English 101 Sample Paper on The Negative Impact of Technology in Our Lives
Sherry is an American author who is famous for the book Alone Together and reclaiming conversation. Her writing majorly focuses on social issues that are sidelined and highly taken for granted. For example, such matters may include privacy and social media use. In her Interview on the Colbert report, she evaluates how technology and social media have negatively influenced communication and relationships.
Sherry argues that technology alienates people from other which the presenter finds it contradicting as he doesn’t find any harm regarding this matter. I firmly agree with her sentiments because, despite the many advantages associated with technology, these devices have significantly created a hindrance to family relationships. Villegas supports the view that technology works to the detriment of the family unit. She maintains that effective communication is restricted effective communication. (Villegas, p8) Meal time is importantly the foundation for strong family ties and bond where healthy relationships and connections are built. Family communication and interaction is a vital tool for child development. Child development can is initiated through meal sharing where in some situations this process is affected by distraction following the use of devices. For instance, watching television creates a difficulty in holding a conversation between family members. The impact of technology on family interaction is that it affects socialization by reducing the involvement of members.
Parents play a major role in media consumption habits in our families. As a result, parents have profoundly contributed to children exposure to devices such as mobile phone equipment, computers, and televisions among others. Even though members can converse on this social sites, Sherry claims that technology has its place in the society. She tries to put across the point that technology denies one full attention, especially in interpersonal communication. As a result, children from such backgrounds tend to crave for parental care. Technology has also contributed to antisocial behavior among the members of a family. Such a situation is likely in families where social interaction is disrupted by own media lifestyles where one is isolated from family interaction. As a result, there is detachment from their immediate environment. Consecutively, the family unit is broken.
Media in the present world is characterized by the decline of social involvement. Media denies participants face-to-face communication which creates a limit to the satisfaction that will be gained from a direct conversation thus it becomes difficult to maintain relationships and bonds. Issues like profiling on social media have contributed the wrong impression where they tend to exaggerate the real self. Sherry terms this as Performance. The impact cannot be underestimated because technology denies individuals ability to pick up cues like moods and emotions in interpersonal communication thereby causing misinterpretation of the message. Through technology, people provide more information about themselves while others may go to the extent of making extreme statements that would tarnish their identity and put them in trouble. On the other hand, these technologies have had an adverse impact on the current generation. For example, while video games could be a creative way to pass leisure time and education, it is more likely to encourage negative influences. For example, adolescents are likely to neglect their responsibilities and academics.
I would agree with Sherry because relationships and conversations are very demanding. Social interaction is the fundamental pillar of understanding each other, our feelings, ideas, and emotions, unlike technology which is an illusion of companionship. Social networks create an obstacle in gaining values, development, and relationship building. It is quite out of the ordinary to ignore the fact that technological influence has a negative impact on our lives.
Works cited
Villegas, Alessondra. “The influence of technology on family dynamics.” Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association 2012.1 (2013): 10.