Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Ideas on Step 1: Personal Experience


What is the role of interpersonal communication in our lives? How does technology shape society and transform the future (good or bad)? Why do we have relationships with others? To what extent do we need them? What do our relationships with others say about who we are? What rules or morals guide what we say to other people? How important is it to think about how others see and think of us? How does that shape how we think of ourselves?

A major stepping stone in my life that greatly transformed and expanded interpersonal communication was the creation of Facebook.  This creation greatly affected my life in numerous ways. I quickly became addicted to the website because I was so intrigued by it. I always wanted to see what my friends were doing at all times when I was at home. I also always wanted to see what pictures and statuses my friends posted to see what they were doing. I also liked posting pictures and posting my own statuses. Facebook became a website that people used to show off and show what they were doing at all times. People tried to have as many friends as possible even if they didn’t really know who they were. People tried to post cool statuses and cool pictures to try to be cool. I also loved talking to my friends online on Facebook chat. Everyone always went online after school or at night to talk. I have used Facebook as a source for school projects as well because almost everyone has it, so it is an easy source to communicate about the project. I also got in the habit of doing my homework by my laptop. I always had Facebook up while I was doing my homework. Every couple minutes I would check Facebook to see who was online, what new statuses were posted, or what new pictures were uploaded. I loved being so interconnected to my friends at all time. I thought it was a wonderful thing. However, the negative of all this is multi-tasking/doing so many things all at once (Facebook, music, and homework all at the same time), which made it hard to do as well on my homework because I was distracted by Facebook and other things. However, I got accustomed to it quickly. I also put off my homework sometimes just to go on Facebook and see the homepage. I got addicted to it very quickly, which was good in some sense and bad in some ways as well. Another negative was wasting so many hours on Facebook daily, when I could be using my time more wisely. Some positives of Facebook and the update of technology was that I always had a wonderful source of information that I could use on my schoolwork. Also, I could talk to my friends in a more efficient way, instead of always calling or texting them on the phone. Technology was expanding so quickly, and Facebook was changing and expanding (becoming better) every day. Facebook has greatly expanded communication and technology in so many wonderful ways for our society. However, it has caused some problems as well. It has shaped society in positive ways by giving people an easy way to communicate, post pictures, talk to friends, post what you are doing at all times, and way more. Some negatives, however, are having such a complex technological source at your fingertips at all times. Nothing is private anymore.  Anything on the internet is there forever. You can post inappropriate pictures of other people, and that person in the picture would get in trouble. Past generations would never have to worry about any of this because they never had so complex technology. Also, humans have access to communication at all times, which may not be a good thing. This is because you are always active doing something and always feel the need to use technology. You don’t get alone time or privacy anymore. People always feel the need to use technology and can’t go any days or hours without it because people have gotten so used to it and accustomed to it.

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