Table of Contents
Abstract
In today’s world, almost every person understands the emerging and growing technology that is gradually shaping our daily lives. For instance, the use of mobile phones has seen people communicate easily through communication platforms such as Facebook, twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and others. This has led to the colonization of face to face spoken words and resulted to human beings neglecting others and even themselves. The materiality of technology has gradually robbed human beings their inborn or natural capabilities. Earlier before the emergence of technology, people spent time together interacting with their families, friends, colleagues, and neighbors. As a result of this materiality, human beings currently spend more and more time working online, sending texts messages and emails and watching TVs. The motivation behind this report is to see how the materiality of technology affects the materiality of human being experience. The current situation requires a deep intervention and solutions to solve this excess use of technology for the well-being, harmony, and health of human beings. This report concentrates on history of technology advancement, how technology has weakened face to face conversations and social communication, effects of technology on human beings and focus on some of the factors that have resulted in the weakening of face to face dialogue among human beings. Instead of us being the masters of technology, we have now become the slaves of machines as a result of technology. But all is not lost as the situation can be reversed and rectified to avoid a rotten society.
We can do it today.
Introduction
Many people regard and appreciate emerging technologies since it is there to help and improve their daily routines and operations. Apparently, today’s world would be different without the emerging and growing technologies we have experienced throughout the years. With the growth in technology, human life has become comfortable than earlier before. Nowhere in this world you go and find technology not used. Technology influences our day by day lives in everything that we do. It spares time, creates a universe of perpetual learning and makes the globe easier to traverse within no time. Technology has affected all the sectors of any economy i.e. Communication industry, travel, entertainment, businesses, education sector, food and social sector just to mention a few.
History
We can distinguish five periods of technology development. The primary stage identified with the advancement of technology is related to the production of electromagnetic adding machine amid World War II, weighing around 5 tons. Creation of transistors in 1947 prompted improvement of littler yet flexible pcs. With the info yield innovation changing from punch cards to attractive tapes, “pc” turned into a catchword. The second period of technology advancement is related to the improvement of pcs amid 1970’s. Advancement of chip innovation and assembling attractive circles changed tremendous pcs into desktops, which are called pcs (Howkins & Valantin, 1997). Word preparing, bookkeeping, and design turned out to be exceptionally available. The third period of technology advancement is identified with the improvement of the chip. Chip lessened the cost of handling force (Howkins & Valantin, 1997).
The fourth period of technology advancement is around systems administration. (Hennessy et.al, 2003).beginning from interfacing pcs inside a little geographic range for the field of defense and education to associating the pcs overall bringing about the web is the point of interest improvement in the field of technology. This brought about breaking the separation obstruction over the topographies and world being known as a worldwide town. Face to face communication is a side effect of this. Presentation of broadband has quickened this advancement. The fifth period of technology advancement is identified with the improvement of remote, which alludes to the present stage. This stage started with the development of the cell phone. The underlying cell phones were huge and massive. Diminishment in size has been joined by a significantly extended scope of capacities. Presently cell phones are utilized for talking, transmitting messages and music, perusing, exploring. Satellite telephones have enabled us to get associated even without a phone (Howkins & Valantin, 1997).
The current situation
There is no part of our society that would do without technology or otherwise do better. Technology has been used in all areas in our society including business, financial services, entertainment, public service, education and many more. There are many changes in technology that have been witnessed in the recent past including the way information and communication are viewed. Most of them are as discussed in the evolution of technology as discussed earlier inclusive of mobile phones, emails, skype etc. The most recent 10 years has brought a monstrous change, yet when we think about the progress in innovation from 50 years back, it truly is mind blowing (Wahlgren, 2010). Such a large number of things have changed, the rundown truly is unending. The greatest progress of innovation that genuinely has upset the way we live are telephones getting to be plainly portable. Previous to the cell phones came the internet. Prior to the internet was developed individuals would discover their data through books, daily papers, and TV. Presently when utilizing the internet you can actually discover anything that you need. The progress on the internet alone has been so tremendous. When it was first imagined it would take everlastingly to stack a site page and when it would at last load what you could view was exceptionally constrained. For instance, in entertainment, the internet has highly been used for games, social networking, and digital broadcasting. In our vocational area, technology has been used by children for game playing through the internet, used for research, in education etc. The current situation compared to the past days is very pleasing and welcoming. Life is a bit easy and everything is fast regardless of the current issues in the technology inclusive of complexity and ambiguity, security issues, computer crimes and forensics (Wahlgren, 2010).
Technology a good/bad thing and affects human experience.
Internet has resulted in massive progress in majority fields of the life from medicine to business, from art to education. It serves as a package for everyone regardless of their age and class. The Internet has become a necessity. Moreover, the slog of work has been occupied over by laptops, leaving more time for innovative thoughts. I am not afraid to say that a man is following his creations sightlessly without taking into account what the consequences would turn out to be and where it would lead him.
The use of technology has speeded up the mode of communication and hence reducing the cost associated with it. However, this technology has led to people becoming more impersonal with each other. In traditional communication, people used to visit each other to exchange information or else meet in public places. The innovation of telephones made it impossible for people to meet face to face as they used to. As time went on, a new form of communications emerged i.e. Emails, beepers, and facsimile that even made it very hard for people to meet and communicate face to face. Not only people using this technology, even businesses have made emails to be one of their main form of communication since it’s quick and keeps records of conversations between businesses.
