Peer review

Since we’re able to have these mobile devices and basically live an alternate life on the internet, it has decreased the need for face-to-face interactions which ultimately has been the main source of development of social skills for kids in this world. According to D-tox academy’s article on teen’s social skills, “A 2010 study reported that pre-teens and teenagers used text messaging as their primary source of communication.” Ever since text messaging came into our lives, it has never been looked at as a scapegoat from reality, it has always been a luxury in which we can quickly communicate to one another with messages that have fewer than three to four words in them. But what we never realized would happen is that since we have this luxury of text messaging, we almost frown upon talking in person because some people believe it takes up too much time to be in the same place at once and we just don’t need to anymore. This is most definitely not the case for developing children. These children actually miss out on learning basic communication and social skills when they choose to not speak face-to-face.

When we decide to speak face-to-face, you get a much better idea of what the other person is talking about because you’re able to connect on a much deeper level when you talk in person. Not only are you physically and mentally connecting with the other person in face-to-face interactions, but you’re also able to pick up on certain physical cues and expressions in order to better understand the person you’re talking to. When we choose to not communicate in person, then we miss out on so many bodily cues we could be picking up on. These personal interactions provide kids with learning how to read visual and vocal cues. These cues consist of things like facial expressions, eye contact, tones of voice, body positioning, and even posture. While we normally feel like these things don’t really matter, that’s usually because we’ve already learned the basics and neglect most of the cues that we don’t care about or feel like aren’t necessary. The overarching advantage that drives our choices is the fact that texting saves time and effort when communicating with others. And when we value this advantage more than the other basic social cues, then that’s where we start to drift away from each other because we flat out don’t understand each other’s perspectives and where we’re coming from. It’s easy to say that we’ll pick texting over in-person because we’re so used to talking to people’s faces that we feel like it’s not necessary anymore. But for the ones who are still developing and don’t have many experiences with human interactions, this lack of communication can be detrimental to their growth and their development as a contributing member of society who is going to have to interact with others whether they want to or not.

Along with children using their technology as gate ways away from reality, these mass medias are giving not only children, but also grown adults, platforms to create online personas in which they can represent themselves and their profile in any way that they want. This can be worse than good in many different cases. In a 2014 article written by Megan Moreno, she highlights the fact that there are several different platforms that cyberbullying, or electronic aggression, which include e-mail, social media, blogs, online games, and text messaging. And with these platforms these people are able to reach other online personas which may be real or fake and interact with them without any repercussions. This ability to speak to anyone behind any screen, has directly spawned the traumatic epidemic we have going on right now which is cyberbullying. There has always been bullies in the past, in which they usually physically harm kids, which can be stopped if you go to the right person with help. But cyberbullying is a whole new level of bullying because the bully is completely incognito and the only thing the receiver is able to read is the mean and hateful messages that they bully is sending their way. This can cause immaculate damage to the emotional and mental health of the person being bullied because for one thing they really have no idea who is causing this trauma, therefore it is much more difficult to just simply ask for help to fix the problem.

Coming from the other side of the debate a few arguments could be made to defend the resourcefulness of technology. Such as the mass social media that we have at our fingertips has generated enough social interactions that could make up for the lack of face-to-face interactions. Things such as dating apps, twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all generate their own sources for communication. Twitter is an app solely based on tweeting out your ideas or thoughts, and then other people responding or liking the tweet as a way to validate someone’s tweet or almost showing that you feel the same way that they do. This argument could be validated by a source called SproutSocial, a database site on social media, which has a statistic in which the number of active Instagram users since 2014 has increased by over 100 million users. While some of these accounts may be burner accounts or fake generated accounts, this is still a large number of people who are able to connect with each other and communicate.

While this is a basic way of online communication, it still does not make up for the energy output needed to speak to someone face-to-face which is one of the main factors that make face-to-face interactions so genuine is because everything is upfront and you’re generally more likely to tell the truth or give your actual opinion in person than over messaging.

The other side could also mention the fact that bullying has always been an epidemic that occurs during the younger generations and Cyberbullying is not a direct result of the evolution of technology, but it just gave us a higher platform to give our opinions which can be harmful to other people, which faults human beings not technology itself.

While this is a way to view the technological advances, it is the exact reason why certain ages should be restricted from certain websites in general or even the devices. Even though this comes down to the decision of the parents there must be a set standard in which you can’t use a source of mass media If you are not of age, or at least are not old enough to understand the culture of the social media app.

Technology has had a significant impact on the social skills of the current rising generations and has negatively affected the way we go about communication nowadays, face-to-face being the least preferred way of communication. The innovation of technology was created for growth and innovation, when used properly. By hiding our faces in our technology, we are becoming less familiar with human interaction and are becoming more and more disconnected every day as a society when we stray away from talking to each other. We are doing a disservice to the rising generations by providing them with unlimited ways to avoid the process of learning basic communication skills and allowing them to avoid the harsh reality by hiding away with their online personas.

Works Cited