The Internet and Human Relationships - Research Paper Example

The Internet and Human Relationships Introduction The way of human living and shaping of their worldviews is affected by different forms of media such as reading books and magazines, using the internet, listening to radio, or watching television. These effects may be positive or negative depending on certain factors such as advance in technology. The chapter “Media Hot and Cold” in Marshall McLuhan’s 1987 book, Understanding Media, though scripted long before today’s internet, predicted much of what is happening today. Concisely, today’s media, which McLuhan would define as “electric media” has all been offered all the power and capacity to alter society by us, and this has in turn affected the way of human relationships. In his understanding of the influence of media, McLuhan segregated it into two contexts: hot and cool. The hot is what he referred to as media that engages only one human sense completely, thus demanding little interaction from them. He provided printed text as an example. Cool media, on its part, is what he referred to as media that engages several human senses, thus demanding a great deal of interaction from humans. He cited the telephone as an example. In evaluation, and although he never lived to see it, McLuhan possibly predicted the influence that the internet would have on human relationships in future. However, rather than adhere to his definitions of hot and cool, the internet reversed his definitions. What he referred to as cool is today’s hot, and vice versa. The internet as an advanced form of media has introduced negative impacts on modern relationships which contradict with McLuhan’s impacts, which were overly positive. Evaluation One of the key statements by McLuhan that overly coincide with the internet is that while at first it was perceived of as an overly new twist of events that would positively transform society, the opposite has resulted. As he stated in his book, “The effect of electronic technology had at first been anxiety. Now it appears to create boredom” (McLuhan 25). In this assertion, McLuhan had been referring to the onset of new forms of media such as television and radio which he clearly showed preference for over print media. However, it seems, he stated the above after having realized that maybe he had been wrong all along in thinking that the new media, television and radio, were cool. This is supported when he adds that, “At least, our exhausted slump after the first encounter with the electric has inclined us to expect more problems” (26). Clearly, he implied that having experienced some new forms of the new [electric] media, he was sure that there were underlying problems that would emerge with time. Similarly, the onset of the internet this century promised us the best experiences, but what has come to pass is evidently the opposite. El Khouli states that, “The contemporary sites of social networking on the internet have advanced capabilities technological that can provide the best opportunities and services for users…” (85). However, what we have seen today a controversial media that is possesses the capacity to destroy or develop our societies in equal measures. The internet, for instance, is an overly hot form of media in that just like television; it provides us with everything after a few clicks. As such, I think that McLuhan was wrong in terming printed media as hot because in books for instance, one has to first of all decide on which subject they need to explore. Second, they have to get the book and peruse through tens to even hundreds of pages as they search for information. Perusing not only requires seeing, thinking, and touching, but also much physical work such as looking for the book. The internet however, provides specific details, as required, without much hustle. Therefore, in our electric media age, print is more of a cool media while the internet, and television alike, are hot. Another contradiction suffices in that while McLuhan felt that the new electric media was concerned with effect rather than meaning, the internet offers little or no attention to meaning; “Concern with effect rather than meaning is a basic change of our electric time” (McLuhan 25). According to him, more attention would be paid to the meaning of an image and, “more and more we turn from the content of messages to study total effect” (25). In my view, he stated the above because the emerging media, television and radio, was maybe airing interactive programs such as educative programs or viewing that required the audience to think. In short, the main role of television was not movies, and radio was not purely for entertainment. I think his view in today’s media is quite misplaced because television and radio, and the emerging internet are not in any way interactive but offer quite passive experiences that can be termed as extremely hot. I support this because all the media that is available today is more focused on its image rather than its effects. For instance, television, radio, and social networking sites compete to garner more audiences and users than they are concerned with their impacts on society. This has affected the way people socialize. First of all, unlike television in the ancient eras, it is impossible for young people to watch television with their parents since the content offered on television varies. Again, the young people may be busy on their internet devices that they lack the time for family. In the past, computers, which are the main internet devices used by most people, were only used by scientists and schools. However, today, almost every household has a computer or internet-enabled devices such as smartphones. These occurrences have taken the internet even into homes, and this has had a negative impact on families. For instance, since most school-going children have internet devices such as laptops and smartphones, it is common to find all of them occupied by their devices while at home with their parents. The parents too, in some instances, may be busy on their personal computers reading online news or working from home. Therefore, the once closely-knit families no longer exist. In the living rooms today, all the children will be busy on their devices. As