Personal gadgets and their effect on social circle
Personal gadgets and their effect on social circle
Gadgets have become a part of our day to day lives. From morning alarms to plugging on to music at night, gadgets have permeated our lives completely.
But, the effect of these personal gadgets such as the mobile phone, mp3 players as well as tablets has also been disastrous on our ability to communicate effectively. While the advent of mobile phones was considered to be a transformation in the manner how people could communicate with others anywhere and everywhere, its side effects have come to light only in the last few years. The number of people who own a mobile phone or a tablet has steadily increased and with that dependency on them has also gone up.
On the other hand, gadgets have led to reduced growth in children’s physical and mental abilities. While children used to play sports actively earlier, a lot of them have either taken to mobile phones, tablets or gaming on laptops. Playing outdoor sports not only results in their physical growth but also in interaction with peer people as well as promoting team work. But, with the modern day parents also getting hooked on to these gadgets, they are not actively inculcating the habit of playing outdoors in the children.
The increasing time spent on gadgets has also led to lesser interaction between adults and children. Besides this, the access to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter through mobile phones is another reason for lesser time to social circles. In the yesteryears, free time was devoted to family outings or excursions. However, this time has been occupied by gadgets.
Even during a meeting or a get together involving some known or unknown people, there is a tendency to ignore the crowd and getting involved in texting or calling people. This is not just rude but is also a sign of deeper problem of human beings being more attached to machines.
The reach of mobile phones to about a billion plus population has resulted lower human interaction. Hence, the need of the hour is to set some rules with respect to personal gadgets both for institutions such as schools, colleges etc as well as at homes.
Gadgets were supposed to make life easier for human beings. However, the numbers of side effects are not just too many but are also a cause of worry that humans are becoming more attached to machines and technology and less sensitive to their fellow beings.
Discussion
- Personal gadgets and their effect on social circle -Rishika Jalan (03/27/14)
Personal gadgets and their effect on social circle
Mobile phones, tabs, laptops, iPods, cameras, are a few things one cannot imagine life without. Although we might not realize and accept it but the possession of all these gadgets have had a major impact on our lives. It has become a part of all of us and we cannot imagine a day without any of this. Technology has advanced a lot in order to make life simpler but on the other hand it is also causing a lot of negative impact on our personal and social lives. The quality of our relationships with people around us is greatly influenced by the presence of these technological gadgets.
We all are human beings and social interactions are a part of our existence. But technology has unintentionally ruined inter personal space. It has been found that the perils of personal gadgets extends to influencing decreasing participation in family, less face to face communication and declining the size of the social circles.
Less face to face encounters.
Personal mobile phones have played a major role in the decline of face to face communication. When such a gadget is completely active in the household, everyone finds it convenient to just send a text from the living room to someone in the bedroom. Family members don’t find the time off from their phones and their laptops for face to face encounters. Everybody is busy with their own things, be it their tabs or their smart phones. The entire family is entangled in their own high tech world. And this causes insufficiency in the social unifications of the family.
Attention deficit
Attention deficit is a major result of technology in today’s world. Children are not seen engaging in long conversations directly. They start becoming impatient soon and their eyes start wandering. They don’t look at people in the eye and neither do they notice verbal cues. This problem persists not only among children but also in adults. All this adds to the decline of social relationships.
The wide use of the internet has led to the decrease of social skills and has created an inability to find happiness in the daily activities of life. Children are so hooked to the computer games that they seem to live in a superficial world all the time. With the availability of internet on the phone, it has further increased withdrawal from society. Even if present at a gathering, a child is immensely engrossed into his games on his phone or on his tab, which he carries with himself to all the places. And the parents are left with nothing to say to him as the child is not able to interact with anyone. And because of this children are not capable of empathy as this emotion is created out of social interaction which misses in their life.
Technology has always been encouraged for our growth and simplicity. It undoubtedly makes things easy for us. All these gadgets make life more entertaining for us and surely make us a pro at multi tasking. But the evils of it are faced when humans are over exposed to these gadgets. The continuous use of all the machines makes us aloof and isolated. It adversely impacts our social interactions, social relationships and intrapersonal communication as well.
The high social cost of too much reliance on these technological gadgets has started to materialize and it is time for people to start giving attention to their personal lives by communicating with their close ones.
