Part 5

Part 5

    I have discovered a lot about my questions: 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? I have discovered a lot of new information on these topics through research and exploration. I learned the most through studying my philosopher, John Stuart Mill. However, I also discovered a lot through the dialogue with a peer and through exploring and connecting the novel, The Stranger, to my questions. I have discovered that communication, technology, relationships, and our morals that guide what we say to one another have a lot to do with happiness and our pleasure affects us. I learned that through studying Mill’s novel, Utilitarianism. I have learned that communication is one of the most important tools in our lives because we use it every second of the day every day. Technology shapes our lives in a numerous of positive ways: it provides us with easy access to information (Internet, media, TV, newspapers, magazines, etc), upgrades in the medicine field, warfare, it has helped us communicate with one another a lot easier (Facebook, Twitter, etc), and many other things as well. I learned this through exploring and researching Mill’s novel, Utilitarianism  and the novel, The Stranger. Technology has shaped the future in so many positive ways, and it will keep on improving as the years come. We have relationships with one another because we love having companions by our side, talking to one another, feeling loved/comforted/happy, we love laughing and having fun with one another, and many other reasons. We need relationships in our lives because if we didn’t have them, then we couldn’t succeed and go on with our lives because we would feel lonely and depressed. The people you hang around tells a lot about a person. It tells what kind of personality you have, what interests you have, and just the kind of person you are (athlete, goth, nerd, etc). Our morals have a lot to deal with what we say to one another. We choose what we say to one another based off of what role that person has in our lives. We wouldn’t tell the same story/thing to a teacher that we would would tell our best friend or girlfriend. Most people care a lot about our others portray them because people want to be in the “in crowd” and want to be thought of as cool. If a person thinks that other people think they are cool, then that will boost their confidence and make them think that they are cool as well. It is very interesting how our society works.
    I have also learned that technology shapes our lives in many positive ways, however it has many implications. Technology has been growing at such a rapid pace, which has caused some negative repercussions along the way. I believe that the rapid increase in the role of technology with interpersonal communication does have negative impact as well as positive impact. Facebook gives people a false belief of who their true friends are. Facebook and Twitter also let people hide behind their technology and not show their face in interpersonal communication. It has really changed relationships. Will this new generation that has grown up with technology at their fingertips be able to communicate as effectively in person as previous generations. Technology could prevent us from being able to write a succinct business letter to an older executive at a company where we might work in the future. It is so easy to type out our feelings but can we effectively communicate to others face-to-face how we feel without the use of technology.  Another effect that technology has had on our communication is that everything keeps getting faster and faster, and people expect immediate results and immediate answers. Due dates are no longer dictated by the mail, but by an instant click of the button. Our society expects everything now, and that makes people mores stressed trying to keep up. There is never down time. Technology is always on. With the use of smart phones and computers, it is hard to get away. Smart phones with cameras also allow people to document things that never used to get photographed or video-taped instantaneously. This creates little privacy for anyone.  Technology has also caused many people to get in trouble through media (Facebook, Twitter, pictures, uploads on the internet/newspapers/magazines, etc). Technology is an extremely powerful thing that has caused many negatives to society, like less face-to-face interactions. This is a major problem in businesses because the younger generations are so used to just texting and Facebook/Twitter talk/language that they aren’t used to the real adult conversations with their bosses. They don’t use correct language and aren’t use to grammatically correct emails. People just try to use easy behind the scenes talk (cell phones, texting, email), instead of having real and stressful business-like conversations. This will cause some major problems in the upcoming future as technology keeps on advancing. As technology advances, I feel like texting, Facebook/Twitter, and email are going to become the number one way of communicating as well as Skype and Video Chat. There will be less face to face conversations because there is so advanced technology out there available to us at our fingertips that we don’t need to make that extra step/hassle. Technology is beneficial in many instances, like posting an assignment for school online, instead of having to physically turn it in and having all the information in the universe one click away on our computers. It is so reliable and easy. However, this generation is so used to having everything be so speedy that people have become impatient easier and aren’t used to waiting for things. This can cause stress and having a too up tight and fast pace world. When the power goes out in your house for only an hour or two, people in this generation don’t know what to do with themselves. People start freaking out and become impatient because they can’t go on their computer, watch TV, or play video games. Technology is a good thing for school work/finding information, for medicine, warfare, and for communicating with one another for the most part. However, it is a bad thing when it comes to posting things online that invade one another’s privacy and could get them in trouble or embarrassed. We have to keep this under control because sometimes it is just too much. We don’t need to know everything about everyone’s lives every moment because we also need to take a step back or two and just relax and enjoy our lives without knowing what everyone else is doing. We need our own privacy as well sometimes. How far can Facebook and Twitter go? Will they eventually run the world? Run the information centers of the universe? Will there be medicine in the future to cure cancer/cure everything? Will Facebook and Twitter be the leading business/multi-billion dollar business of the world? Will technology save us from everything, like sicknesses and will it create unstoppable weapons for warfare? Will technology save us from global warming? Only time will tell.
    I believe that technology will continue to grow, become faster and more efficient, and be used in even more areas of our world for interpersonal communication as well as other areas of society. In order for it to be an effective tool, the developers of technology and the leaders of the businesses that make the technology have a moral right to consider that it is used correctively. For instance, the founders of Facebook are always considering security and privacy as they develop more advanced versions and updates for Facebook. Our educators need to continue to teach the newer generations how to communicate effectively in written and oral communication so that we can communicate not just with our fingers, but with more traditional ways as well. Technology is here to stay, and it will help us solve problems we never imagined could be solved, but we need to all do our part to help technology do its job, and also allow humans to continue to communicate effectively with and without technology for the technology to succeed.