Breeze Perspectives: Face-to-face or screen-to-screen?
As technology progresses, our interpersonal skills and communication styles spiral into regression
Posted on January 22, 2008
Take a minute to imagine a world where we couldn’t communicate through technology, a world without the use of cell phones, pagers or instant messaging. The only means of communicating with someone would be in person. This type of world would most likely frighten many of us, for we depend on technology.
However, when our parents were our age, personal contact was customary and necessary to get by. After-school hangouts at the local diners were an everyday event and people enjoyed being in the company of others. If a boy was interested in a girl, he would walk right up to her and ask her out, without thinking twice about it. Life was simple.
I fear the society we live in today is losing touch of this face-to-face communication, which was once commonplace. Text messaging, instant messaging and Facebook are now the general means of communication among college students.
People pass through the university hallways texting on their cell phones, barely making time to look up once and while to smile. Chat rooms and lengthy AOL Instant Messenger sessions are replacing afternoon lunch dates with friends and Facebook walls are becoming flirting vehicles of the 21st century.
Is it really worth it? Can too much technology be bad for us? Don’t get me wrong: the conveniences of technology are endless. However, I feel certain techonology is damaging our relationships with others and taking away from more personal interactions our society once had.
Last year, I received a phone call from my sister telling me her boyfriend broke up with her by leaving a message on her Instant Messenger. After five minutes convincing me that she wasn’t joking, I was completely bewildered. Not only did this boy lack the courage to tell her in person, but she wasn’t even home when he sent the message.
While this may be an extreme case, many others (including myself) are guilty of having important conversations on the Internet or cell phone, which probably should have been reserved to talk about in person.
We are resorting to technology to build our relationships with others, which many times is extremely ineffective. I can’t even count the number of times when talking to someone through texting or the computer led tomiscommunication on both ends. People begin asking “what did he (or she) mean by this?” or misread the entire conversation altogether.
Relationships are a significant part of our lives and should not be treated frivolously. Talking to each other in person requires more thought to reach a deeper level of communication is reached. When you can actually see the person you are talking to, the message gets across more clearly.
While it would be nice to go back to a time when technology didn’t affect our communication, it would be nearly impossible. Times have changed and the advances in today’s society have created a new language.
However, while we can’t change time, we can improve the way we view communication. We need to find a way to bring back a part of the past, that connection with people we once had, because I feel that it is not completely lost.
Rachel Chemerynski is a junior SMAD major.