such, everyone is present physically but absent mentally. This has led to the loss of family ties which were once spent watching television, having family talk, singing, or discussing familial matters. All of these negative consequences have resulted from the emergence of the internet. In support of the above fact, that the internet is concerned with meaning rather than effect, is shown by the use of social networking sites as news channels. Beheshti-Kashi and Makki reveal that, “The web is an emerging source of current news. In 2002, 48% of the web users stated that they use the internet often/occasionally to access in daily news. In 2011 this increased to 61%. Currently internet is an essential source of daily news” (97). This revelation openly contradicts with the statement by McLuhan about electric media being concerned with effect than meaning. This has created a gap between the younger and older generations. I state this because in traditional (ancient) times, news were delivered on television or broadcast over the radio and the family would enjoy quality time together viewing or listening to such. However, today, news on television has been replaced with pure entertainment such as movies and music which seems to target the young people. This presents two contradicting contexts; first, the occurrence that television and radio are no longer used to deliver news means they are used for other means, in this case, “hot” content. This discourages the older generation from using the media. The second and very important context is that today’s media has taken to the emerging internet-based platforms to deliver their news. This means they focused on the meaning more than they focused on effect. I think if they would have considered the effect, they should have realized that in taking the news away from radio and television, the older generation is negatively affected. The negative effect in this is that the older generation is not literate with internet-based platforms and as such, this move has disadvantaged them. In this case, McLuhan’s statement that, “the hot form excludes, and the cool one includes” (23) stands. The result has been a developing gap between young people and older generations. A significant but much overlooked impact of the internet on society which places it in the hot category as opposed to McLuhan’s claims is that it negatively affects how people relate. Kim, LaRose, and Peng point at the use of internet-based social platforms such as Facebook as being overly harmful. They state, “research on internet excessive forms of internet usage has shown uncontrolled or compulsive internet use has been known to have negative effects on psychological well-being, such as depression and loneliness” (451). This, they explain, occurs because people with antisocial behaviors, whether innate or momentary, seek to take advantage of the great anonymity of social sites to ease their conditions. This may work for some time because meeting people is much easier. However, in the long run, it ends up having detrimental effects on them because as their dependence on virtual social media such as Facebook grows, they lose the normalcy of normal human communication. In short, their skill at face to face communication deteriorates with time as their addiction to social networking sites increases. Therefore, such people when in real human settings tend to be engulfed in loneliness which may develop into depression or other psychological complications. To add salt to injury, social sites have affected the normal way of establishing romantic relationships. This is because when people are used to using virtual communities on the internet to socialize, they are unable to do the same in real life. As such, weaker relationships are formed online, mostly in a rushed manner. The result of such is many short-lived relationships as the partners realize that they moved too soon without learning each other well. The internet has also affected the way relationships are formed and maintained. Through the internet, people join dating sites and form romantic relationships hoping that they turn out as normal relationships. However, since the internet allows people to define their dating profiles, it is common for people to lie about themselves. Therefore, most people end up disappointed or ending up with the wrong person once they meet. For example, it is almost impossible to know whether the person that one meets online is male or female since they can easily hide this. Again, people lie about themselves on the internet so as to get advantage of the other partner. Online dating has also weakened offline relationship. This is because when people get used to internet dating, it has been found that what they say online is not the same thing they would say in real life. As such, they are unsure of what to say in real life situations. Collectively, I think these occurrences have weakened the way of forming and maintaining romantic relationships. McLuhan also discusses censorship of the media, stating its importance in ensuring that only positive content is fed to the public, unlike what happens with the internet. As he writes, “The ‘censor’ protects our central system of values, as it does our physical nervous system by simply cooling off the onset of experience a great deal. For many people, this cooling system brings on a lifelong state of psychic rigor mortis, or of somnambulism, particularly observable in periods of new technology” (McLuhan 23). In this statement, it is clear that during McLuhan’s electric media era, it was possible for respective bodies to regulate what content was fed to the public. In short, magazines were proofread before being published, same as radio and television programs. Therefore, what was offered to the people did not possess destructive elements. Therefore, messages or images that could alter the way of relationships between people such as incitement or hate speech were not allowed to get to the public, thanks to censorship. More importantly, people were always closely-knit in society. This was possible because radio, which replaced print media, could be censored. Television, which replaced radio, could also be censored. However, censorship is a sophisticated matter when it comes to applying it