The Impact of Technology on Interpersonal Communication: Challenges and Threats Faced by Kids
In her journalistic investigation “Face Time vs. Screen time: The Technological Impact on Communication” Chandra Johnson claims that nowadays kids overusing gadgets experience significant problems with interpersonal communication, such as failure in being emphatic towards others, lack of management of their own emotions, difficulties in building lasting and sufficient relationships as well as the risk of misunderstanding with older generations.
Nowadays social networks are taking a big part in the teenagers’ social life. They use Facebook and Twitter and many other networks all the time to communicate with their peers. They are using network publics a lot. Teens consider social networks cool places and it is a widespread claim that you are no one when you are not using a certain network (Boyd). Virtual life became very important for teens self-actualization, social living, and status. Dahan Boyd interviewed a teenage girl after a football game and she told, that she wasn’t thinking about Facebook during the game, but after the match was over she posted photos from the event and continued talking with her friends about it (Boyd) . So, it may be seen that teens are using social networks as a place where they can discuss and longer emotions from certain event. This trend of constant using of social networks is disturbing parents and psychologists who are trying to forecast the sequences of such behavior. Of course, it may be said that fears of the new technologies always took place when something new was appearing and spreading in society, even the sewing machines invention faced the wave of public protests (Boyd). But there are strong reasons to aware the impact of constant online living on people’s communication skills.
Kids who overuse gadgets experience significant problems with interpersonal communication. Social networks in some way widen teens’ opportunities of communication. They have an extra space for gathering together and sometimes it solve the problem of physical space needed (Boyd). They also are able to communicate with the people they could hardly talk face-to-face, making friends with people from other countries of cities. But there is a suggestion, that permanent texting may cause problems with understanding emotions of others and kids may be less empathic and sympathetic. Chandra Johnson insists that spending more time with their devices than on face-to-face communication leads to degradation of verbal and emotive skills and also produces a lack of emotive response in everyday life because emojis cannot replace the real hug and so on. In her essay, Johnson dwells on the idea that by “engaging with a screen than with other kids or adults can struggle to understand emotion” because augmented interaction with the screen rather than with real life diminishes the role of affection and attachment (Johnson). Of course, exploring the world and learning to understand other people by their body language, facial expressions, and voice intonations in a direct talk is priceless, especially for teens while they are just starting forming their …
