By now, it doesn’t come as a shock anymore that the world is becoming more and more digital. However, the current pace of digitization is quite shocking, at least the pace of it. From AI chatbots all the way to dating apps, tech is the ultimate real-life upgrade, which is just a gift that keeps on giving.
We do all our shopping online now, build an entire business from scratch online, and spend most of our downtime online. We even make lifelong friends and lovers online. Since 2022, 66 percent of the global population has been active internet users.
Bringing us much closer to commodities, the internet is bound to become an increasingly bigger part of our lives. However, how can technology help improve social interaction skills? Technology is a fast-paced market.
Every pioneer is in a race for the first place on the podium. There are newer innovations that are piloted every single day, as a desperate attempt to sell what the masses want to buy: tools that can make our daily lives much easier.
Since older generations embrace the idea of using technology in the face of the unknown (a great example was the pandemic), we move increasingly faster towards a reality in which social interaction is mainly digital.
However, it is worth considering this outcome from both perspectives and asking ourselves if it would imply a positive or a negative change, if not both. After all, new communication technologies are known to strengthen or even weaken human interaction. Here’s the ugly truth behind technology’s impact on social interaction.
Positive effects
The overall involvement of technology in face-to-face communication is somehow limited because of the absence of non-verbal cues. But these days, people can easily initiate a conversation and communicate without any major issues.
Social media and video chatting platforms offer just the right environment to socialize. This is even more helpful for individuals who are prone to social anxiety and nervousness in face-to-face communication since these types of communication platforms serve as an efficient tool for voicing out their thoughts effectively.
As time went by, this reduced their nervousness and increased their confidence in becoming part of groups. Moreover, studies prove that people are more open to speaking their minds over a text rather than in person.
Besides, feedback and opinions can be bright and easily acknowledged via texts. That’s exactly why people are much more at ease when they share their thoughts and opinions via electronic devices.
Enhanced communication. connectivity
The huge and rapid growth of various communication methods, whether it’s e-mail, chat, forums, word processing, or texting, has undeniably led to the erosion of our capacity to communicate using the spoken word.
This fact is now commonly known and accepted. Moreover, it is supported by plenty of powerful statistics. It is also worth mentioning that these days, phone calls, especially among teenagers, are now at their lowest ever level since we have text messages and social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter taking an interesting precedent for the daily exchange of thoughts and ideas.
But while there is still plenty of concern in the popular press that people become less social because of all this online communication, there are many reasons to believe that we are witnessing a huge increase in different areas of communication that before wouldn’t have been possible without technological developments, like social networking sites.
Access to information and knowledge sharing
Nowadays, every single kind of information is made and stored in digital form. With digital storage capacity taking in more and more space, and processors becoming faster every year, gathering information is much easier, but also more common.
In this society, gathering information has always been extremely important, since knowledge is often the secret to success. The ability to share knowledge and ideas using technology also increased the overall quality and quantity of the knowledge exchanged.
Negative effects on social interactions
The huge change in human behavior can have quite a detrimental effect with continued use. With less time spent interacting, socializing, and participating in real-life social activities, people can become increasingly more anxious, depressed, and even isolated.
Not only is face-to-face interaction mandatory, but it is also a crucial part of current social activities, business, and even the political process. Even more, as all these forms of communication and rapid technology-based ways become more and more prevalent, plenty of factors such as tone, body language, and even word choice are now an invaluable part of communication.
Since people spend more time in front of technologies, they also spend less time engaging in real-life activities, and they are subjected to them less, consequently putting at risk those interactions.
Decreased face-to-face interaction
More and more people use technology to communicate, and face-to-face interactions have automatically decreased. Before, friends would have spent hours together playing outside, exchanging different stories, and spending quality time with each other.
Nowadays, considering the rise of mobile technology, especially mobile phones, human interactions are largely neglected. In a very modern world, a number of teenagers and young adults would rather have phone conversations or messages than hang out with a dear one. Because of this, there has been a huge decline in social skills.
More (online) bullying
Technology also normalized cyberbullying, and children are the most vulnerable to online harassment. Even if cyberbullying is quite a worry for many of them, it can also become a common challenge among adults as well.
In fact, according to the latest results from a YouGov poll conducted last year, it has been discovered that a quarter of adults experience cyberbullying. Considering such a disheartening rise in suicide among victims of cyberbullying, it is quite clear that technology isn’t always a healthy source of social interaction.
Online deception
Catfishing is the practice of coming up with a fake online identity with the intent of manipulating, stalking, and abusing a specific victim. It has become a scarily common activity among many dating sites and social media platforms, and it is also the subject of a popular MTV reality TV show.
There’s a 2018 survey that showed how 9% of respondents declared that being catfished had deeply affected their mental health.
A platform for predators
Technology also came up with the ideal platform for online predators to pursue their victims. Since UK schools closed during the coronavirus lockdown, children who spend a lot of time on their devices were faced with a sudden drop in social interaction.
Even if there isn’t yet enough evidence to suggest the pandemic was at fault for this increase in predatory activity online, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children declared that their reports increased by 106% in the first months of the pandemic.
Here’s the ugly truth
Whether we decide to see it in a positive or negative light, or perhaps a mixture of the two, the truth is that technology has deeply impacted the way in which we communicate with each other. Even if it allows us to make rapid connections with people on the other side of the world, it also makes us lonelier and exposes us to different forms of harassment and manipulation.
However, since new technologies are continuously unveiled to the world, we are also expecting a series of cybersecurity regulations and other tech safety measures that will likely be put in place. They probably won’t protect everyone from the negative effects of technology since the responsibility is still on our shoulders to use the internet with much caution.
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