Technology and Social Interaction

As bad as I want to say that social networking and our addiction to our cell phones has not made us worse in normal face to face interaction but I feel that it has become obvious that it has. My parents have been telling me for years but I never really was aware of some of the habits and tendencies that I do without thinking. Since I have been taking this class and doing my media diet log it has hit me that I am constantly on my phone, I’ve caught myself pulling out my phone mid-conversation with my parents, at dinners, my brothers graduation and it keeps me from getting sleep when I am in bed. I could say that I have had relationships that were based completely on facebook, like classmates that I felt comfortable talking to online but when I see them in class no words are exchanged and if there is it is extremely awkward and I know most people my age could identify with these kinds of relationships. I believe that people feel a lot more comfortable online because you have time to react to questions that might catch you off guard, people cannot see your true emotions and you can easily cover how you feel about an issue and also you can log off anytime which makes for a very loose conversation which in a way killed our conversation skills. I'm all for meeting people online and if you feel your relationship is strong enough to last in the real world more power to you but honestly I would think that less than 50 percent of those relationships could last just because people could keep up a façade about themselves online but once you’re in person it a lot harder. When most people use facebook or twitter they are using it to connect with friends that they have in the real world and maybe will have a few relationships with people they have not met personally but when most of the people you are communicating with are made in virtual worlds like World of Warcraft or Second Life it might be a problem because in my opinion you are more likely to have communication issues. I do not have anything against these games but I feel most of their users have problems communicating in reality so they feel more comfortable online. Our generation is beginning to realize that our social interaction is based too much online and needs to go back to face to face interactions. Countries such as Japan even have Gaming Rescue Camps to get kids addicted to gaming back to reality and in my opinion this might be a little drastic, I believe that when people are aware of their social networking interactions that will fix a big chuck of the problem.