We are overconnected and yet disconnected.
Describe a situation when you feel over connected and overwhelmed by communication and, thus, want to have some moment of seclusion from the world.
With all these communication media and communication technology, you might still have a moment when you are yearning for genuine connection and understanding because you feel you are so disconnected with the world.
What's the reason for this irony?
You know, I can honestly say that I go through this on a regular basis because of my need for seclusion and isolation. I have not had very many friends throughout my life because of this however for the past three or four years I have developed a relationship with my two best friends that are stronger than I have ever known. They always want to spend time together and ‘do things’ however I would rather be home doing…well home stuff. I feel overwhelmed with the phone calls, text messages, e mails, Facebook updates, hearing about twitter, etc. There are some days that I send out a text to my friends letting them know that I will be busy this day and will text/call them when I am available. The irony in that is I have to send it as a text message because my friend (I will call her A) is the opposite of me in that she is very emotional and values closeness so although I have told her verbally that I would like to be alone she insists that it is not good for a person and forgets what I have said.
ReplyDeleteI believe that because of technology, many people have become disconnected with the world because it is so impersonal. I thing that emoticons are the only emotion you can put into a written message. When reading a typed message, one could choose to read it however they want. I have had bad days and then I would get a text from a friend and read it with my bad mood which may or may not be how she sent it. Although writing letters is still just words on a page, I believe that handwriting may contain more emotion than computer/text etc. Some people like to be face to face when having conversations because that is when you can get the entire conversation. For example, you can see the persons face, watch their eyes, their body language and their tone of voice. You also have to opportunity to watch their reaction to what it is you have to say and for a lot of people this is an important aspect of communication. I do not really talk on the phone but I text tons. I am not one of those people :-)
Aw
New communication technology gives us a fake connection and make us even more hungry for true connection.
ReplyDeleteCommunication has never been an issue in regards to being over/underwhelmed up until this point in my life (age 20). This is because I have never had so many means of communication. Phones, internet, e-mail, and many other forms of communication have resulted in a multitude of relationships and conversations with family, friends, and random strangers in everyday situations.
ReplyDeleteIn a sub-topic of having too much communication, humans began with face-to-face communication and gradually moved towards envelopes/mail. This helped with long distance and lack of ability to travel to those distances. However, the relation of actual human contact to the time period is growing at an exponential rate resulting in a digital age of communication. Because there is no formal 'in person' contact with one another we rely on technology to reach others. This is great, but because, as we get older, develop multiple addresses to reach someone it can become overwhelming. There is no way to realize when a good time to reach someone is as we don't know who else is communicating with someone. This can result in a single point in time where seemingly everyone is wanting you for some reason.
The concept of too much communication surfaced once technology became mainstream and affected the majority of the population's lives. The question now becomes what is too much technology as it has shaped our culture and communication skills and comforts with other people.
I believe that too much and too little communication due to technology has ruined the art of having a face to face conversation with someone. One personal example I have to support my belief and something that I see way too often, is if a person is with a group of friends or even on a date, there is really no communication. The communication consists of staring at your phone. Scrolling endlessly at whatever app is currently open, and when you see something you like or something you think is funny, showing the person across the table from you. Then everything repeats. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want to sound hypocritical because I do the same thing. However, when I try to have a conversation with someone who is older and is not as "interested" in technology as I am, it is difficult. It's like I've forgotten how to have a conversation with someone that doesn't require an "LOL" or an emoticon. I think the connivence of having smart phones and tablets is a great thing, but more often than not people misuse and take advantage of how technologically advanced our generation is. With having the technology readily available at our finger tips when someone doesn't communicate with us as rapid as possible we tend to worry if something happened to them. Before cell phones were super popular and when I was little, my mom would let me go play outside and just trust that I would be back before dark, and that was when I was seven or eight. When I was in high school and had a cell phone I would have to check in throughout the night because they were worried. To me, that doesn't make sense. Those are a few examples of why too much and too little communication is a bad thing. I'm not sure what the reasoning for the irony is, but it is definitely ironic.
ReplyDeleteMost communication technology is simply a business model for a manufacturer to make profit. We will have more and more this business model, a.k.a. new gadget, come up year by year. It is time for us to say stop. We don't want to be enslaved by this business model. Communication technology is merely a medium, it is not message. We want to have genuine and heart-felt conversation. Communication technology is preventing us from having that.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Allison, for the very acute observation.
Too much communication happens almost on a daily basis for me. My roommate and I have gotten closer since we moved in with each other last year, leading us to do literally everything together. We are hardly ever apart, and if we are it’s because we’re in class or I’m at work. We even text and use social networking to communicate when we are apart. I constantly find myself becoming irritated and needing time to myself because there is just too much communication. Not only with her, but with others as well. My other roommate is my co-worker, and before he moved in, we were best friends. When we lived apart, we could always go home if we were having too much communication. Now since we live together and work together, there is always a bit of annoyance between us. Since I have gotten a smart phone, there are constant Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and email notifications. Although sometimes I feel I need to get away from the technology and people, there are times where I feel that no one likes me because I might not have gotten any notifications that day. I think the reasoning for this is people get so used to having text messages, phone calls, and multiple social media notifications, when it comes a time where no one is trying to contact you, it leads to feelings of loneliness, and needing that media connection to make you feel liked or wanted.
ReplyDeleteAcute observation. The problem might not be about quantity, a.k.a. too much or too little, the problem is the quality of the communication. Junk food make you hungry, low-value communication make you hungry for high-quality communication.
ReplyDeleteI feel that with all of the technology that has been invented over the years has made it where it can be overwhelming to communicate. A prime example of this is Facebook and Twitter. Everyone feels the need to share everyone’s business. People will share embarrassing moments of someone and explode it over the media when that person had already experienced enough pain of the incident in person. Also I have learned that over the internet people gain a whole new confidence that you have never seen while with in person. For example, over facebook people will feel the need to call a person out on something that they have done and use everyone as back up to bash this person. Yet after humiliating and confronting this person over the internet they come face to face with them and will cower and act like the situation never took place. Having all of this technology has made communication easier but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it has been a good way to communicate with one another. Finally the last way communication has been overwhelming with the technology is texting. A person no longer has a genuine conversation. People feel that they need to communicate twenty-four seven yet are talking about completely nothing; they just want that feeling that they have someone to talk to. Also with cellular devices you can take what a person is saying out of context because you cannot hear the persons tone. Without the voice in conversations people tend to interpret the meaning of that conversation in any way they chose to decode it. People need to learn to take a breather from all of this technology and learn to shut it off and go out and socialize and remember why communicating began in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI have experienced this a lot. Today in America the communication seems to be a lot on computers and social media. I grew up in a family of eight as a child and the communication between us all was great. At this time electronics were not very popular and needed how they are these days. For family fun and relaxing time we would go outdoors, play board or card games, or movie night. This is extremely different to how my family is now. My older sister has three children and I have one daughter. When we all go over to my parents house it seems like everyone is on something electronic, whether it is a computer, tablet, phone or iPod. The time when I felt so overwhelmed was when I walked into my parents living room and my two nephews were playing games on a iPad, ny daughter and niece where also on a iPad watching on Netflix, my father and brother in law where on my dads laptop watching highlights of football, two of my sisters where on there phones checking either instagram or Facebook and I walked in on my phone. At that moment I was in awe and realized that this was a very disturbing view and overwhelming. I know these days everything is electronics and at times it seems like we cant cope but I just felt like going back to the older times when communication was a lot of talking and really enjoying each others company without being on an electronic device.
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