Technology causing loneliness

Imagine a time when one could send money via mobile phone, make friends with people anywhere in the world, and contact someone who was thousands of miles away. People all over the world are now linked by means of calling and sending messages thanks to modern technology. People in the modern world are unable to function without the aid of technology. Technology developments have made it easier to pay bills online, manage bank accounts, and communicate with customer service representatives across all organizations using smartphones. (Pittman & Reich 158). Technology has eliminated face-to-face communication and replaced it with text messages, which are used even more frequently than phone conversations. Technology should help people feel more connected to allowing people to stay in touch with their friends and relatives through the use of social media sites like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. However, technology has its negative side since it influences people behavior and affects their social behavior. Instead of interacting with other people in person, people are dependent tablets, smartphones, and other technologies as well as spending hours on their computers hence the technology is making them more alone.

Technology has made people lonelier as well as distant from one another as they spend more time interacting with technological gadgets and machines. Today, people are more connected to another unlike before all over the world in human history through the internet based on social networking sites and the text messaging. The way people interact online is straining our relationship. Individuals who spend a lot of their time connected online are more isolated in their non- virtual lives than ever (Gierveld, Jenny, Theo Van Tilburg and Dykstra 4). As a result, they develop emotional disconnection, anxiety, and mental fatigue. While technology is helping people to keep in touch with real friends by updating them, others have friends whom they do not know. The character of such people cannot be predicted, which can lead to issues such as cyber bullying (Yang 704). As a result, the physical relationship with people is becoming a very big problem. Technology influences human beings to pay attention to people that are away from them than those near them by spending most of their time on their phones and laptops texting to find hope from their friends far leaving those that are near them (Bian, Mengwei and Leung 62). Children are also complaining that their parents cannot give them attention because they are always busy with their phones chatting with their online friends. In addition, their fathers cannot accompany them in the fields to play football or other physical games. Parents no longer join their young children in watching programs such as Sunday sports but instead they chat with friends on their mobile phones and laptops. Moreover, the relationships between wives and husbands are losing meaning because each person is busy chatting with their distant friends. Marriages are breaking up due to reduced attention by partners as they concentrate on online entertainment. There is minimum face-to-face communication between husbands and the wives despite living under the same roof. As a result, technology has led to marriage breakdown, poor parenting, and relationship breakups due to reduced of commitments.

Technology such as social media has made people to sideline normal life activities and turned to the virtual world. Men and women are affected differently in the way they use social networking technology. The former are more confrontational while the latter check on other people’s status for updating as well as learning about them but neither are they bullying nor confrontational. Most of mothers are now breastfeeding their babies while busy chatting with their friends and relatives. In this feeding, much of the nutrition is not given to the baby because of the emotional exchange. The baby receives fewer mother emotions compared to that given in texts that she is texting. In addition, the baby is likely to interpret the tension that comes within the mother due to the messages she receives. On the other hand, men do use most of their time bullying other people in the social sites. Many individuals have fallen victim to cyber bullying in these sites. Men are used to getting to know people’s personal life through these sites and use them to bully them (Yao, Mike and Zhong 168)). Besides, they spend most of the time in social media discussing business matters and finding solutions to problems experienced by their firms. However, men have a majority of women friends and the vice versa. Women are in a position of using social networking sites better and more effective than men due to their positive emotion. Besides, they utilize the sites to maintain the already existing relationship while men do create new through expressions of romantic relationships. Some people have their profiles updated each day to create new relationships though it was hard to maintain them. Many lies are used to entice the youngsters whom might end up with broken hearts after they realize they realize it. They are no longer responsible for maintaining the relationship because once one is broken; meeting a new individual is fast on Facebook, Twitter or in MySpace (Deters, große and Mehl 582). It is not possible to fool oneself on the life one is living. Therefore, men and women should come back to their senses that even though technology is connecting people, it has its disadvantages and they should limit their usage to avoid being addicts.

