Monday, September 19, 2011

Post 5: Technology and Interpersonal Relationships

For this posting let’s continue our in-class discussion about the invasiveness of technology in everyday life. Please reflect on the impacts of technology (e.g., cell phones/texting, Facebook, Skype/MSN Messenger, blogs, etc.) on our interpersonal relationships with friends, family and significant others.

Keep in mind this reference to Baudrillard when writing your posting:

“We are more and more ‘wired’ to our interfaces. We react to simulations – to the television news rather than the world, to a computer program rather than social interaction, to email rather than vocal communication.” (Murphie & Potts, 2003, Chapter 1, pg. 16)

15 comments:

anniken said...

One of the interesting, funny, and also somewhat scary, things that I have noticed about Facebook is that people appear to be branding themselves. It's all about looking cool, doing cool things and not at all showing ourselves like the true, part-time-sedentary people we tend to be. This may be a natural evolution due to the fact that we don't usually post pictures of ourselves chillin’ at home with a glass of milk in our onesies – mostly because these pictures don’t exist. Thankfully.

The scary part is that we are becoming Ultimate People – the people we would like to be, the best parts of our identity and no longer the true and complete package. It may sound like a great deal (that you are able to showcase your best features and most awesome moments), but what happens when we are expected to be these Ultimate People in real life too and we fail to deliver?

It used to be models in magazines that were airbrushed and unreal-looking, and with that being less-than healthy role models, but now we have this opportunity in our own lives too. We may not go to the extent of airbrushing ourselves, but there is definitely a side of Facebook that acts as an open invitation to showcase yourself – and who would want to be boring and authentic when they don’t have to? Of course, there are people who have amazing lives, and there is nothing I would like to read or see more than people living life to the fullest! Other people really do have boring lives too, and they aren’t afraid to show it. These groups of Facebooker’s aren’t a concern, but what bothers me is that we tend to have two realities; the Social Media Self, and the True Self. I am not interested in branding myself as something I am not, but then again… would I post pictures of myself doing research, even though that is the core essence of my life right now? Probably not, and that is, with a long-term perspective of social authenticness, nothing short of being scary.

Ryan Jacobson said...

One technology I think that is impacting society and interpersonal relationships is the technology of texting. Through texting, everyone is accessible more often, but to a lesser degree. I mean that people can interact at any time of the day, regardless what they are doing, by texting; but that interaction will always be superficial. I think this innovation has hurt the ability of people to communicate with any level of substance, particularly the younger generations that text more often. Not only does it impact the substance of communication, but also the content. Young people have much worse writing skills, because they are so accustomed to the writing style of texting. It also hinders the development of communication skills in terms of face-to-face communication and makes young people more fearful of confrontation, since they are used to the security of hiding behind their cell phones. Texting also creates many miscommunications, which can strain relationships and cause conflict. I know all these problems are much worse for the kids that are in junior and high school today, so it will be interesting to see how this generation with all those issues behaves and communicates when they reach adulthood.

anniken said...

Ryan,

ICAWU! (I Completely Agree With You)

I suppose the great things when it comes to texting are that is that it's efficient and that you can send short messages somewhat discreetly. It is sad, however, that it appears as though we are creating a society now where the need for efficiency supersedes the want for face-to-face interactions. Especially a technology such as texting where we are also, as you mention, losing our language(s) and increasing the chances of unnecessary conflict.

Jasmine Qu said...

Generally speaking, I appreciate what technology brings to me, including interpersonal communication. With technology I am be able to talk to my family and friends whenever we want, and show them my everyday life.

However, it's not perfect. Take myself as an example, I went back to China this summer. When I actually saw my family and friends, I don't feel like I miss them as much as i should. It's very nice to meet them, but something is missing. I think it is the technology that not only brings us with convenience, but also take away some parts of our feelings.

Technology get us to know what is happening in the real world. Of course we gets angry about terrorism, corruption, feels happy about friends' wedding, graduation. But we tend to be more and more apathetic when we are exposed to huge amount of information everyday. We are over-used to getting information in front of the screen instead of from the real world.

It's too harsh for technology I guess. Only time machine may solve this problem.

Jennifer Chen said...

I do appreciate the changes the Internet brings about in terms of interpersonal communication, such as exchanging information and making friends with people all over the world. This is something we had never imagined about before the Internet came. Online communities spread immediately since members get together because of same interests, which makes them easily find each other close and attractive. Since they don’t have to see each other in the real life, people tend to speak straight from their hearts and consider other members in the same community as friends who can talk to. However, people who value the online community a lot usually ignore the communication with family members or friends in the real life.


I’ll take myself as an example. I joined a Chinese online community of English learning. There are a lot of people who want to learn English, including many students, college professors and people from other professions. I found it very interesting and made many good friends on it. I learned a lot from them and they are also willing to talk to me since I am studying in the U.S. They want to know the real situation here instead of what the Chinese government says. But, my parents think talking to those “virtual friends” is nothing but wasting time. They are not very happy about that. Gradually, I found that we have different opinions on things and sometimes they didn’t listen to my side of story. Therefore, I went to my “virtual friends” instead of my parents when things came up. I know it’s not good, but I don’t want to argue with my parents either.

Bill said...

