Face To Face Benefits Invaluable
Technology has a million advantages - more efficient exchange of ideas, global communication opportunities, increased access to information. The Internet has brought the world together. And yet, does this connection come with a few disconnects?
An article in Time Digital talks about how the Internet is changing modern family life: “Step inside the Englewood, N.J. home of Yale and Vivian Schulman. Yale, a physician, and Vivian, a psychology professor, often disappear into separate rooms and log on to the Net. So do their four children. Cocoon-like, they tend to their business-e-mail, banking, homework, video games and music. Sometimes husband and wife swap rueful or romantic text messages with each other.”
The upside? Messages and sentiments get communicated that otherwise might go unexpressed. The downside? “Each of us goes our own way,” says Vivian. “It pulls us apart.”
Still, each mechanized development, each new gadget, claims to be the key to world connection and familiar intimacy. Wearable computers - the next craze in technological innovation - can do it all: check stocks by voice-prompting, provide desk-top features and recognize and name long-lost friends, among other things.
An article featuring wearable computers states, “As man and computer grow more intimate, experts predict, the relationship between them will change.” Ironically, this increasing intimacy between human and machine seems to pull a distance between human and human.
As we rejoice over the amazing capacity of each new wire and chip, are we willing to consider and compensate for the serious negative effects?
The Media Awareness Network recently reported on a survey that asked children whom they trusted more - their parents or their computers. The majority of respondents said they put more trust in their computers.
Even positive modes of connection have a downside. Will we as a society become mechanized to the point of minimal human contact - e-mailing our husbands and wives in the next room, encouraging our children by the touch of a mouse?
Granted, as we deal with the innumerable and complex ramifications of modern technology, we can still enjoy the benefits. But we’re flesh and blood. Let’s remember to communicate, not just on a computer screen, but face to face.