http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gGXylVz6KI
This is a scene from the movie He's Just Not That Into You. It may be my favorite scene in all the movies. The actress is complaining about all the different types of technologies she is waiting to get rejected by. In the end she wishes that time could go back to just having one answering machine with one simple tape.
Is technology really making things complicated? I believe yes and no. When the communication via smartphones just started out, all the different types of social networking tools were not in sync, so that caused a lot of problem. But now that they are roughly in sync, life is made easier for the tech savvy. But this definitely takes away from the face to face conversing skills we have with others. We lose the skill to be eloquent and make statements without using abbreviations like 'omg' or 'lol'. Our essays become littered with them. Technology has brought about many changes, but it also has lowered our cognitive skills. We think in terms of 180 characters or less. And we are sucked into staring into our gadgets all the time.
It is not bad that we have these technological advancements. Social sites such as linkedin and Facebook allow us to reconnect with friends and find potential employers and employees. But all good things have a dark side. How we regulate it, is the key to success. We cannot let technology overrun our lives, but we cannot live without it. At the end of the day, it is up to us to choose whether we let technology get the better of us.
Hi... Nice Blog!
ReplyDeleteCan you email me your student id #
I definitely agree with you. If you look back at old movies (granted they are scripted, but I'd assume their lines are also representative of how the population as a whole spoke), they are extremely eloquent and use a wider array of vocabulary words. Today, because of technology we think and speak in short, get to the point kind of sentences. It seems like technology has definitely changed the way we communicate and I get the feeling that many people are very uncomfortable with face to face interaction.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this article because I do agree the online language that has formed by the use of Internet has influenced the way people talk physically. I personally have noticed times when I keep "i" lower case in essays or other formal documents for school and emails, as well as abbreviations that are grammatically incorrect. Because individuals such as me who constantly access this online media write large amounts whether it's in Facebook posts, chat, Skype, etc., it prohibits us from sometimes using proper English. Also, the second point you mentioned regarding how the social media engrosses our full attention has been the focus of my blog, and how I feel like individuals use media as a way of avoiding physical atmosphere and enter into this virtual world.
ReplyDeleteI remember my high school english teacher who would warn us that LOL was not a word and OMG should not appear in essays in her class or in our SAT essays or college entrance exams. She told us that we would not believe how many times she's graded essays with acronyms we use chatting online.
ReplyDelete