Internet and Communication

The Internet has definitely brought us closer together. We can now stay in contact with family or friends that are located pretty much anywhere in the world. Everyone is pretty much a text, email, tweet or post away. Skype has also allowed us to not only speak with anyone but to see them as well, as long as you have a webcam. But, I also think that friendship is not what it once was. I think today that it doesn’t mean as much since we can be “friends” with hundreds or thousands of people through Facebook or MySpace. Because of the Internet and the social networks, I think we are getting a lot more impersonal and taking the “easy way” out of sending an email or text to a person instead of calling them or showing up for a visit. I think the emotion has been taken out of communication. You used to be able to hear the tone of a person’s voice and know that they were upset or happy and you would react to that. Now, a person expresses their feelings using emoticons such as =) or = ( or use shorthand like “GR8” or “BRB.” I may be a little old fashioned when it comes to this but I think it has to do with the fact that I grew up before cell phones and before computers were in almost every home. I would write letters or cards and send them to my family and they would respond with a letter back or a phone call to the house and you would visit as many people as you could when you had the chance. I’m also a person that doesn’t feel the need to tweet or update my status constantly on Twitter or Facebook. To me, it just doesn’t make sense to let everyone on my list know what I’m doing every 5 minutes. Again, call me old fashioned but I would rather talk to someone face to face and let them know how I’m doing instead of doing so electronically. I would rather go on vacation and shut my phone off… and I usually do! I tell my coworkers, in a nice way, that when I’m on vacation I’m not answering my phone or emails. If they leave a voice mail, I’ll listen to it and respond if necessary. I don’t mean to sound like a jerk it’s just that I remember before all of this stuff was introduced it was different. We went outside and played with our friends instead of playing multiplayer games online through XBOX Live or the Playstation network. I may seem a little cynical but I don’t want to come across that way. I do embrace the Internet and Technology, I’m in the IT field!, but I just wish that we could get some of that face-to face communication back. Unfortunately, I don’t think that is the way we are going.
I think that we are empowered by the anonymity of e-mail as well. I know I’ve sent emails in the past that I’ve regretted and I can’t count how many times that I’ve forwarded the wrong email to the wrong people. However, I think that many people don’t see it as a big deal anymore. You cannot always tell the tone of an email and it leaves you to wonder what a person’s intent is and simply send back an email without a second thought. I know I’m guilty of it. I also think that we will continue to see the impact these social networks will have on political and social unrest. The most recent example would be Egypt. People were trying to get their opinions out and heard by people all over the world, they were doing that and the Egyptian government found out; they simply shut off Internet access to their country to try and make a point. There was such uproar about it that the government restored access the next day. The social networks give people an outlet for their feelings and opinions even when it is illegal to do so in their respective countries. The social networks and the Internet have made the world smaller than ever before.