On the other hand, technology is not making people less social even though a lot has changed with a lot of social sites emerging each day. Social media users have a large number of close relationships with communication technologies making them more persistent as well as more pervasive. As a result, there is stable relationship between people who are surrounding us. In addition, the social ties that we had with our friends in schools are not abandoned since it is continued online. People stay connected with the all our friends with the use of Twitter and Facebook more frequent that we would have done in the past. Moreover, our friends and relatives can easily be reached from all the phases in the social sites (Kimmons and Veletsianos 294). The highest users of mobile phones, social media, and email do not show signs of stress because the more they share, the more they reduce levels of stress. Online information contributes to awareness of what is going on in the surrounding and all over the world. Users of social media can easily recognize people from many backgrounds. Other than friendship, people can discuss other topics that are helpful in their lives such as politics, traditions, and religion. Humans normally visit the photos shared by a large group as well as their opinions concerning the above-mentioned topics and give our opinions hence keep in touch with each other all the time. However, this information does not mean better friendship but does not distance us. Technology is allowing us to enjoy a wide range of benefits that we had never allowed to enjoy in the past. Media has power to enable us to gather information from all corners of the globe that could never have been accessed in the past. It is easy to get information of other countries and know the good bouts with the use of social sites (Kimmons and Veletsianos 298). For example, when the terrorists hit a certain country, the news is disseminated through the social media where we get them as fast as they are posted. On the matters concerning politics, we can get news concerning the government systems of other countries. For example, the overthrown government of the Arabs where people gather information from all corners though they could never access it earlier. Although social media had joined people together, it should be used wisely because continuous use makes people addicted. It is also making people live lonely lives as they lack personal appealing even when chatting on Facebook, on Twitter and on the phone. In this case, technology will never replace face-to-face way of communication. Advancement in technology is proving relevant in peoples’ lives and should never be ignored. However, criticizing the negatives of its use is important since it allows people to ensure its proper use. Some groups need to be monitored to ensure that they do not misuse technology such as the internet by visiting unauthorized sites. Despite some challenges in some developments such as social media use, technology as connected many people reducing their loneliness.

In conclusion, people have been more connected than ever but feeling more lonely than ever. Technology has been improving everyday with people applying it in various situations such as socializing, selling, and entertainment. Some of the latest technologies in great use are related to communication and socialization via social sites. For instance, social media has been shaping how people are being connected, but individuals have to rethink on what they need to be fulfilled in relationships. Besides, they should realize that no amount of Facebook status updates, texts or tweets can provide an emotional feeling of relationship that face to face provides. There is a huge difference between an online social network and the real one. The number of friends on social sites does not equal the quality of the friends whom one can sit close together and share ideas face to face. Though technology is making it easier to stay in touch with people at a distance, it is making many people feel distant due to physical separation. Moreover, social media is controlling what people share where they choose and pick the best photos to share conveying the message we want to deliver to others. It does not deliver genuine and real friendship like the real-life situation which is more appealing that social media. Therefore, the feeling of loneliness is increasing with the increase of technology sites usage.

Works Cited

Bian, Mengwei, and Louis Leung. “Linking loneliness, shyness, smartphone addiction symptoms, and patterns of smartphone use to social capital.” Social Science Computer Review 33.1 (2015): 61-79.

De Jong Gierveld, Jenny, Theo Van Tilburg, and Pearl Dykstra. “Loneliness and social isolation.” (2016).

Deters, Fenne große, and Matthias R. Mehl. “Does posting Facebook status updates increase or decrease loneliness? An online social networking experiment.” Social psychological and personality science 4.5 (2013): 579-586.

Kimmons, Royce, and George Veletsianos. “The fragmented educator 2.0: Social networking sites, acceptable identity fragments, and the identity constellation.” Computers & Education 72 (2014): 292-301.

Pittman, Matthew, and Brandon Reich. “Social media and loneliness: Why an Instagram picture may be worth more than a thousand Twitter words.” Computers in Human Behavior 62 (2016): 155-167

Yang, Chia-chen. “Instagram use, loneliness, and social comparison orientation: interact and browse on social media, but don’t compare.” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 19.12 (2016): 703-708

Yao, Mike Z., and Zhi-jin Zhong. “Loneliness, social contacts and Internet addiction: A cross-lagged panel study.” Computers in Human Behavior 30 (2014): 164-170.