Technology is now creating pathways between people around the world which is a good thing. But on the other hand, technology is creating walls or destroying bridges between neighbors. People concentrate on the use of modern technologies and paying little or no attention to their parents, neighbors or generally the need of others. People living in urban areas do not visit their parents or friends in rural areas anymore since they can now chat or talk online through communication platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and many others. This is evidence that the family bond that existed before the emergence of technologies is slowly dying.
Technology has facilitated to increase in cases of obesity. People are using technology to overcome physical distances and use of machines to process food faster. Introduction of online malls that enable people to order everything they want and be delivered to their doorsteps has facilitated to diseases since people spend time seated in front of a computer without doing any physical activity. Despite the fact that the internet is a generally new innovation, TV has been in existence for around fifty years. There are numerous issues with TVs, however, mostly with the substance of the shows. A large number of the shows on TVs are on savagery, drugs, sexual involvements, and obscenity. Individuals including tender ages who watch these shows see what the characters and performers are doing and after that vibe, it is okay for them to do similar things. As the utilization of technology grows, human social experiences diminish.
A case study on mobile technology
Mobile phones have reached almost every corner in this world. They have become an important gadget for people as it is the only way they access the internet. We now live in a digital age where people use mobile phones to communicate, shop online, read online and many activities that are offered online. People are now addicted to their phones and as result we see expressionless faces walking, quiet and silent train commuters who don’t have time for each other. Therefore it seems that the connections that were there before between people are no longer there (Borko, 1977). The availability of instant mobile phones communication has distracted us from people who are around us. Several researches have indicated that addictive internet usage causes isolation and busyness. These studies have further indicated the decline of face to face communication since mobile phones have resulted in a negative face to face communication, psychological problems, and intimacy.
A study conducted in 1997 by ling showed that below the age of 13 years of children studying none owed a mobile phone. But contrary to that, in 2001 the same study conducted indicated that 90% of teens aged 13 years interviewed owned a mobile phone (Borko, 1977). This has resulted in the growing research and examination on the connection between personality traits and the use of the internet. Many studies show that those who are heavy internet users suffer from normal social contacts.
Several studies have been carried out regarding dejection and the person’s well-being. This exploration demonstrates that male internet users who encounter depression had no connection to neuroticism or extraversion. Be for ladies dejection is fundamentally identified with both neuroticism and the utilization of social services in the web. This examination demonstrated that outgoing people and loners utilize distinctive services on the internet. The principle service utilized by all identities and most everybody is Facebook (Hicks, 2010).
A research demonstrated that when the use of Facebook is low, the positive connection amongst extraversion and empathic social skills is solid (Chan, 2014). On the other hand as the use of Facebook increments, there is a decay on positive extraversion and empathic social abilities (Chan, 2014). This may propose the conceivable supplanting of real-life connections with digital ones. The research conducted recently on sociological examination, numerous researchers have contended for the expansion of social confinement, for instance, internet usage has appeared to have a “displacement impact” on physically proximate connections. An examination directed by Martha Munoz likewise underpins these discoveries. She discovered that computers usage does not have the nonverbal and natural signals that are available in face to face communication, which makes one feel less troubled while interfacing with others in an online setting as opposed to an eye to eye communication (2013). In her investigation she additionally found, when examining two groups of individuals, that the group who favored online communication was seen less socially capable than the individuals who favored face to face communication (Munoz, 2013).
Conclusion
This absence of favored face to face communication can prompt social intimacy problems as mentioned by Larissa Hjorth and sun Lim (2012). They stated that intimacy has many levels. This closeness talked about, does not allude to affections between lovers, family, or companions; it is specified more with regards to society and how internet communication imbue private and public spaces. With this imbuement comes a debasing of “social work,” which alludes to the way that discussion and interactions can undoubtedly be coordinated and lead by what is going on mobile (Hjorth and Lim, 2012).
Regardless of whether individuals need to acknowledge it, mobile technology has a few extreme negative effects on their everyday lives. Regardless of some of its tremendous advantages, people need to restrict their utilization of mobile technology to a reasonable amount. Mobile technology usage should be perceived as a device to be used to a specific degree and not let it assume control over their lives like it is by all accounts heading towards consistently. Social media sites, for example, Twitter, Facebook, instagram are exceptionally useful to give news, current updates, and to stay in touch with loved ones, however individuals can’t bear to give such social media sites a chance to become the point of convergence of their life. Individuals need to, socially, choose how to oversee how this data that is sustained to them keeping in mind the end goal to attempt and check the effects which have been deteriorating each year. Sites that several studies have shown to cause depression and nervousness ought not to go on without serious consequences by members in the present society to any degree. People ought to concentrate on restricting their children now so they can get the best possible exercise they require alongside communication with the goal for them to frame abilities for interfacing with other children within their age sets and social strata appropriately when they are of age. The way people can now access internet, and on social websites particularly, has turned out to be too simple. It has made the face to face language communication lazy and furthermore made many people uninterested in meeting others face to face. This wipes out any possibility for a profound and important discussion. People have begun losing their capacity to communicate productively, which is a demonstration of what sort of aggregate control technology has over their lives. If people somehow happened to begin switching the process of influence it has over them now, it may be reversible to the point where people wouldn’t perceive any genuine inconvenient influence over a generational gap. On the off chance that nothing is done in any case, there will be a general public loaded with socially cumbersome people who can never again hold a discussion in a typical, present day social environment. Generally, technology can be valuable if utilized legitimately and in the best possible extents with typical face to face communication. Apparently people are not doing this. Rather, they are abusing it and enabling it to contrarily affect how they lead their lives. It is therefore easy to say that negative effects of technology usage and especially communication far outweigh any advantages that they may give to society right now.
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