2 Essay REVIEW
7
Professor Tim
English 1A
25 March 2017
Technology Dependency and Alienating
Nowadays, with the development of science and technology, it is more and more popular to use smart devices. In my life, it is normal that people use technology instead of the old communications way in real life. As a result, people become more and more depending on the technology, and they alienate from their families and social cycles. Recently, the problem of the bad side of technology has aroused people's concern. My family is one of the examples which depend on technology too much, and it causes many problems to my family. On Tuesday, I had the experiment again with my family members, and we spent about three hours on poker and monopoly games without any technology. We all enjoyed the games even though we missed our technology sometimes. Thus, we found that we have more fun time compared with using technology and it developed our relationship and connection to each other. Everything has two sides and technology is not an exception. Modern technology has many advantages, but my family depends on technology too much, as a result, it alienates the relationship and connection with my family so I would like to reduce using technology and we should be less connecting through technology and social medias.
Modern technology has many advantages for my family members, but overall, it hinders communication within my family and social cycle because it let us become alienated and pay more attention to the online friends. Technology is useful and convenient for us to connect each other, for example, my grandparents live far away from my family, so we use facetime to see each other especially my grandparents cannot type through technology. But the most significant problem is my family depends on the technology too much. Therefore, we ignore the communication and relationship with each other. As the article Quality Time, Refined said, “It's not hard to interpret such moments as evidence that technology has become an alien, and alienating, force in the contemporary home.” (Williams) It is true that the technology is making my family divide gradually. When I have dinner with my family members, we often talk about the funny things we see on social medias, but we talk less about the things happen nearby. Sometimes we even talk through social medias to replace having communication face to face. A case in point is when I go out to play with my friends, we spend more time on the technology than playing and chatting together. There is an interesting situation that many of my friends talk more with the friends they made online than the friends in reality. However, my grandparents do not meet this problem because they do not used to technology, so they have more communication with their friends who are also elder. It is a significant difference between my grandparents and other family members. The reason is they do not depend on technology in the final analysis. All things considered, my family and social cycle have less communication and alienated relationship due to the technology and the technology also has many negative influences on my family.
On the other hand, technology has replaced so many things in my family that it causes many negative influences. The online game becomes the substitution for the real game and it let my family lose much fun time together. Before the experiment, my family often played the poker and monopoly games online, but we found we had more fun time if we played together in real life. The technology cannot instead of fun time. Furthermore, the technology becomes a new way for entertainment, yet it is not good for people’s health. For instance, my little brother would like to watch the videos on iPad rather than playing his toys. But watching videos is more harmful to his eyes than playing toys. What is far more important is that the conversation between family members. As stated in the previous paragraph, the social medias replace the conversation in my family. Like Dr. Wellman said, it is truer in households that family members have more interest online even they stay in the same room because of the proliferation of devices and media options. (William “Quality Time, refined”) When my parents and I stay at home, we even have the conversation on phones which is more convenient to instead of talking in reality. Having conversation face to face is the best way to get the connection and improve the relationship, yet we lose a lot of chance to get along. Not only my other family members are too dependent on technology, but also I addict in technology’s world.
I have indulged in the world of social medias before but now I would like to less connected through technology and social medias because I depend on them too much and I begin to lose myself. First of all, with the importance of internet culture, people are more and more mention the interesting things happen online during their conversation. I am afraid to leave or lose my cell phone because it means I am out of the world. I do not want to miss the funny things on social medias and the messages from friends. If my leave my phone, I will feel nervous and I cannot pay attention to other things. Secondarily, it is common that people have more Facebook friends than real friends in reality. I would like to make friends on social medias and we often have the conversation together, yet I afraid to social in real life. In addition, I can use stickers online to express my feeling but when I talk with my friends, I cannot find anything to show my sense because I am not good at expression. Nevertheless, I do not speak much in actual life. My friends said I had two different characters on social medias and in true life. In other words, I behave outgoing on online but introverted in reality. Finally, Herrick wrote in her article, “However, we are now our worst enemies because of the way we’ve distorted and manipulated our social media presentations.” (“11 Things We Fake in Our Social Media Lives”) I always wear a “mask” through technology because people may think I am an interesting and lovely person due to my post on social medias. In fact, I spent a long time to take beautiful pictures and reflect on the interesting words to build my good impression for others. I enjoy people praise and follow me online. However, I don’t look like that in true life, so I feel self-abased sometimes. It is not a good trend that I am more and more concerned about my image on social medias and refuse to show my true character. I cannot imagine if I will get lose in the technology’s world and I do not distinguish between reality and fantasy one day. Now I know it is not good for me to indulge in social medias but ignore my own in true life. I need to go out of the online world and reduce the dependence on technology. The most useful way for me is less connecting through social medias and techniques. Meanwhile, not only I need to do that, my family should do it, too.
Although modern technology has both advantages and disadvantages, for my family, the good side are more than good side because my family depends on technology too much. If my family can reduce the dependence, it will be better. Taking all these factors into consideration, I naturally come to the conclusion that the technology is alienating the relationship and connection between my family members step by step and it also takes many adverse effects on us. Moreover, I need to solve the problem that I pay too much attention online and I wish to even less connecting through social medias. After the experiment, my family thought we could get together closer without technology, so we decided to reduce our dependence on technology. Compared with the last experiment, we have more fun time and we are more used to play together without any technology. Thus, we have confidence we can reach our goals. In general, my family is only one of the examples and there are many families have the same situation with us in nowadays society. Society should concern this type of problem, and It is time we put an end to the trend.
Work Cited
William, Alex. "Quality Time, Redefined." The New York Times. The New York Times, 01 May 2011. Web. 25 Mar. 2017.
Herrick, Lexi. "11 Things We Fake in Our Social Media Lives." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 30 June 2015. Web. 25 Mar. 2017.
