Is Technology Killing Off Human Social Interaction?

[Guest fountainhall]

CNN’s Cafferty File this morning highlighted a recent report in USA Today . This suggests that the massive universal use of technology is creating new generations who will no longer understand the norms of social interaction and human communication, despite its undoubted benefits.

 

"The year we stopped talking to one another."

 

That's what USA Today dubs 2010, in light of the unprecedented use of technology . . . According to an industry trade group, from June 2009 to June 2010, cell phone subscribers sent 1.8 trillion text messages. That was up 33% from the year before.

 

In other words, most of us spend our days walking around with our noses buried in our cell phones, BlackBerrys, iPhones, etc.

 

And while we're doing that, we're tuning out the people who are actually in the same room as us. We seem to have long ago crossed the line as to where doing this stuff is appropriate - people take calls while they're out to dinner, text or check e-mail while on a date, you name it.

 

Some experts say it's time to take a step back and reassess. They're reminding people that technology can be turned off, and that it's important to connect with people in person. They worry that kids won't know what it's like to share a story or actually look someone in the eyes. And that's sad.

 

Dave in Orlando writes:
 The cost is great, but the problem is that much of it is invisible. Kids today have no idea of how to interact and actually read someone's face – you can't do that on Facebook. They think nothing of ripping someone in an email or blogging with little or no idea of the consequences. People say things over the internet that would get them punched out in person.

http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/03/technology-replacing-personal-interactions-at-what-cost/#more-14530

 

We have all seen examples of this in chat rooms. Does this mean old-style social intercourse and reasoned debate will slowly disappear?

[TotallyOz]

As usual Fountainhall, you have always seem to stroke the right cords for me.

 

I disagree with the above comments 100 percent. I think the opposite is true. For those that are shy, they are able to meet online and then take that to the next level and meet in person.

 

I can't count the number of great guys I have met only because of this website or other sites. In fact, some of my closest friends now were friendship born in forums and chat rooms. I have a great deal in common with those I speak to and when we meet up, sometimes that friendship continues.

 

IMHO, I think the Internet has increased the chances for everyone to find like minded individuals and cut out the BS for those friendships that were destined for failure anyway.

[Bob]

It seems to hit a chord in me. Traditional (in person) human interaction seems to moderate people's behavior - even the behavior of the "weird" ones - but I'm not so sure that those people alter their behavior because of internet (especially message board) contacts. Using the internet, one has the ability to "hang around" some rather strange people (i.e., if you want gay skinheads who like mango, there's probably a website where they gather...hehe) and I wonder sometimes if the internet aids and abets or encourages additional anti-social behavior by those who are rather challenged in that department in the first place.

 

For the most part, most of the message boards seem to have fairly normal people; however, a couple of the boards we know seem to attract and retain a small contingent of what seem to be really weird people. So, while the internet may allow those seemingly anti-social people to somewhat interact (the kind of people we likely wouldn't run into in real life....at least if we're lucky), I haven't seen any evidence of these weirdos moderating their strangeness as would normally occur in traditional (in person) human interactions.

[Guest fountainhall]

If you look beyond the ease of communication in the gay scene, I do partly agree with the USA Today view

[Rogie]

I can remember with crystal clarity the first time I became aware mobile phones were changing people's behaviour.

 

Several years ago, I was dining alone in a small restaurant in Ubud, in Bali. Two girls in their twenties were at an adjacent table. After a while I became aware one of them was absent. Been gone a long time I thought. Then I spotted her outside talking on her phone. The other girl just sat there at the table gazing into space. I felt sorry for her to have such a selfish acquaintance. Of course since then I've seen it loads of times and, now I have my own mobile phone, have even had to excuse myself occasionally, although I keep it as short as possible.

 

Do others think that this kind of self-absorption is helping to create more selfish attitudes?

 

I can excuse contemporary grammar and spelling in texting - I use shortcuts myself, but I hate it in e-mail. Well, these message boards are a type of email aren't they? Although we are writing anonymously and to a mixed known & unknown audience, it requires us to type out a coherent message. Badly worded or punctuated text and a smattering of spelling mistakes can make for tortuous reading in message boards as well as those e-mails we receive from our friends and family. It can only get worse! For example if my young nephew sends me an email thanking me for his birthday gift, it would be a bit churlish of me to reply back pointing out all his typing errors. He wouldn't (willingly) write to his uncle again!

