What
do you feel is the biggest positive change the prevalence and dominance
of the internet has brought to culture or everyday life?
The
biggest positive change that I see is the ability to so easily keep in
touch with someone. I could tell you what nearly every member of my
family did this weekend according to Instagram and Facebook. The
majority of my family is connected through the internet, even my
grandmas. It has become so incredibly easy to know what is going on in
someones life. I even feel like I know some of my cousins better thanks
to social media. A cousin that I normally do not keep in touch with, is
now one of my close friends because we connected on Facebook and started
chatting and keeping in touch. This connection that we made on the
internet brought us together and caused me to form a friendship with a
distant family member.
Contrarily, what do you feel is the biggest new
cultural/social problem that has come with the internet?
I think that the biggest problem stems from the positive
change. Because it is so easy for me to keep in touch with people via the
internet I lose some of that face to face interaction. It may seem like I know
what is going on in someone's life, but do I know them? Actual human contact
and conversation is crucial to getting to know someone and having a
relationship. The internet can remove this from our lives and harm our
relationships.
I totally agree with your positive and negative. I have a family member who writes up the highlights of her day and sends them out as an email. But then whenever I talk to her and ask her what's happening in her life she tells me to go read the email, and we miss out on that chance to converse.
ReplyDeleteI think what you have just described is the two-edged sword about the internet and keeping in touch with people. It does allow you to connect with people who live far away, but the actual face to face interaction is lacking. I like how you asked the question if you really know someone if the only way you keep in touch with them is the internet. It is an interesting question. I think many people have a different persona on the internet than in person.
ReplyDeleteI agree! Losing that face to face communication is so devastating to our society. I wish I could have lived in a world with no cell phones (mostly I want to date in a world with no cell phones). I miss hand written letters.
ReplyDelete