Hey guys, my name is Mike Andromalos, and I'm a Junior in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Before coming to Ithaca I spent my entire life growing up in Pittsburgh. My parent's raised me a hard-core Steelers fan, and I'm willing to bet that my mom knows more about football than most jocks. I also like to ski, which makes Ithaca a little more tolerable during the winter. As you might expect, since the word computer is in the name of my major, I basically live off of my laptop. Now that I know how the computer works (well, sort of), I'm really interested in how it has affected people.
The Internet-related phenomenon that interests me most is how technology has replaced face to face or voice contact in our daily lives. Today you can do everything from research, to shopping, to watching TV and movies online. Often, this is much less personal than the “old” way of doing things. From observing the people around me, I've noticed that many people would prefer this less personal approach to daily interactions. After calling an 800 number, a friend of mine commented on how surprised and flustered he became when a real person immediately answered the phone. He had expected a touch tone menu to guide him to the proper operator. On the opposite end of the spectrum are those that are annoyed at how difficult it is to reach a real person when you call those same 800 numbers. Facebook has also proved to be a strong influence in the way that we interact in real life. Before meeting someone in real life, you might try to look up their profile to see if you have any shared interests or friends. It makes it a lot easier to strike up a conversation if you know, for instance, you both share a passion for the same obscure indie band.
The space that my interest falls in is in real life, because our behavior in real life seems to be affected by our online behaviors. The online spaces that are replacing face to face or voice contact include asynchronous discussion forums, synchronous chats, and electronic mail.
3 comments:
Hi Mike,
I agree with you that technology is replacing face to face contact in many situations; however, I think it is interesting to note that different activities are being replaced at different rates. Talking face to face, oddly enough, is being substituted for text messaging and facebook messaging more rapidly than online shopping is being substituted for real shopping. It is no surprise to me that your friend was surprised to speak with an actual operator because there is an obvious trend towards avoiding face to face or voice to voice contact. True, this does facilitate communication in some instances, but does it not hinder our development of social skills? Learning how to approach a professor and ask a well articulated question is a more valuable skill than sending him e-mail. If people continue to dance around the directness of face to face communication, they will deprive themselves of an important learning experience. To ultimately succeed in life and build solid relationships, one must learn how to interact with others without the protective shield of the internet.
Hi Mike,
I too am really interested in the new vs. old battle of the internet. Indeed the net offers so many benefits, yet at the same time can certainly lose some of the “personal” side of communication. For example, when I was in middle school, instant messenger was definitely the thing to do. Most of my friends didn’t have a cell phone so we’d make all of our plans via instant messenger and private chat rooms. While this was exciting at the time, after a little while something was lost in my group of friends. If someone wasn’t online, the rest of us would be reluctant to even pick up the phone and call each other, leaving the person who wasn’t online out of the plans. It seems amazing that we had gotten so used to communication over the internet that using the phone was a nerve-wracking experience. Ultimately, it is very fascinating how face to face communication, and even phone usage are on the decline, however I feel that these too are important skills and cannot be overlooked in the excitement to move to a digital era.
All of you bring up very interesting points about the change of social norms due to technology. I am amazed by how people find life-long partners by simply adding someone as a Facebook friend, instead of building up the nerves and going up to a person to ask for a phone number. As Linda suggested there is a “protective shield” associated with the internet—getting rejected on Facebook and getting rejected in real life are different: there is no public humiliation associated with Facebook.
Social skills now have a different connotation because of technology. While I do agree that it is an important skill to “approach a professor and ask a well articulated question,” it might be just as, or maybe even more, important to learn to articulate a well-formulated email. Sometimes professors do not have enough time to have face-to-face conversions, and sending an email that stands out from the other 100+ emails will be an important skill to have. Another example of this would be the application process for a job. A good cover letter or email will be required before you have a chance to meet face-to-face for an interview. Whether we like it or not, social norms are changing because of the internet and we will have to adjust accordingly.
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