Last night I was out with my mom and sister. As we were driving around town we got into a discussion on how technology has taken over. My mom remembers the days when to go on a date, you had to call the person and ask them. To many of us, that sounds ancient. Isn't it funny that technology has made it hard for people to have voice conversations? So many of us rely on text messages or facebook to "flirt" or "get to to know someone". But I am sorry, written words can always be misinterpreted and one really doesn't get a sense of personality through a text. Some people say its easier to text than to call. That is FALSE. It takes longer to type a message, hit send and WAIT for a reply, then to call someone and just ASK!
This lack of "real life" communication makes me wonder if this has something to do with the rising number of young people who find it hard to interact socially at school or in their home life. Could computers, cell phones, and xboxes be taking away this important human function? I have friends that date people through text messages. They never speak on the phone and only make plans to see each other through text messages. It even gets to the point that if they need to call, they are nervous about it even though they have been dating for 6 months. Seems silly to me.
A study was done on the effects of social networking on college and university students. The results came back that many students were failing classes because of their addiction to "facebook" or other social networking websites. Students were spending too much time on the computer and not enough time in the classrooms.
Now don't get me wrong, I do think that social networking is genius for many reasons. If I was totally against it, I would not be blogging. I love the opportunity to tell the world (or in my case my 7 followers) my views on life. I like being able to reconnect with friends through facebook. I enjoy seeing where they have travelled and what they have been up to. Without social networking, I may never of had the opportunity to reconnect with so many amazing people. I feel blessed to live in this era and to be able to experience such crazy advances in technology.
As much as I complain about people who text too much, I am just as guilty. I am not much of a phone person so I would rather make plans through a text so that I'm not stuck talking on the phone. I do however enjoy the company and conversation of friends and family. I have not become a victim of "social awkwardness" due to "social networking".
I am interested to see what will come next. I am interested to see what the long term effects of technology will have on this generation. Sometimes technology amazes me and a lot of the time it scares the heck out of me. Maybe next year, we'll be falling in love with robot people and have no clue they are not real... then again, probably not.
