The Status of Social Interaction - Essay Example

The Status of Social Interaction in an Elaborately ‘Connected’ World Introduction The world is experiencing a continuous growth in the arrival, use,and extensive exploitation of new diverse communications technologies. With this explosion of information and communications technology (ICT), ordinary people and academics alike are starting to answer the question, “How does elaborate communications technologies affect social interaction or human relationships?” This essay will try to address this issue. Joseph Priestly, an 18th-century natural philosopher, once quoted: “The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.” He was fairly accurate in predicting the future of human communication, which is ICTs isolate people hence lessening real social interaction.   Sensory isolation has been the concern of several research studies demonstrating that people started to have delusions after just a short exposure in a sensory isolation realm that eliminates stimulation from seeing, hearing, and touching (Norton & Brenders 1996). It has been assumed that the delusion is the individual’s effort to give self-stimulation: a kind of communication (Dutton & Peltu 1996). Hence people may be thinking how a person could be exposed to sensory isolation at the same time being barraged with communication from a diversity of communications device (Strange & Bashford 2003). People have the need to be ‘connected’ mentally with other individuals (Berger & Burgoon 1995). Human beings are inherently social beings. Centuries ago this particular need was motivated by survival. Individuals form a group simply to survive, regardless if it was for food gathering or battling other groups. Certainly, this need has turned out to be innate within every human being of contemporary society (Ellison 2004). Individuals have a profound need to be valued by others and to fulfill a function within human communication. Besides the need to be mentally ‘connected’, individuals have a need to be bodily ‘in touch’ with other people (Ellison 2004). Physicians will suggest that skin has numerous physical duties. It aids in the regulation of temperature. It is the shelter of nerves and blood vessels. Furthermore, it aids in protecting our fluids and vital organs. ‘Touch’ is comforting, warm, and it has an arousing sensual feature (Schroeder 1996). From a psychological perspective, physically connecting with another individual is an indication that we need to get in touch with other people (Bucy & Newhagen 2004).It shows the mutually reliant characteristics of humans needing one another. The Information Age: A Threat to Human Communication The contemporary world has been labeled as the Information Age. Previously, it was the telephone. Nowadays the computer has introduced the world of devices designed to allow communication through the Internet. What then will the future bring? These modern communications devices have had an immediate and beneficial outcome. While the entire world is celebrating about the advantageous features of these communications technologies, we should bear in mind an extremely essential psychological trend—beneficial features are present because adverse ones are also present and vice versa. A number of the negative consequences are related to humans’ social needs. The distant character of these communication devices embodies a risk to people’s needs of social communication. It may appear a bit incongruous that one may encounter “a sensory isolation phenomenon” (Strange & Bashford 2003, 49) whilst being barraged with electronic communications, yet that peril exists. Computers have not much of a personality in them. Computer owners may receive or write fascinating expressions and even experience thrilling expeditions through the Internet realm. Although of its own accord, it is a machine. It does not touch people. It possesses no personality. It does not tell the person using it how much it is fond of him/her. All its functions are reliant on human touch. It is the absence of human touch in the technologically advanced environment that should be dealt with. Through e-mail people can communicate instantaneously, and globally. A dilemma with e-mail is that people only see what they get. As everybody knows the written word is laden with prospects for miscommunication or misunderstanding (Wood & Smith 2005). Not being physically connected with the sender removes the prospect to interpret the non-verbal feature of the communication, which is a vital component to completely understand or correctly interpret the received message (Norton & Brenders 1993). The communications technologies have paved the way to a horde of ‘stay-at-home’ employees (Ellison 2004). The delight of not using several hours taking a bus, waiting in traffic, and tossing coins out the exhaust is fascinating. Rather, job moves to and from people’s homes through the wireless communications technology (Ellison 2004).This set up has obviously a disadvantage of social isolation. It generates a syndrome that may be referred to as ‘professional seclusion’ (Avgerou, Ciborra & Land 2004, 83). Despite of the advantages of working at home, such as watching favorite movies, being able to exercise during rush hours, a surfacing need is to experience a physical connection with other people. The intensity of this desire is positively correlated with the length of being secluded with a computer and other communications devices (Ellison 2004). The main thing is these elaborate communication instruments are no surrogate for being with other people. Moreover, the Information age is also imposing a dependence on the emotionless or unthinking elements of the long-established social essence of trust (Garsten & Wuff 2003). Usually, the major components of trust are aspects as being reliable, helping people accomplish their tasks, keeping them informed, and protecting trusts. Despite of the value of each of these automatic components, people are also aware that it is simpler