TECHNOLOGY’S IMPACT ON PEOPLE

Technology’s greatest achievement is it improve the way we communicate with people. I recall the time when we first moved in Canada in 2003 and we had to suffer from buying $5 international phone cards, use low-quality webcams, and go through the slow internet connection just to communicate with our family back home in the Philippines. Today, the relationship I lost with my cousins is re-connected with new technology. As Dr. Hampton in The Wall Street Journal has said (2015), “What has changed is that communication technologies have made many of our relationships more persistent and pervasive.” Technology helps long-distance relationships; however, it impacts people’s social life.

I spoke with a six-year old, and he told me he would rather play video games than attend a kids club. I don’t blame him because this is the generation he was born in. Larry Rosen says “technology is distracting us from our real-world relationships” (The Wall Street Journal, 2015). Nowadays, people struggle to communicate with others. It is not that we don’t want to, we just don’t know how and won’t put effort to try. When we are place in an uncomfortable situation where we have no one to talk, an instant reaction is to get our phone. We don’t like to be out of our comfort zone. We much rather speak with someone that physically isn’t there, than face the awkward situation of trying to talk to a stranger. This is because tools enable us to do that. Rosen says, “we spend so much time maintaining superficial connections online that we aren’t dedicating enough time or effort to cultivating deeper real-life relationships” (The Wall Street Journal, 2015). This is an issue we face today, as more people struggles to communicate, which is fundamental in our lives.

Technology has a psychological impact on people’s lives as well. Nomadic Matt (2017) mentions, “If you are doing something else while talking to someone, you are subtly signaling to them that they aren’t important, even if you can parrot back everything they said.” We don’t like it when others use their phone in front of us. It makes us feel less valuable. Technology is controlling our lives in an unhealthy way. When our phone vibrates or make noises, we instantly check it. Even worse, we are constantly checking our phone even when it doesn’t ring. Rosen says, “our constant need to check comes from anxiety about needing to know what is happening in our virtual worlds” (The Wall Street Journal, 2015). At gathers, instead of interacting with someone, I find myself scrolling through Facebook out of habit. There is an anxiety feeling that leads me to check it constantly.

While technology has proven to be an amazing communication tool, which is also very important in my life, too much it loses its initial purpose. We must examine the way we use technology that it doesn’t interfere with the way we communicate to people near us and also it doesn’t take over our life.

References:

Nomadic Matt. (2017). Travel tip: Put away your damn phone! Retrieved March 26, 2017, http://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/travel-phone/

The Wall Street Journal. (2015). Is technology making people less sociable? Retrieved March 26, 2017, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-technology-making-people-less-sociable-1431093491