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Technology and its impact on adolescents
The effect of technology on a new generation of children
The effect of technology on a new generation of children
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A- Presentation of the Issue As time passes, different ways to communicate develop and change the world. That is exactly what’s happening now. People in general, but mainly teenagers, are spending more time every day on Social Networks, or text messaging on cell phones. This is hugely changing their way to communicate and understand the human behaviour. In fact, their own behaviour is changing. This addictive way to communicate has many problems. For example, the possibility that in a near future people won’t be able to communicate face-to-face, like now is done. This is because young people don’t call each other anymore. Instead they write a message on Facebook, or send a text message via their cell phone (Stout, 2010). A big worry people have is that in some years the unable-to-communicate teenagers won’t be able to recognize feelings and emotions on other persons, and even the language they use will be different. That is why, now we are really asking ourselves, what is the real nature of these popular networks? Are they really social, or are they antisocial? On the other hand, the now called Antisocial Networks have helped some shy and introverted kids to keep up with their friends, and be able to plan week-end activities and be more social. B- The IT Background of the Issue Not so long ago, people used to use the telephone to actually call each other, and they actually met. Nowadays it is a little different. It all started by the popularization of computers. BBSes (Bulletin Board System) were the first sited where people could share data, such as files and messages. Some years later, the idea of communication expanded, and Social Networks as we now know them started to form. Some like SixDeegrees.com were not ... ... middle of paper ... ...om.com/2008/01/20/social-networks-from-the-80s-to-the-00s/ Nickson, Christopher. The History of Social Networking. Digital Trends. January 21, 2009. URL: http://www.digitaltrends.com/features/the-history-of-social-networking/ Boyd, Danah M., and Ellison, Nicole B. Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (JCMC). October, 2007. Vol.13 Issue 1. URL: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html Pfeiffer, Kelly. Are Social Networking Sites Unhealthy for Teens? Suite101.com. February 7, 2010. URL: http://teen-health.suite101.com/article.cfm/are-social-networking-sites-unhealthy-for-teens Gordon, Serena. Teens Divulge Risky Behaviour on Social Networking Sites. The Washington Post. January 6, 2009. URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/05/AR2009010502588.html
People’s lives are influenced by the lack of communicating. For example, in Hamilton Spectator’s article Wired For the Future, the writer explains the negative effects caused by the lack of communicating by saying, “[i]f teens stop communicating with their friends and others face to face, they will lose the ability to navigate complex social situations and that could be devastating for them when they are faced with college and job interviews....” (Hamilton Spectator 2). In other words, that when people keep forgetting how to communicate by overly using messaging systems, it could lead to negative problems in their lives: interviews or meeting with delegates. Those are important to people’s lives, because when children are independent and working in their jobs, they have to socialize with others. Communicating is unavoidable in social life, because people still communicate even though texting and messaging are taking enormous space in our world. In addition, People text too much without talking and communicating face to face. For instance, in Jessica Mazzola’s article Nighttime Texting, she showed the surveyed data of texting by saying, “...American teens send and receive an average of 1,500 texts per month” (Mazzola 1). By all means, texting is rooted deeply in people’s lives and replaced where real conversations should be. As the article mentioned, 1,500 texts per month should be affecting people’s lives directly. Communicating face-to-face and real conversations are certainly reduced dramatically as the texting increases. Therefore, people get influenced by the erosion of
There are numerous studies on the impact of advancing technology on adolescents, usually leading to the conclusion that social media networks often take part in creating the teen to isolate themselves from anything other than the internet. Social media however, does allow anyone to connect to the people living on the other side of the world. It is a way to keep in touch with old friends, and meet new people no matter where they live. Social media is often used to keep up with the latest news and often informs users of what is going on before the news channels catch it. It is obvious that social media has various positive uses. While these points are important, the fact that the younger generation spends most of their time with their heads down looking at a screen rather than engaged in conversation takes precedence. An article by Morgan Hampton states that,“children and teens spend 75% of their waking lives with their eyes fixed on a screen.” Social media connects people through a screen, but cannot excuse the fact that people are being disconnected from what is right in front of
In our world there are many forms of communication and these devices are beginning to take a toll on our younger generations. In Jeffery Kluger’s article,” We Never Talk Anymore: The Problem with Text Messaging,” the idea that younger generations are becoming socially inept due to technology is discussed. As these younger generations consume texting as a main form of communication other important social skills deteriate.
