Technology and Social Interaction

With the spread of so many new technology, I believe it has definitely changed the way we socially interact. With technology today it is not a necessity to meet someone face to face anymore, but we can communicate through numerous forms of communications now such as conferencing over web-cam, email, skype, face time over the iphone etc... Overall I believe that the spread of technology has had a very positive impact on my everyday interaction with other people, but can also have a negative impact on peoples ability to interact socially face to face. I believe this because interaction over the internet most of the time will be txt based which is much different then talking to someone face to face. With txt based system of communication people can create there own character and carefully choose words to construct there own online image. This can be a positive if someone has a speech impediment but can also be a negative because if someone talks to others only on a txt based system all there life they will not be able to communicate regularly with others face to face. This could really cripple some people socially. But with even more recent technology I believe that this problem will slowly be solved. With more and more convenient ways to chat face to face over the internet or phone. This way people can have the convenience of meeting someone anytime anywhere, but also have the ability to speak with each other as if they were meeting face to face. My take on meeting people via the internet is that there is really nothing wrong with that. The only thing I hate about this is that sadly there are many childish, stupid, and even predators on the internet that people have to look out for. I know of many people who have meet there boyfriends/girlfriends through the internet and they are happy with each other and after meeting in person have had a regular relationship like any other. Also with the internet it also preserve many of my friends relationships. This is because as many of you know being in college means you meet people from all around the world and also means that some people have to move away from there home and there family/boyfriend/girlfriend. With the ability to talk to people over the internet it make communicating with others much easier. I believe that it is fine to meet and get to someone online, but meeting someone in person is also very important. You can only do so much with technology and while face to face over the internet may be one way to make things more personal, nothing is more personal then meeting someone in person. There really does not need to be any more focus on building more real/public spheres because there are already infinite places where people can meet face to face, and it is up to us to decide whether or not we want to make the step to meet someone in person instead of over the internet.