How Technology Harms Face-to-Face Communication Social Essay

How Technology Harms Face-to-Face Communication
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How Technology Harms Face-to-Face Communication
Maria Konnikova authors the first article, The Limits of Friendship while Sherry Turkle writes the second one, Reclaiming Conversation. Konnikova begins by making the connection between primates and people. She mentions that when they groom one another, the apes can maintain close relationships and in-groups. In other words, tending to one another enables them to bond and stay in a close-knit family. It is as if they have feel-good hormones that make them appreciate each other. She mentions that typically the baboons can maintain a social group of 150 members (Konnikova, 2014). At least, every baboon would personally know more than a hundred more of its kind, in a rather intimate way. She backs her claims with research that was conducted by credible scholars who have been following the topic for a long time. Analogous to the baboons, humans also tend to personally know at least 100 people whom they can identify, say, in a crowd (Konnikova, 2014). However, the smaller the group gets, the more intimate the people become, and the more they can share their deep feelings and concerns. In other words, in a large meeting, someone might say that “I appreciate you for coming.” However, in a family of, say, five people, they would be rather intimate and talk about the issues that disturb them. On the flip side, the author notes that while technology and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter can increase the number of people one interacts with and maybe grow their networks, the virtual interaction can never take the place of face-to-face conversation.
Similar to Konnikova’s article, Turkle observes that the wave of technology is changing the face of communication, albeit in a negative way. People pay more attention to their phones, which is a conversation killer (Turkle, 2016). Couples on a date concentrate on their phones and not their loved ones. In meetings, attendants occasionally glance at their phones and may not follow what the speaker says. The list goes on to include children who compete with phones for their parents’ attention. Sadly, social media has taken over families. Folks are busy on their gadgets and pay little attention to face-to-face conversations and interactions. While some people would argue that technology is driving commerce and making the world a convenient, place, the precedent will translate in children, students, and workers who lack role models (Turkle, 2016). The phones have substituted the practical lessons they woul...