 

If we take email versus traditional handwritten letters, one winging its way across the oceans in a few minutes , the other taking a week or more to reach its destination, we can appreciate the effect this has had on our attention spans. Now I get impatient wondering why I've still had no reply to that email I sent just few hours ago. If you don't hear from somebody within a day or so, it's easy to forget you even sent them one! This immediacy of communication is only going to continue unabated, reinforcing the short attention spans we are increasingly getting used to.

 

The only letters I send nowadays are the very occasional ones to people I haven't seen for a while, perhaps friends or family overseas, who don't have email. They are the sort that do not require a reply, maybe inserted into a Christmas card to update them on my activities. The last time I wrote the sort that did need a reply was to a friend in Burma - these took about 2 months between posting and getting his reply. Now even he has email! The last time I ever hand wrote a letter, rather than typing it, was to my two Canadian cousins on the death of my much-loved uncle (much to my chagrin, they never acknowledged them).

[kokopelli]

I do send handwritten letters on a regular basis to a friend who has no internet connection. But when in Thailand send a letter via email to his sister who then prints it and mails it to him. In return he sends his letters to her which are scanned and emailed to me.

 

Our type of correspondence is much more lengthly and detailed then one might normally seen in an email message, at least the type of emails I am accustomed to.

 

By now I may have written a thousand pages and received the same or more.

[Bob]

I can excuse contemporary grammar and spelling in texting - I use shortcuts myself, but I hate it in e-mail.

 

There are times (too many, perhaps) when I've been somewhat embarrassed reviewing a prior email I sent, finding a few spelling errors and grammar fitting a bordello. I never used to send handwritten or even typed letters that way in the past.

 

Another thing I have noticed over the last 20 years (since the somewhat universal advent of computers and the internet) is that penmanship (including my own) has taken a slide for the worse. We just don't use it to the scale we did before.

 

I recall everything went fairly smoothly, albeit much slower, prior to my using and ultimately being hooked by the internet. Then, after I became accustomed to communicating via the net, checking bank account balances over the net, paying bills over the net, I found myself extremely pissed when the ISP would be down and I couldn't immediately (right this second!) access my account, pay a bill, or send an email. When this happened somewhat regularly (that's the way it was in the beginning), I would be angry that I allowed myself to be seduced into all this technie mumbo jumbo. That attitude has somewhat gone away as the internet services have become more reliable but I still harbor some feelings that part of my soul has been lost by the intrusion of all of these friggin' bits and bytes.

 

But, these days, that's the way it is. Almost everybody is on the net, even multiple people in the same household at the same time. Everybody's emailing and texting and blogging and twitting and, ultimately, interacting less in person. Hell, maybe someday we'll have no need or inclination to actually ever talk to each other (it's easier to text or email and my computer doesn't frown back at me....).

[Guest fountainhall]

Hell, maybe someday we'll have no need or inclination to actually ever talk to each other (it's easier to text or email and my computer doesn't frown back at me....).

I'll put money on the table that we'll eventually be able to have a chip inserted somewhere in our bodies which will enable us to transfer our thoughts direct to chips in the those of friends. But how, I wonder, will we be able to prevent the bad thoughts from winging their way over the ether?

 

Friend 1: Wasn't dinner great last night?

Friend 2: Really loved that tiramisu dessert.

Friend 1: Boy, I wish he hadn't farted right after the lamb with entree and completely spoiled the dessert for me?

Friend 2: Fart? That's rich! What about your stroking my boyfriend's thigh all night . . .

[Bob]

I'll put money on the table that we'll eventually be able to have a chip inserted somewhere in our bodies which will enable us to transfer our thoughts direct to chips in the those of friends. But how, I wonder, will we be able to prevent the bad thoughts from winging their way over the ether?

 

They damn well better sell something to filter the thoughts generated by my brain. The world is thankful that I rarely say what I'm thinking (contrary to the admonition of Peter Pan, I do occasionally have less than happy thoughts).

 

I shouldn't worry. By the time this thought-transfer chip is generally available, there'll be very little left of my brain anyway.