Essay on Technology in Everday Lives

Technology is a great thing, but it can also cause a disconnection between ourselves and the people in our lives. I will use my cell phone use as a perfect example for how it has helped my relationships grow and how it can also take away from my relationships
The emergence of the internet and wireless communication technologies might have created a digital divide in society, but undoubtedly these tools enable us to connect with each other more than ever before” (Adam Acar, 2008). Media technology has become a diffusion of innovations with the advance of the internet. In fact, I have become a “victim” of communicating with individuals via blogs, social networks, instant messages and email. Since engaging in this behavior, I have taken for granted how these technologies expedite our interpersonal communication. For better or for worse, I rely heavily on computer-mediated communication.

Email, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Delicious, Digg, LinkedIn, blogs (of course), and scores of others—all part of the new and wonderful ways we can now connect with one another electronically, each with its own culture and unique set of rules. In one sense, the planet has never been more interconnected. And yet, this interconnectedness, while wonderful, hasn't come without cost.
We may enjoy online relationships using social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, for example, but the difference between these kinds of interactions and interactions with people in the physical world is clearly vast. As long as we expect no more from these online relationships than they can give, no good reason exists why we can't enjoy the power of social media sites to connect us efficiently to people we'd otherwise not touch. The problem, however, comes when we find ourselves subtly substituting electronic relationships for physical ones or mistaking our electronic relationships for physical ones. We may feel we're connecting effectively with others via the Internet, but too much electronic-relating paradoxically engenders a sense of social isolation.

Nowadays, people using electronic media to make confrontation easier and have seen more than one relationship falter as a result. People are often uncomfortable with face-to-face confrontation, so it's easy to understand why they'd choose to use the Internet. Precisely because electronic media transmit emotion so poorly compared to in-person interaction, many view it as the perfect way to send difficult messages: it blocks us from registering the negative emotional responses such messages engender, which provides us the illusion we're not really doing harm. Unfortunately, this also usually means we don't transmit these messages with as much empathy, and often find ourselves sending a different message than we intended and breeding more confusion than we realize.
Technology lets our thoughts and feelings travel in a matter of seconds. Though our online social circles widen, we forget to make time for people we see every day. As we spend too much time on our gadgets, we don’t notice that we’re slowly breaking down the strongest possible connections we can ever have – those with our family. Also, we get too lazy to talk to each other face to face hence creating a hindrance between our personal interactions.
Technology in communication absolutely isn’t a bad thing, but it isn’t entirely good either. To be able to communicate effectively, one must be convincing and able to transfer the message in a way the receiver can fully understand. Yes, technology can lessen our efforts but it can also increase our problem if we aren’t aware of what we are doing and how it affects us. We should always remember that technology could help build relationships but it could also build barriers between ourselves if not used correctly. Though a text message can touch the heart, spoken words can always make a bigger difference

Technology destroys interpersonal communication

because it occurred to me how reliant we

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