Feb 26 2009
Is technology making us impersonal?
Look at the world around us. I’m sure the room you’re sitting in is lit up with lights and the computer you are using is no older than you. Our world is changing right before our eyes. Isn’t that amazing? If Ben Franklin (the man who went out during a lightning storm with the kite) saw our world today, don’t you think he wouldn’t be able to believe his eyes? Technology has made it easier for us to communicate with people all
around the world. It only takes a few a seconds to connect a call with someone on the other side of the earth! Now it easy, fast, and convenient to stay in touch with our friends and loved ones. ABC News has a weekly update on the top 10 technologies that will change the world with two different communication devices on the top 10.
Scott Kirsner of Fast Company says,
It’s hard to believe in advances that are poised to change the world when everyone’s just trying to survive.
But is change always good? I was watching a video on TED that shows us how much technology has even changed the most simplest things in our lives, like writing. From this video it reminded me how often we use informal/slang language to convey our emotions. Nowadays we chat
online and sometimes we never even spell out a full word. Our writing has become more and more impersonal. How often do you send a letter to someone? You may ask, what is the point, why not just send an email? But the actual hand written letter can make it so much more heartfelt.
Cell phones have made things that seem impossible, possible. We can talk to people without ever having to say a word; texting has allowed millions of friendships to form but on an impersonal level. 
Many of the friendships that we form today through texting are artificial. When we text, we can put a mask on because the other person doesn’t see our facial expression. How much expression can we really show in a simple text message? We could be crying our eyes out but a simple =) can cause the other person to think we’re fine. Because of the cell phone, it seems like no one ever needs to talk face to face anymore. So the very technology that was meant to bring us closer together is in fact driving us apart.
Does that mean that all communication technology is driving us further apart? No of course not! It still allows us to stay in contact with people we can’t see face to face. But I think that next time you’re about to whip our your cellphone to call someone, think again! Wouldn’t it be better to talk to them face to face instead?
4 responses so far
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This is an extremely interesting article, and it definitely raises a number of valid concerns. While I agree with you that technology opens new possibilities every day. Things that would have been unforeseeable even ten years ago, such as instantly communicating across the world for free, are now easily accomplished: just type up an email and send it.
These technological developments may surely been perceived as massive improvements in many ways. For example, friends and families at opposite ends of the world can now keep in touch easier than ever. International companies and organizations can now function more efficiently than ever by having their entire workforce working together. This also applies to scientists, who can now instantly send out their work to be reviewed and improved by peers. The CERN’s new Large Hadron Collider, for example, is the product of years of international scientific collaboration.
The development of technology is closely related to that of globalization. Indeed, globalization could be viewed both as a product and an origin of globalization. The increasingly global communications lead to increasingly global ideas, concepts and products. This, in turn contributes to the development of even more global communication—it’s like a vicious cycle.
Even today, if you travel around various countries, you may notice that the Toyota taxi you took to the airport in Paris, France may be essentially identical to the one that took you from the airport to your hotel in Dubai. Similarly, whether you are in China, the United States or the United Kingdom, people are using the same computers, the same iPods, the same telephones, etc.
Do technology and a global culture have their shortcomings? You bet! In your post, you talked about how text messaging removes the personal feel from communication. There are many other cultural impacts as well. With the development of instant, global communication came the need for a global language. So far, English has successfully become the global language, mostly due to a large portion of the world’s trade being made by companies based in English-speaking countries.
Henry Hitchings, a New York Times contributor, discussed the impact of the growing global culture on languages. One large impact of the predominance of a few languages (mainly English, Chinese and Spanish these days) over all others is the potential disappearance of smaller, more local languages, and along with them, local cultures.
Just as languages, cultures, technology and concepts are becoming increasingly global, so are the human people. As traveling around the world and living abroad become easier and easier, ethnical barriers become less and less significant as inter-ethnic marriage becomes increasingly common. I, myself, am the product of an American father and a Taiwanese mother. Scientists such as Stuart Pimm, a professor at Duke University, believes that this will eventually result in the homogenization of the genotypes and phenotypes: humans will all be more physically and genetically similar.
This also has an effect on science. Spencer Wells, the person who made the Journey of Man video we saw in TOK, relied on genetic diversity to do his research. Without that diversity of genetic patterns around the world, it would have been impossible for him to retrace the evolution of mankind around the world.
While increasingly global communications, business and culture develop, we need to be wary of the danger of losing more traditional, local elements such as culture and language, which would be impossible to reproduce or retrieve in the future… things that we may very well regret losing in hindsight.
were the words sent by Samuel Morse on May 24, 1844 as the world’s first telegraph message. The successful transmission of this message was a revolutionary step in telecommunication. However, the person who selected the message, Annie Ellsworth, deserves even greater praise for her amazing foresight as to both the joy and trouble that technology in communication will bring us in the upcoming years.
Today, in retrospection, people are beginning to consider whether technology has actually benefited us, or simply push us further apart. When I read the title of your post, I immediately clicked with the idea; in fact, I know a friend who has intentionally cut himself off of ways of communicating through technology such as social networks, instant messaging services and even his personal cell phone in order to try and better experience closer modes of communication.
I admire him for having done something like that, which I can never bring myself to do. However, I also find it ironic that technology has garnered such an opinion, considering that when it was first developed towards communication, it aimed to do the exact opposite.
When Samuel Morse developed his Morse Code, when Alexander Graham Bell created his “electrical speech machine”, and when the great internet was developed out of small military networks, they were recognized as inventions that would bring the world closer.
Without the trans-pacific underground cables, how would we communicate with friends and family on the other side of the world? Without the television, how would artists, actors and musicians present artistic creations to billions of others? Without the internet, how would our discussions on this blog be posted for the world to see?
We may acknowledge these benefits, but be still left to question the matter, just as you have. Can the standardized letters in a font, each looking exactly like the other, convey the same emotion we attach to our hand written notes? Can the simplified languages deliver the same dedications as we used to in the carefully structured letters? Can our words still be as heartfelt when they are delivered past great distances through only electromagnetic pulses?
And I try to answer these with more questions. Does the midnight call from a lover or family member across many borders and obstacles not create the same sense of love and caring as a letter that had spent months floating across the pacific? Is the simplification of language actually so different to its natural evolvement, which we have observed since the beginning of recorded history? Is the typed “=)” really any less personal than the smiles people are forced to fake in face-to-face conversations to cover up their true emotions?
There are no answers to these questions, for the arguments will continue as technology expands and takes an even greater role in our everyday lives. And really, after 124 years, 9 months and 14 days, we are still asking the same question:
Check out the blog thread My Digital Life from the Year 2 TOK class.
Stats show that 1 out of 5 couples in the USA now meet online. We know that long lost friends have been reunited on Facebook. Instead of calling a place on our phones we now call a person.
It is an interesting dilemma and I think it depends on how the tool is used. If you are texting the person across the room…that is being impersonal. If you are texting a person half way around the world just to say I’m thinking of you….that’s personal.
I find it fascinating that when the personal computer came out people were scared that you would be able to hide in your room and become a hermit to the world. That did exist before the Internet and satellites. Today technology is about communication and opening up lines of communication where ever possible. Whether it’s your refrigerator talking with your local store your you Skyping your grandparents halfway around the world. Technology…in this day in age is about communication and fostering that where ever possible. Great thinking and great comments as well. I believe it is the evaluation of man that has brought us to this point from cave drawings…but then again….I find it fun and easy to communicate in this way.