the television watching cable shows or marathon DVD films or in front of the computer working, surfing the internet, “facebooking”, playing online games. Interpersonal relationships with families and friends who are physically present to them become neglected. Relationships suffer when there is lack of communication and in most cases, communication with actual people becomes limited because people are engaged in technological activities. Sure, they have access to communicate with friends over the internet, but even these online relationships suffer from misinterpretations of messages due to lack of personal contact entailing sight, voice tone, facial expression, body language of the other person. Technology may bring people together like in social networking sites. Family members, friends or even strangers who eventually become acquaintances and then friends become part of an individual’s growing social circle online. People can connect to others via texting, chatting, skyping, emailing, video-conferencing, etc. but merely relying on such technology and not making an effort to connect in real life may leave gaps in the relationship that need to be filled. There is still nothing that beats being together emotionally, intellectually and physically. This is the foundation of human interaction. Reference: Bugeja, M. (2005) Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age, Oxford University Press. 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