PLUGGED IN LIVES

Ali Haider
Sep 2, 2018 · 3 min read

In the modern world era, it’s more about texting goodnight to your kids sleeping in the room next door rather than going to their room and putting them into the bed. Teenagers literally sleep with their cellphones and so do their parents. Such devices not only change what we do but they change who we are. This has affected our lives up to a great extent, such that we text while we are in a meeting, people have now learned this new skill to text while making eye contact when talking to someone.

Parents ignore their children at the breakfast table and get busy in texting while their children complain for the lack of attention. But on the contrary, the children seem to do the same with their other siblings. A few days ago, I was sitting in the lounge area with all my family members, for a moment there was a pin drop silence and everyone seemed to be busy with their cellphones, that’s when I realized that this is the perfect example of being together while not being together.

In my opinion, people are going through a goldilocks effect, not too close not too far just right, when it comes to prioritizing their relationship with their cellphone which comes to the conclusion that someday but not now people would like to learn how to have a conversation. This is due to the fact that we can’t control what we are going to say as the conversation takes place in real-time but while texting we have an advantage to edit, delete or give the conversation a new touch, not too little not to big just right (Turkle 2012). Texting can contribute to little things meaning that “I care about you” or even that “I love you” but it can’t contribute to the fact that we know each other. People want someone who knows them and the best way to go about this is to listen to them, this for a fact brings a fear in me to think that someday human’s best friend would we an advanced version of Siri. People these days require an illusion of companionship without the demands of a friendship. Therefore, we tend to make use of technology to make us feel connected without being controlled. However we are being controlled by technology as we use technology to share our feelings even we are having them, an example would be posting the picture of your meal on social media instead of enjoying the moment.

We need to revolutionize the way we make use of technology. I am not saying that we should cut off on technology, however we need to think, we all really need to listen to each other, even the boring parts of the story to take something complicated and promising something simpler, hopeful and optimistic in return. We need to stop ourselves from reaching a point where a robot comes our best friend. Therefore, we should focus on many ways the technology can lead us back to our own lives, the lives we can love (Turkle 2012).

1. Turkle, S 2012, ‘Connected, but alone’, online video, viewed on 1st September 2018, https://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together/details?referrer=playlist-our_digital_lives.

2. Cacioppo, J., Fowler, J., & Christakis, N. 2009, ‘Alone in the crowd: The structure and spread of loneliness in a large social network’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 97, no. 6, pp. 977–991, viewed on 1st September 2019, http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/10.1037/a0016076.

3. Davies, H 2013, ‘Social media and personal relationships: Online intimacies and networked friendship’, Information, Communication & Society, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 1–3, viewed on 1st of September 2018, Taylor & Francis online database,<https://doiorg.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/10.1080/1369118X.2013.850527>

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