Since being introduced in the 1990s, social networking sites have taken over people’s lives. From Facebook to Twitter and Snapchat to Instagram, these social networking sites are included in our day to day life. People use these sites to keep in touch with each other and the world. As a prominent fixture of our lives, social networking has a great influence over our opinions, decisions, and perspectives. Out of all its users, teenagers are the most susceptible to social networking’s influence; it can lead them to living an ethically right life that fosters learning and goodwill, or an ethically wrong life that encourages addictions and bad behavior.
This is how author Roger Scruton describes the effects of social media on relationships. While young people thirst for validation and acceptance by others, the way in which they receive these things does not seem to matter as much. Instead of one having their personal opinions heard by those closest to them, many broadcast their beliefs to their social media followers without thinking twice. They do not expect a special response from a particular person or for a conversation to come of the comment; in most cases a like, favorite, or retweet will do. It is impossible for meaningful conversation to come from status updates, short text messages or 140 character tweets. For those living in previous generations, letters and phone calls were the only ways one could communicate with one loved ones. While today’s methods allow us the instant gratification that we have come love, significant communication can be lost among a sea of “OMGs” and “LOLs.” When our parents and grandparents liked someone, they had to build up the confidence to go up to them and outright tell them. Today’s young people count on winking or kissing face Emoji to sufficiently get their point across. As a result of social media, young people are loosing their ability to communicate effectively with others when they are in person. It is time to take away the keyboard and computer screen and get back to the basics of human
Digital communication is impairing young users from having real life conversations. For example, in the article “Teens Have A Smart Reason For Abandoning Facebook And Twitter,” the author, Felicity Duncan, reports “If college students spend most of their media time on group text and
Just as anything else, social networks were not born in a day, it slowly developed into what is known in today’s society. In the 70’s, Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) and Usernets were prime communication. BBS is considered the first site that allowed internet users to interact with each other. However, users would have to use a dial-up connection and only one at a time could access the BBS. While Usernets were slightly different. This was a system that allowed users to post articles to newsgroups. Into the 80’s Online Services were created, such as CompuServe, Prodigy and the well-known AOL. These sites simply made the internet “universally accessible in the United States.” Following online services in the late 80’s came Instant Messaging and Chat systems such as Internet Relay Chat, which allowed for sharing links and files. ICQ was also booming around this time, its use was for instant messaging and was “partly” responsible for avatars, emoticons and abbreviations such as LOL and BRB. In 1997 the “first modern social network” Six Degrees was created. This site allowed users to build profiles, and become “friends” with other users. Following Six Degrees were sites such as; BlackPlanet, LiveJournal. World of Warcraft, Friendster, Hi5, LinkedIn, Myspace, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Ins...
One point addressed throughout each article was how technology has affected society socially. Technology has contributed to society’s lack of social skills, social interaction, and has allowed many of us to become antisocial individuals. According to Sherry Turkle, psychologist and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology, the lack of these social abilities has contributed to the absence of emotional maturation in individuals of today’s society. Turkle stated, “Very quickly for teenagers [it became] [that] they prefer to text than talk because talking for them involves too much information, too much tension, too much awkwardness. They like the idea of a communication medium in which there does not need to be awkwardness.” (Turkle). I know this is true among teenagers in our society. I, like many of my other peers would prefer to send a text message before calling someone any day. I believe this is because we have become so reliant on text messaging that we no longer know how to have a decent intellectual conversation. Turkle says this occurs because “talking involves too much information, texting is a lot quicker, and it is very easy to stop before you are rejected.”
“Teens That Use Facebook Are 5 Times More Likely to Smoke, 3 Times More Likely to Drink and Twice as Likely to Use Marijuana." CHOOSE HELP. N.p., 24 Aug. 2011. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.
