Technology has Increased our Sense of Connectivity and Community - Essay Example

full A Scripted Imaginary Debate (application project 2) 27 July Topic: Technology has increased our sense of connectivity and community Speaker 1 (me): Advances in information and communications technology (ICT) has given us new and wonderful means of almost instant communication. This technology has made people more connected to their circles of immediate family, close relatives, friends, and colleagues. It gave people a sense of belonging and form a special bond with each other which would have been otherwise impossible or a bit difficult if ICT is not readily available widely as it is today. In our modern lifestyle, people hardly have time for each other and to engage in face-to-face meeting due to the constraints of time, space, and geography. The demands on our lives have made it imperative to use ICT media like Facebook, Twitter, cellular phones, text messages, instant messaging, and Skype to keep up with each other and inform the events in our lives. Speaker 2 (imaginary opponent): While it is true that the wonders of modern technology has its benefits and rewards, there are clear drawbacks to the use of these technologies. For one, it has made people feel more isolated instead of being connected to each other. Why is this so? Personal communications has been rendered impersonal, truncated, perfunctory, and casual to such an extent that people had lost the art of conversation. For example, text messages had become short, incomplete sentences, and worse, employ wrong grammar and bad spelling. Speaker 1: There is a bit of truth in what you are saying about people speaking, saying, and communicating in incomplete sentences such that a new lingo (specialized language) emerged only those who are communicating frequently can understand each other. However, it is also equally true modern ICT and digital media enabled people to compress time and geography. Speaker 2: Conversation today has become so perfunctory people had become so abrupt to the point of often being discourteous to their listeners. People nowadays, especially the younger generation, do not mind these shortened conversations and most people “. . . had sacrificed conversation for mere connection” (Turkle para. 1). These young people had no idea on the pleasure of having a personal conversation, to really feel connected to the other person in such a way there is real empathy. Because of this harried conversation, it is ironic on how modern communications technologies such as social media sites have made people feel a bit more isolated; there is no real connection here as everything is superficial, no interest, and no enthusiasm whatsoever. Any conversation is not real but instead apathetic or indifferent. Speaker 1: ICT has made time zones and geographic regions irrelevant as I can talk to anyone I want to on a 24/7 basis. It does not matter whether that person is just around the block or the next corner or on the other side of the world. The wonders of communications technology has made the world a much smaller community, truly a global community of netizens who can in a few seconds get in touch with each other and connect with the people they want. In a sense, the whole world is at your fingertips; all you need is a digital account like an e-mail address. It is as if the person you are talking to is just in front of you, within grasp or a short reach. Speaker 2: That may be true but the real essence of what it takes to connect with people in the real sense is lost and instead what we have today is superficial connection devoid of meaning. People can chat for hours on end and yet had not communicated anything of importance, real value, or anything meaningful. People today feel more depressed and disconnected more than ever; looking at a digital image of the other person on the Internet has only made the distance more palpable and obvious more than what people will grudgingly acknowledge. There is real gap between people today when compared to yesterday; after the conversation ends on Skype, people feel more depressed and isolated as the separation between them is highlighted. Speaker 1: On the contrary, family members separated by distance feel more comfortable and closer after talking on Skype; children can see their fathers working somewhere else in the world especially with so many families today separated due to work demands. Other factors which make physical separation unavoidable include deployment to foreign lands in military service, dual-career pursuits, seeking higher educational opportunities, emigration, and in work-related travel demands of so many busy business executives. As a consequence, there are now many close, intimate, or romantic relationships carried over geographic distances and these relationships had thrived due to the availability of electronic or digital media. Speaker 2: That may be true but only in rare or exceptional cases as there is no substitute for a real physical presence. It may help to have some means of instantaneous communications to get in touch with loved ones over long distances but in the end, it is physical closeness that is more fulfilling and satisfying mentally and emotionally. Moreover, some studies on people who used social media sites a lot indicated these people are depressed and in dire need of the usual human companionship that is markedly absent in the use of modern technologies. It is a surprise finding because the conventional wisdom is that people would be happier if they use Facebook more often, for example. It is ironic that they ended up depressed because after the usual look-see in the Facebook updates of their friends, they will usually compare it with their own status in life and feel inferior (their friends updates are always upbeat like buying new clothes, going on an expensive cruise, a grand vacation, a new car, going to parties, etc.). Speaker 1: It is not all that bad; after all, the determinant