Technology: Friend or Foe?

Technology: Friend Or Foe?

        The impact of social media in our daily lives is an ever growing issue.  Recently, more and more people are looking to technology as a source of communication. In the article, “The Flight From Conversation,” Sherry Turkle claims that even though technology and social media provide a multitude of ways to communicate with one another, we are becoming too dependent on technology and using it as our main source of communication. As a result, we are lacking an honest, human connection that we need when interacting with other humans. Turkle argues that technology is inhibiting real communication between humans and I agree because I have personal experience surrounding the issue and have also found new research that supports this.

        Technology and social media let us represent ourselves in whatever way or light we see fit, even if it is untrue. For example, the computer screen acts as a protective shield that could allow a very timid, meek person to become an extremely opinionated internet blogger that addresses taboo social issues. To illustrate this further, Facebook lets people portray an edited version of their lives to everyone in their social networking circle. Most of the time, people never mention any hardships in their lives, only the good. It is very common to see someone’s celebratory Facebook post regarding a new job or promotion, yet you rarely see someone posting about the twenty rejection letters they received before they found that new job. How can we really say that we are engaging in honest communication with one another, when we are not presenting our authentic selves to begin with? I know for myself, after seeing all of my friends’ seemingly perfect lives on social media day after day, I found myself comparing my not-so-perfect life to their projected perfection, and getting depressed. I made the decision to delete my social networking websites, such as Facebook and Instagram. I no longer am spending my idle time comparing my not-so-perfect life to all of my friends’ flawless perceptions of themselves, and I feel my self-esteem has gotten better because of this.

        The idea that the internet and social media only portray reality through a pair of ‘rose colored glasses’  goes hand in hand with what we are taught by the media to be beautiful and exceptional every day. An example of this would be the models we see on the pages of magazines, most of them having the body type and weight that stray far from the norm of our society based on their weight. They are usually underweight, and could even fit the clinical criteria for the mental disorder Anorexia Nervosa. According to a research study based on thin-ideal internalization, findings show that exposure to thin media models has a negative effect on women’s body image. The study also goes on to find that when women compared themselves with models of an average-body size, their anxiety decreased. It is very hard as a woman to feel beautiful when your natural body type is so different from what you are conditioned to find beautiful, and a lot of times severely photoshopped. In most cases, it is practically impossible for most women to naturally morph their bodies into society’s ideal six foot tall, one hundred pound body. The message that social media is sending regarding what is beautiful  is as subjective as one person’s portrayal of themselves to the world wide web.

        In addition, Sherry Turkle explores the idea of how even though technology has vastly enabled our ability to connect and share with each other, it has also created an atmosphere of humans constantly being ‘alone together.’ For example, have you ever been in a waiting room with a bunch of strangers and noticed that every single person in the room has their phone out and seems enthralled with the information the little device is relaying to their brain? I definitely have and find this is my reality more often than not. I find it hard to imagine what people used to do in a waiting room before smart phones were so prevalent and we had access to all of the technology we could imagine literally at our fingertips. Would they dare strike up a casual conversation with a stranger to pass the time? To illustrate this even further, I recently went to a music festival and got the opportunity to see many amazing musicians perform. While watching one of my favorite acts, I noticed that most people had their cell phones out, recording the performance, and practically watching it through the camera of their phone. I was completely shocked that people that had paid a hefty amount of money for this live performance were completely missing the experience in order to record it on their cell phones. This to me was the perfect example of thousands of people being consumed by technology and in essence being ‘alone together.’ Furthermore, another example of the overuse of technology is touched on in an article titled “Interpersonal Divide: The Search For Community in a Technological Age,” writer Michael Bugeja defines his title as the "social gap that develops when individuals misperceive reality because of media overconsumption and misinterpret others because of technology overuse." In other words, Bugeja believes our interpersonal skills are drastically declining due to our reliance on technology to communicate with each other. He goes on to explore the idea that the overuse of technology is not helping society, but rather hurting society and causing huge social riffs and voids in our relationships and community. Bugeja does not completely condemn technology, but rather focuses on using real interaction to build community. He offers little pieces of advice such as "Be aware life is short and must be enjoyed.” To me, this emphasizes that we need to be present in our situation, wherever we are. This means putting down the phone and actually engaging in social behavior with other human beings.