There has been controversy as to whether parents should limit the use of social media by teenagers. Teenagers feel that there is no need to limit the use of their social media networking, but on the other hand, parents should feel the need to limit their use and also keep track of their teen’s social networking. Social media allows students to be connected with their peers, teens who post positive status are more likely to be involved in extracurricular activities, and for many teens putting up “selfies” is a self confidence boost; however, too much social media can affect students GPA in school, cyber bullying can affect social health. Social media networks can give out personal information. Social media sites such as Facebook are one of the most popular social media sites that has 700,000-750,000 members joining each day.
“We barely have time to pause and reflect these days on how far communicating through technology has progressed. Without even taking a deep breath, we’ve transitioned from email to chat to blogs to social networks and more recently to twitter” (Alan 2007). Communicating with technology has changed in many different ways. We usually “get in touch” with people through technology rather than speaking with them face to face. The most popular way people discuss things, with another individual, is through our phones. Phones have been around way before I was born in 1996, but throughout the years, they have developed a phone called a “smart phone”. The smart phone has all kinds of new things that we can use to socialize with our peers. On these new phones, we can connect with our friends or family on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Technology has also developed Skype, a place you can talk with people on the computer with instant voice and video for hours. The new communication changes have changed drastically from the new advances made in technology through our smart phones, social networking sites, and Skype.
The rapid growth of technology in our society has become more dominant than it was in the 17th and 18th century. Today, technology is used for almost everything in our day to day lives. But the most common usage of technology is for communication and industrialization. However, every good thing has its disadvantage if it is over used, and since technology has become very dominant, it is used by both young and older people but more predominant among the youth of the today. Even more, technology has brought about social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, my space, piazza.com, instagram, tango, and last but not the least texting. According to socialnetworking.procon.org, “47% of American adults used social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Classmates.com in 2011, up from 26% in 2008. [26] on social media sites like these, users may develop biographical profiles, communicate with friends and strangers, do research, and share thoughts, photos, music, links, and more” (procon.org. 1). Although these sites help many Americans to connect with their family and friends, have we really thought about how these sites are discouraging some students to spend less time with their books, how young adults are losing their marriages, the indecent behavior it is promoting, and how it has escalated texting and driving in our society? Obviously not!
Carroll, J.A. & Kirkpatrick, R.L. (2011). Impact of social media on adolescent behavioral health. Oakland, CA: California Adolescent Health Collaborative.
As in real life, teenagers are very shy of what is coming out of their mouth, but in social media, it’s the opposite, “Social media is preventing us from standing up for ourselves the way we should be” (Thaiatizickas). Facebook is a convenient way to contact a long distance relative or friends, but teenagers are depending on it too much that make them lacked face to face communication. Social media such as Facebook limits the face to face interaction between humankind. Technology has a huge impact on human life and some may take them as an advantage and disadvantage. Many believed that the digital world is their real life and they can meet and talk to whoever they want through messenger and video calls. Teenagers often say the things that they wanted to say through social media, “they are sending messages and content that they would never share at school, often using language that they would never say to someone’s face, a language that, if used with classmates at school, would lead to disciplinary action” (journal by Steiner-Adair). Compare to the previous generations, the younger generations have the effects on social networking that cause them to grow up differently. Social media are now destroying teenagers’ social skills as well as the future
In the article “Negative Effects of Social Media” Ashlie Brooke Kincel states, “people begin focusing so much of their time on their relationships on social media networks that [it has] become difficult to distinguish between our real life relationships,” meaning that those who put more effort into communicating electronically can eventually be seen as neglecting their “real” relationship with someone close and it can one day become awkward or be as emotional connected as it once was. This can happen because writing through social media apps lacks body language, facial expressions, tonality and even physical contact, preventing a healthy and normal conversation. When using social media apps, people use fewer words to communicate because it is fast and it gets straight to the point. In the 2013 issue of newspaper magazine Social Work Today, the article “Social Media and Interpersonal Communication,” by Maura Keller states, “our interactions on social media tend to be weak ties—that is, we don’t feel as personally connected to the people at the other end of our communication as we do when we’re face-to-face.” Here, Keller tries to explain how communicating through social media apps does not carry the same meaning of building a social relationship as talking to someone physically because a strong connection between the people is not being made. Therefore, social media is causing an antisocial epidemic amongst the younger and older generations who tend to constantly use and rely on social media apps as a form of daily communication with family and