On Technology and How It Is Destroying Human Interactions:
Wherever one looks, there will always be someone interacting with an electronic device. People nowadays are connected with the world, but (at the same time) they are disconnecting themselves from their community, lowering one-on-one interactions. Technology and its effects on how people interact is a field of study that recently caught my attention. While seeing my younger sister gathered with her closest friends, I realized that everybody was constantly checking their smartphones and all they talked about was related to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I believe that we have all experienced these episodes (sometimes even more frequently than we would like), and that is the reason I am expressing my concerns on where technology is leading our social interactions. As a member of the “digital generation”, I strongly consider that technology is destroying human’s one-on-one interactions and the social skills linked to them.
Reliance on technology has set our brains under a permanent state of alert and stress. The world as we know it requires us to be connected as much as possible – if not always –. In fact, people expect us to be connected at every moment, and some individuals actually get upset when a text is not replied within a short time frame. That constant activeness has made us stay in a never-ending state of alert. Gary Small (2008) has helped us define that state; he claims that the technology-driven world has created a condition of continuous partial attention or CPA (the terms continuous partial attention and CPA will be used interchangeably during this essay). He also emphasizes that when in a state of continuous partial attention we move from activity to activity looking for, and I quote, “every type of contact at any given moment”. In other words, continuous partial attention is a cry for attention, not only from the person jumping from e-mail to e-mail, but also from the person who sends them.
Moreover, the state of continuous partial attention affects both screenagers and nonscreenagers (according to de Encyclopedia of American Studies (2010), the term screenager is used in reference of the generation that was born with a personal computer in their homes). For example, a business person receives multiple texts while he/she is writing an e-mail about the next corporate meeting as he listens to music. With this CPA state affecting business people, a new door has opened for them: Technology allows them to take work with them wherever they are (including home), increasing the continuous partial attention state and deteriorating the amount of time, attention or quality of the interactions between family members. Moving forward to how CPA affects the younger group; a teenager is constantly checking her phone to see who is following her on Twitter as she video chats with her best friend, while they both do homework and watch the new Justin Bieber’s video on Youtube. The continuous partial attention condition is present in everyone who is “connected” to the technological revolution, making one-on-one interactions reduce greatly in terms of time and quality.
I have also noticed that, technology is a distraction in social gatherings. The constant arrival of information makes us check our cellphones more often that we should and this may lead to uncomfortable situations: such as being available when you do not want to be, or not being “available” to share with your friends because you are available online. On an interview to José Márquez, he was asked if he believed that technology had contribute to isolate people and shares a personal anecdote: One day he asked his two younger children what they wanted for dinner and, to his surprise, their answers came via Whatsapp (a mobile messaging application compatible with most smartphones, similar to Blackberry messenger). It is, the minute I come across these situations, when I fear for the future of human interactions; I fear we are forgetting how to interact with each other without a screen in front of us.
Others may say that technology aids in making life of students and business people more efficient, however, overexposure to technology can weaken the brain areas that control social interaction. According to Small (2008), technology is shifting the way our brains operate. Small claims that our brain is focusing on the technological skills and is leaving social skills behind (like finding the emotional background of a gesture). In addition, he affirms that a healthy brain needs a balance between non-human stimulation and personal interaction. In regards to continuous partial attention, Small declares that the brain sets itself in a sharp state of stress and, if this stress is lengthy, it can result in anxiety, tiredness, depression and bad temperedness (he defines this as Techno-brain burnout). Small concludes stating that “While the brains of today’s Digital Natives are wiring up for rapid-fire cyber searches, the neural circuits that control the more traditional learning method are neglected and gradually diminished. The pathway for human interaction and communication weakens as customary one-on-one people skills atrophy”.
With as much exposure to technology as we have nowadays, my main concern is how we can build the social aspect of our brain (with less intervention from computers) so that a healthy level between human interaction and other stimuli can be reach once more. Unfortunately, I do not have the answer to that question without involving technology, and I start to think that (if we continue this way) soon enough we will be living like the humans on Walt Disney’s movie, Wall-E (2008). Technology has helped us destroy our social interaction’s skills, widening the generation gap between screenagers and non-screenagers. In addition to that, the fast “rewiring” of our brain may cause newborns to lack – or forget – at early ages, fundamental social skills.
In conclusion, technology has dragged us down the continuous partial attention path, making us ramble from task to task and demanding attention from other “onliners”. Although technological advancements have aid us in making multiple aspects of our lives more efficient, it has also help fade the social interactions in our lives and this is not healthy. Our brain is shifting so quickly that a study on Small’s book (2008) show that an emoticon is now activating the brain areas that control nonverbal communication. There is no doubt that our brain is evolving rapidly thanks to technology, and that our social interactions are changing forever. At this point in time, I believe we could take Aristotle’s famous quote that says “man is by nature a social man” and transform it to suit current times, saying that man is an iSocial man.
Works Cited and Consulted
Aristotle. La Política: Argentina: La Editorial Virtual, 2007. Print.
“Cyberculture.” Encyclopedia of American Studies. : Johns Hopkins UP, 2010. Credo Reference. Web. 9 Oct 2012.
Márquez, José G. “On Technology and Isolation.” E-mail interview. 09 Oct. 2012.
Small, Gary W., and Gigi Vorgan. IBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind. New York: Collins Living, 2008. Print.
WALL-E. Dir. Andrew Stanton. By Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, and Jeff Garlin. Prod. Jim Morris. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2008. Film.
Written on October 15, 2013
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