Does Technology bring us together In How Communications Technology
or tear us apart? Brings Generations Together Like Never
Before, Andreas Bernstrm, CEO of By: Tatiana K. Pino Rebtel, addresses the big impact of English 101 technology on families coming together, Professor: Cindy Casper since technology is giving us more options. He says We should probably cut this call Introduction short-its long distance, you know! in In modern days, unlike in the past 30 years, which he is affirming by example that families are spread all around the globe. before technology was around us, these This makes people have less contact with phone calls were expensive and not all their own family members. Using email and people could have afforded them at the time. chatting software to connect with family and However, nowadays we can place calls, friends who are far away geographically is have video chats, or face time with different cheaper and easier than calling or writing apps like Skype, WhatsApp, Fring etc., and letters. When we leave the "family" as we know, these apps are free, and we can situation, the Internet can also give download them on any device out there. businesses more opportunities than ever by Therefore, this will provide families with a approaching techniques to another unique way of keeping themselves together. individual in a better way with their devices, Bernstrm demonstrates that before this so that they can negotiate with people that technology existed, families would have they may never see. In situations like this, family board game night which brought technology brings people together. Many more interaction between relatives. social sites allow people to connect and However, he mentions about the classic communicate with their circle of friends board games such as Scrabble, Yahtzee more easily. Among these sites are and how they have already found a place on Facebook, Skype, and WhatsApp, though smartphones, tablets, or any device. This other message boards and networking sites proves that technology can do the same, and also achieve this. With these sites, people even more by allowing families to connect can share experiences, ask for advice, and in many ways that are fun for everyone. As stay in contact with people who have moved he said, medium is still the message. far away. Bernstrms recent report explains about the increase of the use of technology around us; Expert Options he indicates that instant messages sent by consumers will reach 41 billion per day in 2013, and this is more than doubling the output of SMS messages with 19.5 billion. Therefore, Bernstrm proves here that technology out there is giving us more options every time and that gets even better because we can download these services for free, and most of them offer many ways to avoid expensive charges. Similar to Bernstrms article, Monika. 200 million people with email accounts. Bschers article, Contemporary Nowadays, there are 3.2 billion. With this, Sociology is stressing the fact that mobile she is proving how the internet became so communications are affecting our society. popular and how fast it spread to her friends, She describes the following replacement of colleagues, and the world. Her article also co-present interaction and the effects on points out many situations in which the social cohesion, in which she views how technology can hurt us or help us, how people that connects through their devices social networking is a new way of into a mutual relationship through mobile interacting, or how people can feel closer to media tear apart the social cohesion in others without face-to-face interaction. She public areas. However, in these situations, quotes now that we are in touch. What people think that they are having does she mean by this? Well nowadays, by a interactions, or merging with society, but click of the mouse, we can connect to any they dont seem to know that they are part of the world or tell what our friends are showing no interest towards people nearby. doing by a post on Facebook, or Twitter, For example, in Bschers article, they while we are doing anything, as long as we examine the experiences of members of two are connected to the media. However, Hari Irish sports clubs, one with person-to-person gives us an example of pathos with her brief and the other one with SMS messages. The experience and how this can hurt us. One study shows SMS messages eliminate the friend committed suicide and Hari went to small talk that comes with a face-to-face her Facebook page, and noticed that many visit or telephone call. On the other hand, that knew the friend were leaving messages with SMS messages they interacted in a of love and loss. She addresses how she better way. Therefore, we can see that the found herself, reading the friends old other groups engage more with each other. messages in which she was trying to Another aspect Bscher touches on is the communicate all the pain and isolation she youth. She mentions networked lived in, but nobody noticed and all they did individualism, and she addresses that was leave her silly comments. With this, young people have shown that they create Hari is protesting that maybe if we come to strong bonds across distances and that be more conscious of what we do online, maybe this should be a good research maybe we could have stopped this situation, investigation. Finally, she mentions its or perhaps if this was a conversation in complicated because in this article the person, we would have noticed the trial she students had re-marked and proved that was in. She continues with cyberspace, mobile communications both bring us and she mentions William Gibson, who first together, and tear us apart. described cyberspace as consensual hallucination where we