Communication Technology Invasion

The internet has transformed the way that young people interact with each other, access information and even spend their leisure time. More than ever before, young people are engaging with the internet with its vast potential to facilitate communication and learning. However, it is important to recognize that being online also has potential drawbacks and this is especially true for young people. This article explores the advantages and disadvantages of the internet for young people and how parents, teachers and caregivers can help mitigate risks and support young people in making the most of its potential benefits.

Advantages

One of the key advantages of the internet for young people is the ability to access an unprecedented wealth of information at the touch of a button. The internet enables young people to widen their horizons through exposure to a variety of resources that would not normally be available to them in their everyday life. From online learning resources to digital libraries and entertainment websites, the internet is a learning tool that can be invaluable in helping young people develop skills and prepare for adulthood.

The internet also facilitates communication and helps young people to form and sustain connections with a variety of other young people from different backgrounds and cultures. This type of interaction can help young people to express themselves more confidently and to explore different perspectives and opinions. Additionally, the internet can provide access to resources, advice and guidance that could help young people to look after their mental and physical health.

Disadvantages

Despite these advantages, it is important to recognize that the internet also has potential drawbacks. The prevalence of cyberbullying and anti-social behavior can be deeply damaging to young people’s self-esteem, as well as leading to feelings of isolation and depression. Predators can also use the internet to lure young people into dangerous situations, while the availability of potentially violent or adult content can be distressing or even harmful to young people. Therefore, it is important for young people to be aware of the risks associated with the internet and be vigilant about online safety.

In addition to these risks, it is also important to be aware that young people can become overly reliant on the internet and find it difficult to switch off from their digital lives and engage in more traditional activities. This could potentially have a disruptive effect on their social, physical and mental welfare.

Advice for Parents, Teachers and Caregivers

The key to ensuring that young people make the most of the potential benefits of the internet while minimizing potential risks is to ensure responsible and good-quality guidance. Parents, teachers and caregivers should be aware of the activities that young people engage in online and ensure that they understand the importance of online safety, including being wary of sharing personal and financial information and avoiding interaction with strangers. It is also important to ensure that young people understand the impact of inappropriate online behavior and know that it is wrong and can have serious repercussions.

Parents, teachers and caregivers should also be aware of the amount of time that young people are spending online and encourage them to make time for other activities that could benefit their physical and mental health. This could include outdoor activities, family dinners, engaging in hobbies or reading books.

In summary, it is clear that the internet presents potential advantages and disadvantages to young people. Educating young people to understand the risks and make the most of the potential benefits is paramount to helping them use the internet responsibly and safely, and it is vital that parents, teachers and caregivers provide good-quality guidance to support them in this task.

More and more, we are interacting with technology to accomplish tasks instead of people. Technology takes our money and pumps gas into our cars, technology allows us to shop from home instead of with other shoppers, and technology is even the middle man between ourselves and other people most of the time, via computers and cell phones. This trend is hampering our ability to connect with one another and the consequences are more serious than one might believe. There are actually people falling in love with entirely digital personas and craving intimate relationships with them. If this does not strike you as disconcerting, your thinking is unhealthy.

This trend is appearing on many levels of society. Jobs that used to be for people are being replaced by jobs for machines and electronics. The ethic of efficiency in work is being valued over the ethic of a balanced society where all members have work to sustain themselves with. This is a sign of an anti-social society that could be going down a dangerous path of anti-humanism. This cultural shift is a sign of the times and should have people very concerned for the future.

Secondly, our social skills that enable us to connect with other humans deteriorate when we interact with machines instead of people. Socializing is an art form that requires a fair amount of practice. It is highly dependent on all people who are part of an exchange being aware that the other’s perspectives are as valid as theirs. It requires a steady give and take of offering input and receiving input. These are things we cannot learn from technology, only from interacting with other humans and seeking relationships with them.

The cuts that have been made to human interaction for the sake of communication technology are creating a culture of narcissism and sociopathic tendencies. People are beginning to prefer relationships with their technology over relationships with one another. We are in danger of devaluing human life and losing our human identity if this trend persists.

Communication technology is necessary in the world we live in, but recent trends would indicate that we are taking our dependency on communication technology to an unhealthy extreme. People are becoming addicted to their communication technology, they are becoming unable to function without it, and they are forgetting that communication technology is not sustainable enough to depend on at the level we are depending on it. It is important that we realize this as a culture before it is too late.

Addiction to communication technology is a real thing. Many people scoff at this idea, but brain studies have shown that the brain reacts toward a technology addiction the same way it reacts to any other type of addiction. The chemical dopamine is produced and the brain forms neural pathways around the pleasure reaction so that it can achieve the same effect at other times. Technology addiction is incredibly prevalent in our lives but it is a recent, unstudied phenomenon that is not socially embraced yet. Awareness of this addiction problem needs to increase so that we can avoid its destruction.

Being unable to function without communication technology is bad for people on many levels. Becoming too accustomed to it to the point of being lost and dysfunctional without it is an unhealthy state to be in. Humanity evolved without communication technology, and it is in its most natural state when it is not dependent on something recent and unnatural in order to get through the day.

In addition, communications technology is more sustainable than oil dependent technology but it still leaves a considerable carbon footprint on the planet through its energy usage. No one should be dependent on a technology that is unsustainable and harms the planet. Communications technology has a long way to go before it is an ethical use of energy.

And lastly, being overly dependent on any kind of technology makes people spend too much time on their relationships with machines and not enough time on their relationships with people.

Communications technology is not an inherently bad thing. Like all things that humans want to overuse, it is only bad when we cannot exercise a suitable level of restraint over it. Communications technology has the potential to infiltrate society on a much deeper level than it already has, which would mean destructive consequences. It is very important that awareness be brought to the matter of limiting our interaction with our communication technology so that it does not collectively damage us.