is how one reacts to these Facebook posts. As a point for discussion, Facebook (FB) posts tend to highlight only the positives but not any negative events, so the person looking at these FB posts gets the wrong impression. It is an unrealistic way of looking at life, in general, as there is deliberate effort to distort things by a conspicuous and intentional attempt to present only the best side and not the bad side. Speaker 2: That is exactly the point I am driving at. Technology has made people feel more isolated as the digital community and various social media sites do not give a real sense of belonging which is a basic human need; “simply put, human beings are social creatures that crave interaction with one another” (Bell para. 3). People are essentially social animals and yet the global (digital) community has put more distance between people by letting them hide behind anonymity (by using aliases, false names, icons, or whatever persona they wanted to adopt on-line for their presence) as there is no real identity for most people who go on-line. Speaker 1: But beyond the trivial issue of an assumed identity, modern technological marvels like the Internet has brought people closer together than what is seen on the surface. On many applications of technology, people have come together in a digital community not possible in a way before the Internet came along. For one, big multinational companies have adapted the power of digital media to promote their products and services in new and amazing ways. The evolution of the Web now allow people to shop and buy on-line, exchange views and ideas on matters affecting them such as a new product introduction through the use of social media marketing (SMM) sites put up by the big global corporations to engage with their customers, and join other on-line communities depending on their special interests like a hobby club or a charitable non-governmental organization (NGO) at the click of the computer mouse. Speaker 2: That may be partly correct but the truth of the matter is that people today have a sense of being disconnected from everybody else precisely because of the new technologies. There is no more need for a person to come and visit a friend because they can communicate via social media and so as I mentioned earlier, the fine art of conversation has been lost. There is indeed a lot of messages and communications being exchanged but the meaningful import of what has to be said has been lost to the instant and temporary nature of those conversations to the point of sometimes becoming irrelevant, capricious, shallow, and nothing of substance. Speaker 1: You are looking at technologies as if they are a menace to society. I dare you to be more optimistic on the power of modern communications technology like its utility during a time of calamity like a typhoon or an earthquake when people need to get in touch with each other such as emergency rescue workers trying to reach survivors in need of immediate help. Or in cases before a calamity strikes, people are warned through social digital media so they can take the needed precautions to save life and property. Relatives of survivors in calamity- stricken areas need to know what happened to their families and friends; technology is a help. These situations contributed to bringing people closer together with a sense of community and connectivity unheard of before. A study published in the Journal of Communication has been illuminating in how long-distance (LD) relationships thrived because of new technology that made romantic couples stay together and experience intimacy (Jiang & Hancock 557). Speaker 2: The ubiquity of digital technology today and the obsession of many young people of being on-line everyday reminds me of an interesting and prescient article by journalist Mr. Andrew Leonard in which he lamented how people always got e-mail and yet fail to connect with each other. This article was first published during the early days of the Internet (Web 1.0) and it is still very relevant nowadays. It is a bit sad how people today rely on instant always- on communications to the point of over-reliance and disregarding the social benefits of actual meetings with real people. Almost everything today is surreal and people have come to expect more from technoloogy than from each other and the human side of people is neglected to the point of irrelevance and to the detriment of human relationships in general (Bennett 1). This discussion further reminds me of a science fiction story written by the famous writer E. M. Forster entitled “The Machine Stops” in which people worshipped technology as a religion. It reduces human intelligence as people prefer a virtual experience instead of the real experience (Sarker 236) and decreased human interactions make people feel more alone (Forster 11). Works Cited Bell, Erin. “Eyes Without a Face: Facebook as the New Panopticon.” American Popular Culture, Apr. 2009. Web. 27 July 2014. . Bennett, Jessica. “One Hundred Tweets of Solitude: Alone Together - why we expect more from technology and less from each other.” 11 Jan. 2011. Web. 26 July 2014. Forster, Edward Morgan. The Machine Stops and Other Stories. London, UK: Andre Deutsch, 1997. Print. (note: a re-print). Jiang, Crystal L. & Jeffrey T. Hancock. “Absence makes the communication grow fonder: Geographic separation, interpersonal media, and intimacy in dating relationships.” Journal of Communication 63.3 (June 2013): 556-577. Print. Sarker, Sunil Kumar. A Companion to E. M. Forster. New Delhi, India: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2007. Print. Turkle, Sherry. "Ill have to ask my friends: instant messaging, Wi-Fi and mobile phones allow us to be constantly plugged into our social networks. Sociologist Sherry Turkle thinks this is transforming human psychology. She tells Liz Else why shes concerned." New Scientist 191.2569 (2006): 48+. Academic One File. Web. 27 July 2014. Due: July 28, 2014 @ 8:29 a.m. Read More