Evolution of Technology: Impact on Social Well-being

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As technology continuously evolves and integrates with our lives, its impact inevitably attracts the attention of people ranging from researchers to parents, and conservative elderlies to adolescents. When chatrooms and other game based chat mediums were popularized in the early 1990s, research papers, with massive empirical data, that suggested strong negative correlations between CMC and social well-being flooded academia. However, more recent studies have proved otherwise. Communication researchers Valkenburg and Peter, explore this change in data in their 2009 publication. Their paper first explores the possible aspect of CMC that might have given rise to unhealthy social life in the 90s (for example, lack of internet connectivity could …show more content…

In this specific example, people who discussed ethical issues anonymously showed more participation and and had higher persuation rates. Communication that is completely anonymous is often hard to analyze as it is naturally unpredictable, nonetheless there are some recurring characteristics. Often impression management is used at more liberty in these cases than communication where there is little or no anonymity. The ethical issues related with impression management, for example lying, are not as rigorously evaluated when there is the cover of anonymity. The negative outcomes of this characteristic include Catfishing and other forms of manipulation. On the other hand, this anonymity also makes it possible for people to engage in conversations without too many filters (for example, societal and cultural norms and political correctness). The impact of online anonymity on the ethics of impression management might stay in question, but it’s impact on self-disclosure in such environments is undeniable. Another characteristic of this communication environment is how it impacts the process of interpersonal relationship development-- it does not linearly follow the Interpersonal Developmental Model. Most relationships that form through this medium seem to be rapid during the earlier and final stages, and dwell on the middle stages. People bond quicker when they are communication anonymously when there are no known risks (Cacioppo, 110). They also destroy their relationship relatively quickly. This seems to suggest the process is generally rushed and mostly interested in the core emotional moments of the process, both the negative and positive emotions. Although anonymous computer mediated communication has significant differences from traditional, face-to-face communication and even that of non-anonymous CMC, it still has some

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