Technology, Convenience and Social Interaction – Response to Kristen’s Blog

When talking about technology today, it is easy for consumers to overlook the long-term effects of technology on society for the short-term benefits.

▪ I want a cheap airplane ticket to Chicago so I am willing to give up personal information in order to partake in discount airfares.

▪ I like being able to order my movie theater tickets online, so I don’t have to stand in line.

▪ I want to avoid conflict or delivery bad news to a colleague face to face, so I send an email.

In theory these all seem like advances, but when you dig deeper you see that there are consequences to this convenience. I think Kristen illustrates an excellent example of one way technology can be limiting and that is socially. Technology removes peoples need to interact. Email, Blackberry’s, and text messaging are making it harder to build rapport. There is so much nonverbal information that occurs in a conversation that can’t possibly be conveyed over IM – emoticons or no emoticons. Tone of voice, facial expressions, and eye gazes are all important when it comes to deriving meaning from words.

We talked about the over use of cell phones and iPods in public places as a means to avoid interacting with fellow passerby’s. I would argue to a certain extent that people hide behind technology and use it to close themselves off from others. Today most people don’t even know the phone numbers of their best friends because their cell phones store all that information. You don’t need to remember an important birthday or anniversary because your outlook calendar tracks all that information. God forbid you lose your phone or your computer crashes. If this information isn’t important enough to remember, then what is?

Whether it’s a memory crutch or a social crutch or a productivity crutch, I think we all should be concerned about what we give up when we adopt technology into our lives. Sure we get increased efficiency, greater specialization, improved convenience, and wealth, but what did we sacrifice to get this -- companionship, piece of mind, community, health, tradition, interdependence, quality time, a sense of purpose.

If technology alone could solve all of society’s problems, then depression rates wouldn’t be soaring, divorce rate wouldn’t be doubling, and violent crime rates booming. With all the economic wealth created through technology, there has never been a greater period in history where people have felt emptier about their lives.

No amount of online dating websites, community chat rooms, and networking services will fill the need people have for genuine, meaningful interactions. While the pursuit of increase productivity and wealth is important for a society to growth and prosper, isolation and complete independence created through the extensive use of certain technologies is a recipe for unhappiness. Being interdependent, valuing close relationship, being sensitive, responsive, giving and supporting of others is necessary to create balance, meaning, and happiness in one’s life.

One final thought…Albert Einstein said “We can’t solve problems by using the same thinking we used when we created them.” If we develop technology to solve symptoms without understanding the underlying cause, then inevitably, technology will spawn new problems potentially more damaging than the original.