Hello fellow classmates and welcome to my blog! I will be discussing my personal experiences and opinions about how communication technology affects my life. I’ve had pretty extensive exposure to technology starting at an early age. I can recall playing games on our family’s first giant home computer, listening to my Walkman during road trips to Destin, and getting my first cell phone in the 8th grade. I can remember creating multiple screen names during my middle school years on which I participated in too many conversations at one time. In addition, I can recall my best friend Tori setting up my Facebook account after the first day of freshman year. From high school to present time, my main modes of commutation stem from my cell phone and laptop. I constantly text, make calls, Facebook, ichat, etc. Advancements in communication technology have made the ability to communicate so convenient that it’s no wonder I use them so frequently. Communication technology can be and is intended to enhance the quality of life, but I often times find my cell phone and laptop distracting in addition to having a negative affect on the quality of my communication. However, as I make these claims, I am aware that my life would be significantly different without them in today’s society.
Do you ever open your laptop to do homework and immediately open the Internet and type Facebook.com into the search bar? I know that it happens to me almost every day. It’s like I’m on autopilot and go there without even thinking about what I’m doing. Doing an assignment for school on my computer sometimes takes twice as long due to multiple “facebook breaks.” Sometimes I’ll log onto Facebook intending on just checking for notifications but end up staying logged on for an hour. I think to myself, where did the time go? Facebook alone definitely serves as my number one procrastination source. I also have experienced distraction from communication technology via email. I attended an all girls laptop-oriented high school, St. Agnes Academy, and we each had a school email account. Instead of using our email accounts on the OSP (Online Student Portal) for contacting teachers like we were supposed to, we emailed each other during class. In addition to participating in conversations to pass time in class, we sometimes even purposefully sent emails to make a friend laugh, causing them to be scolded for “being off task.” Although I am constantly distracted by communication technology, I can say high school classes would have been more painful without email and life without Facebook would be strange.
Not only do I find communication technology to be distraction, but I also have realized that it has a negative affect on the quality of my communication. So why do so many of us choose to participate in impersonal forms of communication rather than face-to-face interactions. I think it is simply due to convenience. With today’s fast paced society, the focus of our means of communication is about getting to the point as quickly as possible. Instead of retiring to the parlor and using the flowery language that was used in centuries past, we use blunt language that says exactly what we mean in the fastest way possible. I sometimes wonder what people from many years ago would say about today’s society. Although times have changed and we don’t need to use ornate language in our conversations, I think that the lack of face-to-face conversations and use of curt, abbreviated language hinders communication in several ways.
Although I do not particularly see the appeal of using abbreviations in my everyday conversation, many people in this generation like to engage in communicating in this fashion. I took three freshman boys to school to the all-boys school next door during my senior year, and half the time I could not understand their text messages due to the absurd amount of abbreviations. I don’t necessarily think that using the occasional abbreviation in a text or Facebook post is a bad thing, but I think that it is sometimes used in excess, causing a hindrance in communication. In addition, abbreviations are viewed as acceptable in informal conversations, but I have proof read papers where students have included shorthand in formal writing. I think that people get so accustomed to using informal language, and it begins to overlap into their formal writing. Although impersonal communication is appealing due to convenience, this type of communication lacks body language and tone of voice. Texting, emailing, and Facebooking are attractive because they allow the conversationalist to carefully plan what he or she will say and decide when to respond. Although it is tempting to communicate through an email due to the convenience, it has the potential to create confusion due to miscommunication. One time my friend emailed me asking if I wanted to go off campus for lunch. I told her no because I had brought my lunch from home that day and was planning on going to the library to finish an assignment. I did not include any exclamation marks or anything that would indicate excitement, and she mistook my response for being rude. If we had this conversation in person, there would have been no confusion at all. But because things like email and text messaging lack body language and tone of voice, emotions such as sarcasm cannot be recognized.
Although I have spent the past three paragraphs talking about how communication technology hinders my life, it has many benefits. I cannot even imagine how different my life would be without all of the technology that I use today. What would life be like without our cell phones attached to our hip? I’m not sure, and frankly, I don’t want to find out. However, I think that it is interesting to think about from time to time.
