Does social media make us anti-social?
Technology no doubt has greatly benefited us. We live in a day and age where we can contact our friends and family from our computer screens. We can organise an event, virtual or not, and invite thousands of people, within a matter of minutes. We can play a game of Solitaire with a stranger from a faraway continent. We can talk face to face in a video call or share photos in seconds. We may feel that we are being more sociable than ever before.
Computer and internet technology has revolutionised the way we process information and do business too. More people today rely on information from the Internet and smartphones.
Yet there’s a negative side to social media. We are increasingly becoming isolated from each other because of a false sense of connection.Technology has the potential to leave us feeling lonely and disconnected unless we understand its true purpose – conveying information and making connections from which to form relationships from which true collaboration is possible.
Communicating by technology has the potential to ignore the human element of how relationships are really built. Without face to face contact, there is no non-verbal information that normally would give us an idea of the intention, emotions and values of the speaker. Without this we are left to fill in the gaps of what people ‘actually’ mean rather than what we project onto the message. Emails, mobile phones, texts and social media are valuable methods of communicating information. But beyond that we need to meet with people face to face so that we can truly connect. Without it, we can be left lonely without others truly understanding us.
We are living in a community so focused on the conveniences of life that people hardly realise they are losing basic social skills. We use texting, emailing and chatting to connect with people down the street or across the table.On airline flights, passengers watch movies on laptop computers, answer e-mails on their BlackBerries or watch episodes of their favourite TV shows, rather than chat with the person in the next seat. How often do we see people engrossed in their mobile phones while in a restaurant with friends or family? The danger here is that we start losing touch with the people in our lives because we simply won’t get off the phone or take off headphones to talk and give the other person our time and attention.
Teenagers and growing children are more at risk of developing narcissistic tendencies, language difficulties, psychological disorders and anti-social behaviour due to prolonged use of technology. Teenagers, highly occupied with social media in time are more likely to develop sleep deprivation, depression and low grades in school. Social networking sites often encourage children to be self- obsessed beings who are constantly craving attention. It’s all very well to reap the benefits of technology but we should guard against being poisoned by its overuse.
Remember social media, like everything, is better in moderation. We should all use it wisely.
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