Technology and Social Interaction

I feel like technology influences social interaction in a developmental way. Social interaction by definition would be interaction in society among the people in it. Traditionally one views it as face to face interaction but technically, couldn’t internet interaction be considered as social interaction, just via online mediums? Most people feel like online interaction in general is not that good of an experience as seeing someone face to face and interacting with them but I think its up to you to make it as personal as you want. I feel like the spread of technology has had a positive impact on my everyday face to face interaction because it provides a way for me to get to have some face to face interaction. Everyone had busy schedules and sometimes the only way to stay in touch with someone is through technology. A quick “Let’s do lunch” text allows me to have lunch with a friend whereas if I didn’t have text messaging or a cell phone for that matter it would be difficult for me to get ahold of friends unless I walked over to wherever they may live and knock on their door and ask them if they want to eat. Maybe they aren’t in their room or even on campus so shooting them a text is a much faster and efficient way to see if they would want to join me for sushi Wednesday in Benson. I feel like its not just me but everyone else has benefitted from technological advances. In general people can get in contact with everyone more now a days than before thanks to the different ways of technological communication.

In regards to meeting people online via online dating sites, Craigslist, Facebook, online games, etc., I feel like that is really risky. I mean sure, they can be really nice people like you too but the reality is that not everyone is and it’s not worth the risk of meeting up with a stranger and get hurt. Maybe if you have a lot of online interaction like see if they have a lot of friends on Facebook who actually talk to them or if you even have mutual friends then yeah you can safely assume they would be okay to meet up with. I feel like connecting with others via online communities is a viable way of creating meaningful friendships because what you do online is just communicate, and that is one of the key things in any friendship, good communication. However, there should be a balance. You can be a great friend to many people online but if you don’t have any real friends like that you can meet up with and stuff, I feel like that would cause some psychological issues in the long run. Like who are you going to invite to your wedding? You’re not going to take a bunch of laptops and put them all on Skype and have them watch the wedding via webcam. You need physical face to face interaction to be a healthy functioning human being. On a random sidenote, in a study babies were given everything a baby needs except one baby was not touched often and the other experienced a lot of human touch. Developmentally the baby that was touched more often was better off in the long run. It just goes to show that even as babies we need human face to face interaction.

I feel like having more “real” spaces/public spheres for people to connect on can benefit the creation of new ideas that can benefit society, but eventually there should be some face to face interaction. Maybe even a “real” space with webcaming.

Social Networking and Privacy

I don’t really feel like it’s fair to say that I use social networking a lot because I only use one thing in particular: Facebook. I don’t have a Twitter, never really found it interesting. Or a FourSquare, which I never heard of until I took this class. But as for Facebook, I definitely check it more than daily. Back when I use to have a Blackberry I wouldn’t need to check it because the updates would come directly to my phone. New Comment, New Friend Request, New Message, New Poke, etc. But now that I’m back to a boring old Metro PCS phone, I’m definitely on the actual Facebook website/app more often. Not only can I check it from my phone’s rather slow internet, but I can check it from the iTouch. So no matter where I am, Facebook is only a few clicks away. If I’m on my way to class I can just whip out my iTouch and check it while I walk (or speed run because I’m almost always a little late) and see who commented my status or if the pictures from last night got put up.

I feel like the cultural move toward social networking, constant access and “loss of privacy” is a positive thing. I put “loss of privacy” because that is completely up to the user. If you decide to let the world know how you feel in every little status update (and there are people who do that, rant about their whooooole day in their status) or by putting your address on your Facebook then that’s your business. Loss of privacy to me is an issue that is up to the user. You don’t have to put anything up there and when you do, its not privacy loss as much as your own free will to share something about yourself. Just be smart when you do that, because there are creepers out there who will take note of those tiny details you forget you have on there. I personally do not worry about my privacy because I know what I put out there and I’m fine with it, but others are not so aware.

With “loss of privacy” aside, the move to constant access to social networking is a positive on the whole, given that people will control themselves with it. Its so much faster to have notifications come straight to you on the go instead of sitting down and checking it the “old school way” and going onto an actual computer and typing in www.facebook.com. I feel like when you do it that way you get more sidetracked than if a notification comes to your phone saying “New Comment”, shows you the comment and allows you to reply. That way you really have no need to go to an actual computer and sit down and check it. It’s more time efficient really.

Some benefits between this entanglement of our personal lives and technology is more ease in getting support. For example, for my sorority we promote for events on facebook and invite all our Facebook friends to anything we may be hosting. Also it’s an easier and funner way to keep in touch with friends in different places. Like say you see a funny video on youtube, you can send it to them on Facebook. Or sometimes if you have a lot to say and you can’t talk on the phone, just write your friend a long message on Facebook. However, the drawbacks of doing something like this is that if its private and you share a long message with someone, they can copy and paste it to someone who you might not have wanted them to see. Or a status update could be taken the wrong way. Like once I put up a status about boys being dumb because one of my sorority sisters was having boy problems and what I told her seemed like a good quote so I made it my status. Suddenly people started messaging me asking me if me and my boyfriend were okay and even he got messages saying if we were okay from his friends that were friends with me on Facebook. It was funny how people all assumed it was directed to him when in reality it was just a statement. Oh social networking.