As we expect more from technology, do we expect less from each other? In this blog post, I will discuss on how our devices and online personas are redefining human connection and communication. Thus, think deeply about the new kind of connection we want to have.
According to Hebert (2013), the average smartphone user spends 2.5 hours a day surfing or talking on their device. Studies have shown that the amount of time spouses spend talking to their partners, and parents spend talking to their kids has plummeted in the last decade due to Internet and cell phone use. Now, here’s the question “Is media use distracting us? Breaking down our social relations with others? Affects family’s relationship?”
Based on Turkle (2012,) our little devices in our pocket are so psychologically powerful, they don’t only change what we do, they actually change who we are. Some of the things we do now with our devices are things we did few years ago, we would have feel odd or disturbing, but they come to the scene where is very familiar in today’s world. Example, people text, whatsapp or email in the corporate meetings, they go Facebook, surf Internets, during classes, during presentations, during all meetings.
I have a sense of guilt as I write this when I’m having dinner with my family. Let’s set that aside and deal with the debate that makes me feel this way.
The photo shows that parents, text and email at breakfast or dinner while their children complain that they not having the attention from the parents, but on the other hand, the children deny each other for the full attention.
Maybe is true that what Tuckle had mention, “human relationships are rich and they’re messy and they’re demanding. And we clean them up with technology.” Today’s users of all those digital that allows us to text, email, and post, all these things let us present the self that we wish to be. Thus, having that, we can easily edit what we want to post up.
To conclude this, I think that the masses should regain the ownership of the term social media. In particular, the word social I think should be defined with the concept of face-to-face communication and interaction where smartphones and social media nowadays distracting us from that.
References:
Hebert, C 2013, Say No to the Smartphone Epidemic, weblog, accessed 15/10/2013, http://blog.doctoroz.com/oz-experts/say-no-to-the-smartphone-epidemic
TEDtalksDirector 2012, Connected, but alone?, online video, 3 April, YouTube, accessed 15/102013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Xr3AsBEK4
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