• If communications technology continues to grow rampantly and replace in person human interaction, we face the possibility of a fragmented society, fraught with broken relationships. We evolved as a species to thrive on personal interactions with other people. Our dependence on phones and computers has contributed to the de-evolution of our social abilities. Instead of interacting with one another in person, we interact with keyboards and screens, and we are becoming disconnected from one another.
• There is the potential (albeit somewhat science fiction) hazard of artificial intelligence conflicts and ethics in our future, which would drastically alter our relationship with communications technology. This possibility is on the distant horizon, but it would entail the event when we create technology that is so intelligent that it develops a consciousness. Knowing how to handle this type of technology will either influence us to be more dependent on our communications devices, or it may force us to discard them if the AI is hostile.
• Increased interaction with communications technology certainly has the potential to effect our physical health. Our advancements in this area are relatively very new. We have no idea what the long term effects of being exposed to this many wireless signals and radio waves does to our physical bodies. It could be cancer causing, or increase the likelihood of a number of other diseases.
• A lesser quality of life in general is also a very real possibility if we do not learn to limit our use of communications technology. Our interactions with the natural world are a very important component of who we are as individuals and as a global society. If this element is replaced by our interactions with communications technology, a part of us will be lost.

Our present reality is one filled with a great deal of communication technology. Everywhere we turn, we see people on cell phones, personal computers and a range of other media and communication devices. People start and end their days on these devices, referring to them through out the day for information, communication and entertainment. Our labor force, economy, scientific studies and national security measures are all tied to communications devices now, and we would be rendered helpless if we were unable to access them. This seems like a philosophically unsound existence, but it is indeed the state of things.

Communication technology has become invasive. This is a widespread complaint about phones, computers and other communications devices. It is overly present at every occasion. Whether it is the workplace, movie theater, dinner table or birthday party, communications devices are present, much to the demise of good social skills. This recent phenomenon is met with a great deal of resentment, both from generations that are unaccustomed to it and younger generations who were raised to limit their use of communications devices. There are certainly occasions that call for leaving phones and tablets at home, or at least out of sight.

Communications technology has also been found to have addictive properties, which is never good for anyone’s mental or physical health. Addiction is defined as anything that a person focuses on to the extent of losing control of the rest of their life. Having an addiction to something means that you will neglect everything else in order to focus on the addiction. This epitomizes what is happening with cell phones and computers. People would rather be on their phones than drive safely, watch where they are walking or socialize with the person right in front of them. They would rather be on computers than work, leave the house or exercise. We have a very serious problem of addiction to communications devices in our culture.

The question is, are communications devices a necessary evil? Are we better off with them or without them? They have certainly done a lot to connect us to friends and relatives who are far away. But have they separated us from and made us take for granted the people directly in front of us?

Many of us can still remember what life was like prior to the communication technology influx of the 1990’s. Land line telephones were the only communication technology that people personally possessed. All other communication was done in person or through the postal service. Technology on the whole was, of course, much more minimal several decades ago. There are mixed feelings about what it has done to us as a global society to leave behind these more simple times. It is the opinion of many people that the abundant presence of communication technology in our present time has made us more anxious, disconnected and unhealthy.

Before communication technology went digital and pagers, cell phones and personal computers emerged, there were different ways of approaching life. Presently, one of our most universal excuses for always having our cell phones on us is for the event of emergencies. This necessity did not apply several decades ago. In the past, people lived with the understanding that if they stayed close to home, they would remain in closer touch with their friends and family. If they moved away, their contact would be limited. This was simply part of the human condition and people did not fret over it.

Many would also argue that, in this time, people were more connected to the world rather than media representations of it. Presently, our communications and media devices inform a great deal of our realities. In fact, so much of our reality is derived from the media that we are no longer basing our personal realities on personal experiences as much as we are basing them on what the media exposes us to. This is dangerous for our psyches. We are best suited to our environment when we interact with it and learn from it directly rather than through a secondhand account.

In a nutshell, many people believe that it was simpler and healthier to live with less communication technology than we have today. They feel that it creates a sense of dependence that we did not used to have, not only in the form of separation anxiety from the people in our lives, but also from the separation anxiety we have developed for information and technology itself.

We are no longer capable of picturing our lives without phones and computers. Yet so many of us can remember a time when we happily got by without them. The digital age that began at the turn of the millennium brought with it incredible change to our lives and the way we interact with the world around us. Some changes have been for the better, like the ability to keep in better touch with people who are a long ways away, but some changes have had a negative impact, arguably none more so than the pervasiveness of communication technologies.

Digital and satellite communications were created with the intention of making communication and information more readily available. Social media sites and social phone applications are written to connect people. However, disconnect has been observed more strongly in people since the immersion of the digital age. People are known to spend more time on Facebook than they do actually socializing in person. Car accidents are caused by people looking at their cell phones instead of paying attention to other members of society who are driving. It can be argued that communication technology is actually driving us further apart than it is bringing us together.

Some communication technology intrusions are becoming very personal. When someone has their face in a phone while someone else is trying to have a serious conversation with them, or while people are dining out together, it can come off as very rude and disrespectful. A large number of people have developed this problem, which is identified as a bad habit in some situations and an addiction in others. Phones and computers have done a lot to benefit the world, but they are misused as well and humanity is paying the price. It is very important that we come together to eradicate this problem.

People are more than capable of breaking bad habits, and communication technology addiction is worthy of addiction rehabilitation, treatment, counseling or whatever effort it takes to end this destructive behavior. Addiction to communication technology damages relationships, reduces quality of life and can even jeopardize people’s safety.