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.