Technology and Social Interaction

        I talked a little bit about this issue in my last blog because I think that it is a big issue in society today.  I think that the spread of technology has had a NEGATIVE impact on our everyday face to face interaction.  I think we lose our raw communication and relationship skills when we rely on technology as our primary source of communication.  Face to face interactions are what build our relationships, both with friends, family, and lovers.  Technology has substituted seeing the smile of your boyfriend across the table to seeing that little smiley emoticon [ :) ] on the screen of your cell phone or computer.  It has replaced hearing your loved one’s laugh over an inside joke with a “lol” or a “haha.”  One of my favorite things about having face to face conversations with people is hearing their voice, listening to the changes in tone and looking at their face, seeing the changes in facial expression.  I think that these things are some of the core parts of building and sustaining strong relationships.  

         I think that it is a joke that people think they can start relationships via online dating sites, Craiglist, message boards, fan sites, online gaming, or virtual worlds.  I think that this is a cop-out way of meeting people.  I think that those who are afraid to go and put themselves out there in real-life situations use the Internet as their way of meeting people and developing “relationships.”  

         I do not think that connecting to others via online communities is a viable way of creating meaningful relationships.  You need more than a keyboard and a computer screen to create a meaningful relationship.  You need that face to face communication to really create long-lasting relationships.  It is easy to create relationships based on lies when you create them over the Internet.  You can tell people exactly what they want to hear over the Internet, whether it is actually true or not, they won’t know.  But I think that it is much harder for people to lie to someone’s face when first establishing a relationship.  On the other side, I totally understand the Internet and technology is a good way to sustain meaningful relationships as we are not all lucky enough to live near the ones we love so sometimes, we must rely on these forms of communication to keep relationships going.  Facebook and Skype allow us to stay connected to the ones we love when we are unable to drive a few hours or even fly across the country to say I love you or to see how they are doing.  I am who relies on these technologies as means to keep my relationships at home going.  But there is a bigggg difference between CREATING relationships through online and SUSTAINING them through online.   

I do not necessarily think that we are neglecting out everyday relationships in favor of these “virtual” relationships but I also do not think that we are making room for our everyday relationships because Internet relationships take much less effort.  

         I do think that we, as a society, need to focus on creating more “real” spaces/public spheres for people to connect and interact.  The relationships that we establish through raw means of communication are those that are going to last, not the ones that start of with “lol”s and [ :) ]s.  Even though this will probably not happen, I think that we need to continue back to when people met up and went for coffee to catch up, not grabbed their laptops and typed back and forth and considered it “good enough”.  I know that I am just a guilty as anyone when it comes to using this cop out form of communication and I am personally trying to improve that, I hope that others will as well.