to trust individuals they are fond of (Garsten & Wuff 2003). The psychological and emotional fact of ‘liking’ is considerably affected by the personal compatibility that is present between two individuals. Such compatibility is rooted in what people see and hear (Schroeder 1996). That necessitates people to be physically connected. In the detached world of contemporary communication, less prospect emerges to see and hear, thus necessitating a higher dependence on the involuntary components. The social seclusion can have an additional psychological impact on the fundamental human desire to be liked or appreciated. The dependence on communication instruments can enlarge people’s electronic connection to people they do not know, while generating fewer prospects to be physically connected and appreciated by the social group (Strange & Bashford 2003). As the reader of this essay perhaps is, I am now talking to a crowd of other individuals that I do not know. The detached feature of this communication will create an even greater reliance upon individual’s support group of acquaintances and family for social recognition. The problem of social isolation is possibly the most difficult to explain, but is capably one of the most detrimental outcomes of a world over-dependent on modern communications technology. Sociologists are now starting to emphasize that a large number of individuals, particularly younger adults, are using a lot of time communicating with persons they are physically with, at the detriment of people who are really there (Strange & Bashford 2003). A relevant case originates from Finland, which has considerable wireless communication penetration. In the country, whole groups of young adults convening together are often observed to be talking on their wireless cellular phones to physically non-existent friends and associates (Bucy & Newhagen 2004).It is the absolute in social isolation, and suggestive, claimed by some, of a development which threatens to erode at people’s sense of social interaction (Strange & Bashford 2003). Regardless if it is the sophistication of the technology or people’s basic need to be appreciated, the human brain appears to recognize received electronic signals as innately more pressing and vital than the interpersonal cues coming from another individual (Avgerou et al. 2004). Accompany this with a virtually inherent need to keep away from personal contact; see the appeal of every type of detached invention, from automatic teller machines to the Internet; it is evident that isolation could become a detrimental outcome of a technology whose best feature thus far has usually put emphasis on catchphrases such as ‘Connecting People’ (Ellison 2004). In contrast mobile phones have conveyed new and better freedoms for young adults—and heightened coolness and security for their parents. It is possible nowadays for youngsters with mobile phones to keep connected with their loved ones and for parents to keep connected with their children. This can aid in lessening the need for unimportant constraints on youngsters that were merely initiated due to the fear of parents as to the activities or behaviors of their children (Dutton & Peltu 1996). The costs of these new communication technologies need not even be a serious problem, because these can be regulated through the availability of telecommunications plan. Conclusions With the arrival of the Information ‘super- highway’, the world has successfully transformed into a global village. Individuals from across the globe are capable of easily communicating with each other instantly and uncomplicatedly through cyberspace. The Internet, or the e-mail, has presented itself as a convenient, reliable, and free way to send and receive messages, substituting ‘snail mail’ at the same time. The Internet has certainly simplified and made it convenient for individuals to stay in touch with other people. This convenience of modern communication technologies has numerous major outcomes. The Internet has certainly altered the manner individuals socialize. Even though this has widened the social influence or group of numerous people to a certain extent, individuals are not able to meet personally and this has numerous repercussions. Each person has just the information which the other party chooses to disclose. This may force both of them to have idealistic hopes about each other, or isolate them from reality. This very adverse effect of modern communication technologies on social interaction relives the statement made 250 years ago: “The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate”. References Avgerou, C., Ciborra, C., & Land, F., 2004. The Social Study of Information and Communication Technology: Innovation, Actors and Contexts. New York: Oxford University Press. Berger, C.R. & Burgoon, M., 1995. Communication and Social Influence Processes. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. Bucy, E.P. & Newhagen, J.E., 2004. Media Access: Social and Psychological Dimensions of New Technology Use. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Dutton, W.H. & M. Peltu, 1996. Information and Communication Technologies: Visions and Realities. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ellison, N.B., 2004. Telework and Social Change: How Technology is Reshaping the Boundaries between Home and Work. Westport, CT: Praeger. Garsten, C. & Wuff, H., 2003. New Technologies at Work: People, Screens, and Social Virtuality. New York: Berg. Norton, R. & Brenders, D., 1996. Communication and Consequences: Laws of Interaction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Schroeder, R., 1996. Possible Worlds: The Social Dynamic of Virtual Reality Technology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Strange, C. & Bashford, A., 2003. Isolation: Places and Practices of Exclusion. New York: Routledge. Wood, A.F. & Smith, M.J., 2005. Online Communication: Linking Technology, Identity, and Culture. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Read More