"Communication is a systemic process in which people interact with and through symbols to create and interpret meanings." (Wood, 2009) Communication takes place everywhere, every day, and is the primary foundations for establishing relationships amongst oneself and others. As the years have gone by and changed, innovative measures have taken place and many things were invented to hopefully "benefit" society positively and more effectively. Virtual technology is taking over the world faster than we know it, with substantial numbers generating online like nothing we have ever seen before. Too much technology can in fact hurt relationships and create many detrimental errors.
Technology Changing Over Time
Technology's main purpose began with the invention of tools to allow for simpler, easier, more efficient ways to develop more products in the workplace and on the farm. With machines taking over the workplace it allowed certain companies to get rid of workers and hire workers that just specialized in their specific fields. It saved the companies money and allowed them to produce at a more efficient rate than previously. It wasn't until the mid 1990's where the Internet was invented, where HTML and WWW, invented by Tim Berners-Lee attracted enormous numbers to the Internet where navigation became extremely easy.
Hundreds of companies were started, and everybody wanted to invest. Millions of people decided to go online virtually overnight, companies expanded rapidly. America was becoming online, adding 1 million new users every month. The market soared from $70 million at the time of 1992 to $150 billion in early 2000!
In the article from TIME "Is Technology Moving Too Fast?"by Stewart Brand, Brand talks about many ways why technology can fault and is becoming dependent on too much.
"Constant technological revolution makes planning difficult, and a society that stops planning for the future is likely to become a brittle society. It could experience violent economic swings. It could trip into wars fought with vicious new weapons. Its pervasive new technologies could fail in massive or horrible ways. Or persistent, nagging small failures could sap the whole enterprise."
Essentially, Mr. Brand is criticizing this technological revolution where technology and its reliance can destroy the world with the ability to create new brutal weapons.
America is Becoming Virtual, With Face to Face Conversions Taking A Serious Drop
Where has the traditional face to face conversations and communicating gone? Now a days, all we hear about is Facebook, AOL, Twitter, or Apple Products such as iChat. The virtual world has substantially increased with approximately 1 billion users alone just using Facebook. Everything has become online and relationships are established more online now than ever. With the use of video chats, webcams, e-mail, dating sites for all types of people, instant messaging, and even online classes taking place in schools, people are conversing and establishing relationships online, but is it effective?
Statistics show that more people are living alone, with about 31 million Americans alone. Which pertains to the point that people have no reason to leave their home as they can do everything online; from shopping to paying their bills. Face to face conversations give you a sense of emotions and physical appearance that cannot be established virtually, however with the rate of technology increasing, their may be a shift to a completely virtual world. In today's workplace, young people who have grown up fearing conversation show up on the job wearing earphones. According to The New York Times article "Flight From Conversation," A senior partner at a Boston law firm describes a scene in his office.
"Young associates lay out their suite of technologies: laptops, iPods and multiple phones. And then they put their earphones on. 'Big ones. Like pilots. They turn their desks into cockpits.' With the young lawyers in their cockpits, the office is quiet, a quiet that does not ask to be broken."
From Owings Mills, MD, Mr. Paul Lederman, who just started working for PDR Web Solutions , with a Bachelor's degree in Communication on Public Relations, talks about why technology is so crucial now more than ever and that face to face conversions rarely take place in such company.
Technology is Harmful to Your Health, Physically and Mentally
In the modern age with technology taking over, 1 in 4 people spend more time online then they do sleeping, with on average over 32 hours spent online per month. With that amount of hours spent online oppose to meeting people and conversing, too much technology is detrimental for your health. Physically an overdose on technology creates extreme tiredness which has a toll on your body and leads to people getting sick. An example of this would be college students staying up hours and hours, even days studying for finals, which creates lack of sleep, which can lead to serious health problems such as: heart attack, heart disease, heart failure, irregular heart beat, high blood pressure, stroke, and diabetes. Not only does it lead to health problems related to the heart, but too much technology can also lead to childhood obesity according to such article.
Mentally, too much technology can impair relationships and lead to an unhealthy family. More kids in present time are spending absurd amounts of technology on their computer, gaming systems, and television. With the amount of time spent on these things, oppose to talking to their parents or making friends, the only thing they care about essentially is technology. Family dinner's and the time to bond as a family are fading, most of the time Families watch television while having dinner anyways. Not only does it destroy and prevent relationships from establishing, but in some cases leads to extremities. Too much technology can create a fantasy world in a person's brain and allow them to portray themselves as a fictional character in which they hurt themselves or others.
Here we get a brief sense from a non-expert's opinion on the everyday effects of technology on health, to get a sense of what others think.
Here we get a brief sense from a non-expert's opinion on the everyday effects of technology on health, to get a sense of what others think.
