Response to #3

In the past, there were many of the same modes of social interaction that we have today. We can communicate with phones and have been for a over a century. The advent of industry brought us faster and faster ways to travel and interact with different people. And the internet has given us instant communicative abilities, much less instant gratification for whatever we want. In today’s world, technology rules over us in a way because mostly everything we do, every social interaction that takes place is thanks to the technology of our time.

The spread of technology can have both positive and negative effects for all of us, but for me it has not changed much of my social interaction. The kind of technology that affects me most is probably the use of my cell phone and the internet. It is positive in the way that family and friends that live far away can connect with me, and I with them. This is done with Facebook, Skype, email and the many apps of the Iphone. There is another positive thing about all this technology. It can keep me occupied with information and entertainment for as long as I want; there is no time limit to one’s use. There are negative effects of this technology though. It can be a huge distraction at times, as well as give us the ease to send things and say things that maybe we should think more about. Our face to face interactions are needed if we are to get past the ease of the internet.

Generally, people have the same type of problems. They can be way more extreme than my thoughts on technology and social interaction, but for most part it is them same. People can almost live their lives on the internet, as the ease and choice among the internet is so vast.

The internet is great tool though. We can not only communicate with people we know, but meet people we don’t. The only thing it does not provide is the sense of another person or group being there with you; it is a weak tie. From dating sites to forums, there can be many kinds of relationships over the internet. My older brother actually met his wife on a dating site, and I don’t think that show To Catch a Predator would exist without the internet. We can become comrades with people over an internet game and get a quick laugh or piece of advice from the vast amount of forums out there.

We cannot forget the value of face to face relationships though. The internet has only begun its time here on earth compared to us, but one can see the rapid expansion and seemingly infinite variety becoming more than a tool. The fact that so many people use the internet and soon more will is scary. We cannot live our lives with only weak-tie relationships. But thanks to the ever increasing technology we use and create, it is possible to see that soon the internet itself will transform into a more real public sphere. We just cannot forget our personal responsibility in all the commotion.