Today’s society is known for being technology driven. We innovate new genius creations such as cell phone, social media, and etc., that can do everything a computer can but much smaller. These advances once brought about great wonder of what the world was capable of doing and setting unlimited standards in reality. Although the advancement of technology is great, we can’t help but focus on the negatives as they’re substantially greater than the positives. The reality is these technological advances actually create a negative impact on society in many different ways, such as creating misunderstanding, causing distractions that ruin social interactions, as well as creating a sense of loneliness.
Technology creates misunderstanding. It creates this through contact based platforms, such as texting and emailing, by creating questions about tone that would not be assumed or thought of with face to face contact. I have experienced where technology has created a misunderstanding through text, especially when someone is trying to be sarcastic or joking. Alison Stein, author of “Lost in Translation”, believes that technology skews the true meaning of conversation, as seen when she says vocal and facial and body language account for more than 90 percent of the meaning in interactions (502). This shows how meaning is truly lost when communicating through technology. In comparison, Sherry Turkle, author of “The Tethered Self: Technology Reinvents Intimacy and Solitude”, also believes technology creates a negative influence on conversation. She shows this by saying it ruins connection through the lack of being connected face to face with a human (494). Although, both authors agree that technology creates misunderstandings they show this in different ways. Stein believes misunderstandings occur more because we lack the necessary expressions to make sense of technological conversation. While Turkle somewhat agrees she doesn’t use in depth research to prove her point. These misunderstanding are created by the false hope connecting with people online, but what we don’t see is who they truly are or look like. I experience this everyday living as a college student technology is crucial to our success, but often times it is very confusing to understand as the true meaning of things is often misunderstood. Although endless innovations that keep coming out connecting us closer than ever to people, we can’t beat the true spoken voice of one, as communicating through technology creates a false sense of knowing and just doesn’t compare.
Technology causes people to become easily distracted. These distractions are very common as people often use devices when speaking or being spoken to. I have personally experienced this by being on my phone while also being spoken to, which isn’t only a distraction but also rude to the speaker. Author Sherry Turkle uses yet another example to portray the negative effect of technology on humans. She does so by saying how we live in a world of distraction ultimately caused by phones, she continues this by also saying how difficult it is for people to give their full attention in this day and age because of these devices (493). In addition, David Carr, author of “Keep Your Thumbs Still When I’m Talking to You”, also explains how technology can serve as a distraction. He claims everyone should just put everything down when in an interactive environment and show respect (497). To Carr respect mean full concentration without disturbance. Although respect isn’t needed it is valued highly as it creates a greater sense of maturity and gratitude. Both of these sources are used to describe how technology is used in society and creates a negative impact as it lures people’s attention away from the important things and often creates a disconnect between people. But they also differ, Turkle explains distractions by saying how people struggle to dedicate their attention mainly due to phones. This is different from Carr because he thinks people need to give others respect by giving others their eyes and ears. Unfortunately, I have seen this every day as technology distracts us from what truly needs to be done. Although technology has helped us develop substantially we can’t help but focus on the things that have held us up and hindered human’s abilities to interact and socialize. Technology has done just this by distracting us from one another and separating mankind by a screen.
Lastly, technology is known for creating loneliness. This comes about through cell phones being used instead of spending quality time and chatting with people in society. I have experienced this when speaking to people while eating and referring to my phone to respond to a text or even check social media. By checking my mobile device during gathering it often shows I’m not interested in the conversation leading to isolation from it. David Carr writes about how teenagers can hardly go out to eat and spend quality time with each other without using mobile devices (498). This is paralleled by author Sherry Turkle analyzing how we create a social life which takes us away from our real one. She also explains how living our lives through apps and social media truly takes us away from our real one and creates a sense of loneliness in our lives (494). This disconnection among people creates loneliness because we miss vital connections that keep us in the loop. Both these articles relate because they compare how we ruin our social lives by living through our phones. Though these authors write about similar things they also contrast by Carr stating how the younger generations struggle to spend time with their friends. On the other hand, Turkle is trying to get at how social media interferes with our real life. I can say that I personally have witnessed and experienced loneliness through a device, because instead of interacting like humans are supposed to I stick to things on my phone creating a sense of loneliness for myself. By doing this we isolate ourselves from people who once enjoyed our attention but now that is non-existent do to technology. Therefore, by isolating ourselves from our family and friend’s due to technology we lose the sense of social interaction and often miss monumental moments in our life.
Technology is a part of our lives, there is no way around it, but we can’t help but stop and look at the consequences it has on people negatively by making them misunderstood, creating distractions, and even destroying social interaction that were once looked highly upon. All three authors use excellent evidence to show how the world has changed and will only create new issues that will arise from the negative impacts and addictions to these technological devices. The world will only continue to become more innovative with new great devices and cutting-edge advances. The only way we as humans can truly respect others and the world we live in is to realize what we miss while we become consumed by technology.