Friday, 16 October 2009

Can we communicate?

I have found technology to be a somewhat contradicting "thing". One of its greatest dichotomies is the concept of communication. There is no doubt that technology facilitates so much communication, just consider the effects of the following: email, skype, IM, facebook, twitter, blogging,text messaging, just to name a few. I can video chat with my friends in the US, 6,000 miles away, yet seem as if we are just sitting across a table. Yes, technology is allowing us to connect with each on whole new levels. However, although this may seem contradictory, have our communication skills deteriorated? I think because we are able to communicate so easily in written word, we have forgotten how to communicate in person. I cannot even count how many people I would feel more comfortable talking with over facebook than in person. Is this healthy? Isn't human contact one huge aspect of being? We are growing numb; we enjoy the luxury of being able to consider, edit, move, send, revoke, and ect. Because of this, when we are in situations when human communication is mandatory we freeze up- we can't compose ourselves, we are uncomfortable. I feel that technology-like anything- is twofold. We just need to learn how to combat these issues.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Kathleen, your posts are really interesting and I enjoy reading them. Your last post was especially interesting, because I have been noticing the same thing. Technology is, in a way, controlling our lives. Although, at least with my close group of friends and family, I think we are still able to communicate in person as well as we have in the past. Though, I do agree with what you said and maybe for some, face-to-face communication, if not deteriorating all together, is being used less and less as a way of communicating. It kind of reminds me of that movie, He's Just Not That Into You...remember the parts when the girl is having a relationship over facebook and video chat haha.

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  2. Hey! I found it funny that I had recently been thinking the same things recently. I think that technology has the opposite affect than many claim it to have. I believe it has made so many people much more socially awkward in person. Most of my friends and I text, but there are only a few that I could spend an hour on the phone with. I think that the affects of technology can be useful with communication but in the end, it truly does affect our face-to-face communication.

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