pretend that we are While Bscher seems to agree with the together, when in reality we are alone. For positive side of technology, In the article, her, it seemed true that night that she lost her The First Decade: Has the Internet Brought friend. Therefore, Hari is addressing Us Together or Driven Us Apart? Johann different points of view, and how the Hari addresses both asides of the issue. She internet gathers the good, the bad, all alike. shares a memory about how she joins the Another point of her article is how she club of noughties, and at the time there were proves the facts of the unending social Ethiopia or chat with them on iMessage or media in a harmful way. In a brief story, she Facebook. But, on the other hand, she tells us about how she is trying to write this addresses how in the United States, people article and meanwhile she receives 36 can be in a busy restaurant enjoying their emails, four texts, two phone calls, and drinks and appetizers; while they pull their seven instant messenger chat requests. She smartphone to Twitter feed or check said we live in a state of permanent partial Facebook. They dont talk to each other, attention, and she explains how we are instead they text, chat, or message and trying to focus on many tasks in the media therefore, she said the following and how harmful this can be for us as human Sometimes it seems like the use of beings. The logos in here will be the facts in technology could be pushing our research done at the Loughborough relationships with one another further apart. University, where recently it was found that Methods it takes 64 seconds for a person to recover I decided to conduct my own research into their focus after it is interrupted by an email. this controversy. I wanted to come up with So, if we check our emails every five different opinions and perspectives about minutes, we will lose 8.5 hours a week. my topic. So, I designed a survey that I In Liz Moss article, Is Technology distributed online via Facebook. The survey bringing Us Together or Pushing Us Farther contains 10 questions in total, both open and Apart? she addresses that technology is a closed questions. very important advance in our society. To let people speak for themselves, I created However, she gives us some ethos when she a list of questions for an open audience, mentions a brief story of herself when she meaning for everyone. I believe that if I got travels to Ethiopia. She explains how on her a diversity of people in my survey, this trip she rarely saw a cell phone or any would give me a better result in my electronic device with such advanced research. The survey was open for one week technology; she remembers clearly when she and I have collected a total of 25 responses. had to send emails to her family or friends Eighteen (72%) of participants were female, who were waiting for any news about her and seven (28%) were male. Adding more to trip, and that they never received them my research, nine (36%) reported being because they were slow and unreliable. She between the ages of 35 and 44, while one then explains how things really change over (4%) reported being between the ages of 55 time; she said that every time she goes to and 64 Ethiopia she notices that technology has changed and that Wifi is available in hotels Results and even restaurants. This gives the The survey suggests that technology is a Ethiopian people the opportunity to explore great tool, and that everyone can benefit more through the internet and in this way, from it. In the following question Overall, they expand their information. She says It how would you rate technology?, Eighteen seems like the expansion of technology (72%) of participants rated that technology could be bringing us together She really is Very Good, while there is not anyone has a point with her own experiences, like reporting that technology is negative, or bad. how she can regularly email her friends in For the average amount of time that people same technology is making humans lose the give to technology (see Figure 1 below). I ability to interact with one another in a face- asked in the past 7 days, roughly how many to-face manner. total hours have you spent using Internet? Conclusion Please DO NOT include time spent on email Part of the result of the survey conducted for or performing tasks related to your job. Ten this study supports what experts already (41.67 %) of participants reported spending know, how technology is changing some between 1 to 5 hours in the Internet. aspect in society, and that there are many benefits of this amazing technology. However, they know that there are some that cannot be of benefit for society. The collected information in this research shows that families, friends, and people in general can continue to take advantage of the many ways technology can bring us together but in some cases the disadvantage can tear us apart as well. The research seems to show that technology can make us better more than harm us.
Of the twenty-five total respondents, I
encountered a total of seventeen (68%) of people who reported that one group spent time downloading and listening to music, podcasts, internet radio; while the other group spent time in social networking. Discussion In a summary of this research, it showed that technology is bringing us, in some part, together. On the other hand, it can tear us apart as well. However, researchers report with facts that in this modern technology, around the world, one of the best ways to bring families, friends, or people in general together will be the internet and the multiple ways we can quickly make a call or video chat to keep contact with our love ones across the globe. Perhaps, they do mention the big threat in our society because the