What Has Our World Come To?
Is technology good or bad? What kind of influence does it have on our society? What is it causing us to do in our lives? What is the affect on us with all this technology? All these questions are concerning many Americans today, to many people text, listen to their iPods, and are on the computer way too much. I believe that technology has a negative influence on society but I feel that there is a place and time for it.
In our society when we are alone or by ourselves we resort to technology. We use it to get away from everyone and to do our own thing but what is that causing? When we do this we start to drift further away from society and we start to have a negative social life, we don’t talk to anyone and it’s like technology is our only friend. Many people over use texting, we spend way too much time on the phone and never enough time with anyone else like family or friends. Reina a 13-year-old girl in California had 14,385 texts a month. This is unhealthy no one should spend that much time texting or waste that much money she could have done other things like spend time with her family or go outside and play. Another girl from New Jersey who is 16 years old had 36,666 texts a month.
This is outrageous! If we keep up with just texting on the phone all the time and have no physical interaction what kind of social skills will we have? None. Music also has a strong impact on people’s social life, it’s always nice to get away sometimes and have a moment to yourself but we seem to convert to it more and more to the point of where that’s all we do, so could we be isolating ourselves? Krystle Song agrees when she writes, “Since music invokes such nostalgia within people this capability is extremely comforting and appealing. It’s understandable…but it is leading to a society of isolated beings”(1)? IPods also seem to stop us from interacting with other people when we have our music we seem to use that so we can pass the time by. Song states that, “Interaction between individuals is slowly diminishing as people turn to their technological devices instead of attempting to make a new acquaintance”(1). Kelly Doyle-Mace a sophomore at the University of Georgia listens to her music all the time, and she has music at her fingers just picking a song to match her mood, and to enhance the “Experience of walking through the world, ” as she says, she adds that, “she is willing to sacrifice some degree of social interaction to achieve this effect” (Harris 1).
This shows that the world is coming to a sense where technology is all we really need. Jen Harris that music can bring people to together, she writes about how two people who are “the founders of Playlist, a community or sorts of devotees of the IPod”(1).The founders of Playlist are Lisa and Jonny Rocket, Harris says that this is a place where many people can come together and listen to all sorts of music. Lisa states, ” Everyone shows up at Playlist events: cross dressing, goths, and the occasional lesbians”(Harris 1). Are these the type of people we want to turn into? The Internet is another way we seem to loose interaction and we also seem to loose our true identity. We act as different people, and we get closer to having barely any social interaction with anyone.
According to Bob Affonoso, “A recent study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University concludes that Internet use leads to small but statistically significant increases in misery and loneliness”(1). Technology has it’s place and time but not to where we have no life and have no friends. Sources say that through the Internet, “Users have the potential to meet a virtually unlimited number of people through chat rooms, and bulletin boards”(Coget 1). But how is that really healthy and what if people don’t like to meet in chat rooms or on bulletin boards? What if people don’t like meeting online? Jean-Francious Coget also states, “From previous studies that suggest that online relationships are impersonal and less favorable”(1). Another way we loose interaction is when we take online classes, we don’t get the same social influence.
Neil Postman agrees when he writes, ” through new technologies may be a solution to the learning of “subjects” they work against the learning of what are called social values”(1). Technology has a huge impact on everyone and we need to control how we use it and how much time we spend on it. In conclusion everyone should care about this it may not be affecting you now but it could be years later. Everyone needs to take notice of these so we can stop it, we need to stop every once in a while and look around us and not always be on our IPods, cell phones or computers. We need to brake away from them and enjoy some peace and quiet or maybe spend more time with families, if we don’t who knows what will happen to this world of technology.
