The power of reasoning God gave to mankind has led to various inventions that have helped and still help in solving simple and complex activities. These inventions have significantly contributed and still contribute to interpersonal, intercultural, and public communication among different races in the world. Within human communication, technological advancement has led to changes in the manners through which people communicate at personal and societal levels. With the advent of technologies tools such as telephones, the internet, social networking sites, and other interactive media, we are now connecting in new ways on both physiological and emotional levels.
Despite paying a huge sum of money to have these technologies, none of us has really realised that our social intimacy is being eroded on a daily basis. Before the advent of these technologies, in a typical African society, family members would visit each other frequently, but now new media tools such as telephone has taken over the usual visits of Africans living in other towns or cities within their geographical locations. Nowadays, an African man prefers calling his relative, exchanging pleasantries for a visit capable of cementing social cohesion. This observation agrees with Thieubaud that “people have given up so much in exchange for the glory and never-ending development of science, technology, and commerce, but they have little or no time for a few kind words with a neighbour or a friend or simply another human being whose path they cross during their busy days.”
No doubt, the emergence of various technologies for communication purposes has reduced social intimacy, leading to social isolation and numerous poor health conditions, especially when people find it difficult to do certain things without others. As it was examined earlier, all communication was conducted orally, using the mouth and tongue to converse and the ears to hear before communicative technology tools sprung up.
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Nowadays, we have seen people engrossed in interaction with one another online without seeing specific non-verbal cues, which have the tendency to give clues to effective understanding of the messages being passed across. At the educational level, during lectures, we have seen how learners interact among themselves online through social networking sites, jettisoning teacher-learner rules. Findings from my recent empirical study support this observation. In the study, it was discovered that sampled students of a senior secondary school in Nigeria significantly initiated textual and voice communication and sought more clarifications on class-assignment among themselves without considering the consequences of not paying attention to teachers.
Apart from social isolation and a reduction in social intimacy, poor health conditions such as depression, isolated alienation, and being overweight could also result from overdependence on technological tools for interpersonal communication. For instance, addiction to the use of interactive platforms on the Internet for many hours without physical empathy with the interlocutors is a unique way of creating depression in one’s life. Being with a computer for a long time meditating alone is also a typical means of increasing estrangement, while situations that result in both dangers are keenly connected with being overweight.
No matter the present benefits we are deriving from the various technologies, we still need to go back to our previous interpersonal communication norms, which aid us in communicating with passion and compassion for the betterment of everyone. Returning to pre-technological interpersonal communication would go a long way toward reducing social conflict escalation caused by excessive consumption of individualized information from technologies such as the Internet, which do not allow inclusive social interaction. In other words, our social interaction within the technological sphere is mainly established through machines and ends with the same means without real-life face-to-face contacts, which give interlocutors the opportunity to assess non-verbal cues and establish empathy.
Consulted Materials
Lasisi, Mutiu Iyanda “Class Structure as Determinant for Students’ Academic Uses and Gratifications of New Media: Luther’s King College, Ile-Ogbo, Nigeria as a Case” Journal of Communication and Media Research (in press)
O’Donoghue, Zoe “Friend Me”: The Impacts of Technology on Human Interaction” Running Head: Technology and Human Interaction Volume (na) (n.d) Pp1-13
Thiebaud, Jane “Effects of Technology on People: Living F2F Conversation and Socia Interaction” Proceedings of the Media Ecology Association, Volume 11, 2010 Pp 117-128