to the internet-based media. The internet-based media is vast and cannot be censored, and this has created more problems than relationship developments. According Smith et al. (376), “the emergence of cyberbullying indicates that perpetrators have turned their attention to technology (including mobile telephones and the internet) as a powerful means of exerting power and control over others.” In this quote, the contradiction to McLuhan’s application of censorship today is evident. In short, the quote shows that today, the emergent media, that is the internet, is not being controlled through censoring. Different forms of bullying are affecting the way people relate by destroying the way of socializing. Cyberbullying takes many different forms such as using electronic messages to insult or threaten others, spreading cruel rumors, pretending to be someone else, excluding others from online groups such as chat rooms, and ganging up against a single person. Cyberbullying is on the increase today according to what I see on Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp. All the mentioned forms of cyber bullying exist in all social networking sites. In explanation, I think they happen because social sites allow everyone to become an author. As such, a person can write anything. Secondly, there are so many channels of social networking such that it is impossible to filter all the messages that are shared as a way of censoring inappropriate content. In this way, therefore, a big difference is seen between McLuhan’s electric media and what we have in the internet today. This is because during his time, radio, television, and printed media were evaluated before being released to the public. Today’s internet though, cannot be censored owing to its vast nature. In the light of this, I feel that cyberbullying as a supported by the internet has destroyed the way of socializing (relationships) because people harass others without any form control to prevent such. In a nutshell, it is justified to state that today; socialization is poor as compared to ancient times, thanks to the differences caused by lack of internet censorship. “When the Australian natives were given steel axes by the missionaries, their culture, based on the stone axe, collapsed” (McLuhan 23). In this quote, McLuhan in a way implied that any advanced form of media that is above its predecessor is likely to be disruptive of normal human living or culture. In short, similar to how television replaced radio; the internet has replaced all earlier forms of media. This has in turn led to their disappearance. Therefore, in this quote, I feel that he summarized the entire internet technology in addition to all the negative effects it was bound to have on modern societies by depleting acceptable cultures or human conduct. First of all, the internet is one of the most used and most influential media on the planet today. As such, it qualifies as hot technology. The internet is hot because as indicated earlier, it provides one with everything they need from the comfort of their seats. Again, once a person sits behind a computer screen or their internet-enabled gadgets, they can rarely do anything extra. The internet brainwashes them and with time, its use can become addictive. As such, and generally, the internet overly limits human interaction by doing almost everything for them. The case where he talks about the missionaries providing Australians with steel axes and replacing their stone axes refers to the changes that the internet has had on us. Familial ties have been weakened, people relate less, relationships are made and ended online, online users are bullied, and finally, the internet discriminates the older generation. This alteration of closely-knit ties is similar to the ousted Australian stone axe. In this case, the internet is the steel axe. The steel axe (internet) has replaced the above mentioned elements of human relationships. The effects, as is evident, are overly negative, and since they affect the way of relationships in the opposite direction, they can be termed as disruptive. Conclusion As this research paper acknowledges, the media, through television, radio, print, and the internet plays a critical role in shaping human life. It is through the media that people learn, socialize, work, and get entertained. Again, it reveals that depending on the way that the media delivers its offerings, it may influence society positively or negatively. These effects are determined by several factors such as advance in technology which formed the basis of this study. According to McLuhan’s book, advancing technology saw the book preceded by radio, radio preceded by television, and not television has been replaced by the internet. The study shows that unlike much of what McLuhan felt about the evolving media, the internet has altered the positivity that was once offered by the ousted forms of media. In short, web-based media has destroyed human relationships by lack of censorship, disseminating hot content, excluding older generations from mainstream media, altering formation of romantic relationships, and supporting isolated modes of living. In the light of all these, I feel that the internet is fertile ground for investigating the shift into uncertainty with regards to human relationships as technology advances. Works Cited Beheshti-Kashi, Samaneh, & Baharak, Makki, “Social Media News: Motivation, Purpose and Usage” International Journal of Computer Science & Information Technology 5.2 (2013): 97-105. El Khouli, Mohamed, “The Most Important Negative Aspects of using Social Networking Affecting the Family Stability in Abu Dhabi- A Pilot Study”, International Journal of Engineering and technology 5.1 (2013): 85-90. Kim, Junghyun, Robert, LaRose, & Weng, Peng, “Loneliness as the Cause and the Effect of Problematic Internet Use: The Relationship between Internet Use and Psychological Well-being” Cyber Psychology and Behavior 12. 4 (2009): 451-455. McLuhan, Marshall, “Media Hot and Cold” in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. 1987. Print. Smith, P, J Mahdavi, M, Carvalho, S, Fisher, & N, Tippett, “Cyberbullying: Its Nature and Impact in Secondary School Pupils” Journal of Psychology & Psychiatry 49. 4 (2008): 376-385. Read More