Ryan, I totally agree with you about how overreliance on communication technology has made people timid and afraid of confrontation. Back in my Army days I saw a huge difference between kids who came to my squad who had spent their childhoods playing video games and on the internet versus those who spent their time in sports or in other social settings. It was incredibly difficult to get the less-socialized kids to do their work properly without resorting to disciplinary measures and their constant texting and web surfing (when in the US) was a constant hinderance. But once we took their electronic crutches from them on deployments they mostly performed much better. These improvements were lost, however, as soon as we returned to the US.

Bill said...

I can't remember the last time I had a conversation with somebody in which neither of us received a text or phone call or checked to see if we had received a text or phone call. There is definitely an advantage to being our heightened ability to connect digitally but I also think we have that what we have gained in the bredth of our interpersonal connections, we have lost in depth. It seems that part of the problem with the ubiquitous use of communications technologies is that the mediums evolve faster than the mores that used to govern human behavior. The anonymity of digital technologies allows us to go through life only reading news that agrees with our point of view, listening to radio that likewise does the same and all the while condemning everyone who disagrees with us as evil or un-American or Communist or whatever label is tacked on without regard to its meaning or consequences. The anonymity of the internet has coursened our national dialogue and helped to reinforce many of the latent anti-social tendencies that would otherwise have lain dormant.

Yuwei Sun said...

I generally embraced the innovations of technology to our lives. It makes the life become easier and efficient to a very large extent. And I specially appreciate to the invention of skype which connect me with my family. For the past six years or so I constantly chart and share my life with my mom and dad through skype and other similar software. It is nice to see their faces and hear their voices. This technology innovation enables me to keep in touch with my family in a very close way.

However, I do sometimes think that technology is responsible for the increasing interpersonal distance among people. For example, I hang out with one of my friends from high school this summer which we haven’t seen each other for two years but we chart in MSN and facebook regularly. When we finally met at a restaurant we kind of feel awkward because we didn’t know what to talk about, so we all started playing our cell phone and waited our dishes to come. Half an hour later, we finally talked and this high school friendship started getting back.

Young people now become so dependent on cyberspace and they gradually lose the ability of communicating with people face to face. I often talk to my roommate through MSN even though we are in the same room. It is occurred to both of us that we feel more comfortable to move our fingers to type than open our mouth to talk.

Yuwei Sun said...

Jasmine,

It is strangely interesting that I share the same kind of feeling about that not missing family issue. I come back home once a year, sometimes twice. Every time I meet my mom and dad I don’t feel very excited, it is nice to see them in person and then that’s it. I guess I just talked everything about my life to them online so there are really not many new or exciting things that I can talk to them, besides, I can see their faces whenever I want. So I lose that feeling of excitement when I reunion with my parents. And for that reason, I feel happier to see my grandparents because they don’t know how to chart online.

Ryan Jacobson said...

Bill,
I thought it was interesting how you attributed America's deep ideological divide to being a result of the technology around us, which would be an example of technological determinsim. I agree that there is a degree of truth in that, but I also see a degree of social shaping of technology there, because the media is essentially seeking to meet the demands of the public. So in a sense it's the public's fault for having such specific demands for media sources, that the media must adapt to meet them so they can be successful. It seems like a vicious cycle, and again, like we talked about in class, a chicken and the egg discussion.

Melinda Heinz said...

An impact of technology that I see is that perhaps we are more likely to withdraw from others in face-to-face settings. It is much more likely that I will catch up with friends and family using technology rather than an in-person visit. I have to wonder though, perhaps I would be more likely to make a significant effort to see loved ones if there wasn't the possibility that I could "catch up" with them online through Facebook or email. I tend to think I may plan more visits back home or make more of an effort to see friends face-to-face.

In that regard, I feel that our communication is becoming more superficial. I agree with Anniken in that we can portray ourselves quite differently online than we could in-person. Instead of seeing the real me and hearing about my life directly from me, friends and family may gain a superficial version of what life is like via my Facebook profile and postings.

While this may be extreme, I wonder to what extent advancements in technology have contributed to the decline of appropriate social skills?

Melinda Heinz said...

Jasmine I find your comment: "But we tend to be more and more apathetic when we are exposed to huge amount of information everyday" to be extremely intriguing. I agree with this but haven't thought about it too much before reading your post. We are constantly bombarded with email messages, Facebook messages, news updates. It gets to be a lot and I would agree that sometimes I don't have a lot of enthusiasm or concern over the contents of the message or news story. Interesting!

Jasmine Qu said...

Anniken,

I can't agree more. My Chinese version facebook friends kept saying how wonderful and easy my life is now after I posted some new pictures. That sometimes upsets me.

Pictures and anything else on social media networks are just part (most of times very small part) of a person's life. Who would post a picture of writing paper or doing research. Even though that's the main part of our lives.

I don't know if it is branding, but at least as a consumer of social network, it's better to see beyond what it is in the social networks.

Jasmine Qu said...

Mindy,

I find your comment "to what extent advancements in technology have contributed to the decline of appropriate social skills" very interesting.

People would agree that high technology advances our communication skills. But it's not necessarily so. We are getting so used to communicating online, and the lack of face-to-face interaction may decline the appropriate social skills.

Jennifer Chen said...

Jasmine,

I'm in the same weird situation as you. I should have been very excited to see my parents this past summer, but I didn't. I tend to talk about my daily problems with friends in reality and online instead of my parents. To my parents, I just want them to know that I'm doing fine here and don't worry about me. Maybe they would like to hear my stories but sometimes I'm not very comfortable to share with them. I suppose the Internet has a power to pull people online together and distance people in reality.