Are we replacing conversations with connectivity? |07 October 2013

Technology is changing so quickly that most of us are barely aware of how our behaviour is changing.

Joshua’s mum Mary-May, who lives near the Anse Boileau secondary school, was in her bedroom relaxing after having cooked dinner that day. She was feeling a bit tired after a stressful day at work. She was dozing off when she realised she had not locked the downstairs room of the house. As she felt so lethargic to wake up from her nap, she sent a text message (SMS) to her 10-year-old son, Joshua, who was in his room playing Playstation game. “Joshua go lock up the room downstairs,” reads the SMS.

 As for Matthew of St Louis, Mahé, he was in the house after school and his father was planting banana trees in their small home garden. His father, who was separated from his mum, was almost done when he sent a text message to Matthew; “Son put on the rice cooker to warm the rice. I am almost finished here”.

 Another such story is that of Dwayne of Caryole, Anse aux Pins. Dwayne was taking his time getting prepared for school and his mum was about done and ready to leave. Instead of going into Dwayne’s room to tell him to hurry up his mum sent him a text message when she was under the veranda of their home asking him to hurry up.

Another glaring example of such lifestyle is when four friends organised a night out at a local bar for a happy hour. They were all there having some softdrinks and chatting how cool and nice the entertainment was at the bar and were really enjoying themselves. After some time they were all very quiet. Each one of them had pulled out their mobile phones and were leafing through Facebook, eBay, New Look catalogue or were even sending text messages to other people. So was it really an evening out with friends or an evening out with cell phones?

 Marie-Cecile says she had to give her grandma a cell phone to keep track of her when she goes out. So grandmas are also phone addicts these days!! Some would say grandmas are very young nowadays but Marie-Cecile’s grandma is the real grandma – 68 yrs old!

 As more and more people get cell phones every year, the number of text messages that have been sent and receive soared sky high with them. Cell phones have become so technologically advanced including cell phone applications, texting, games, music, banking, email, the Internet, global positioning system, and many other neat features that increase the use of these phones.  They are a great accessible device to have in case of an emergency.

You’re sitting in the grand stand for example watching a game or some other sports events. You notice that many of the students are not only ignoring the event but they’re also ignoring the friends seated beside them—instead they are busy texting away..   

Sounds familiar?  We can continue with so many more examples. This is just to show you how far cell phones or technology have taken up the running of our everyday life.

In the last 15 years the mobile phone has conquered the world.  We could make a list of many ways these phones have improved our lives.  But if you’re like me and can remember what life was like before we all got cell phones, you may wonder if all the changes are really for the good.  
Remember those days when you could go to a movie — or to church — and not worry about being distracted by ringing phones or by the white glow of someone texting a friend?  Remember when meetings at work weren’t interrupted by phone calls that people just have to accept now?

And here’s one more scene we all see regularly:
You walk into a restaurant and you notice a couple seated near you.  And you notice that they really are not enjoying this opportunity to be together, because one is patiently waiting for the other to stop talking or texting on the cell phone.

Adjusting to a new technology is nothing new.  Electricity, automobiles, telephones, radio, television, computers, and many other new inventions sparked significant changes in our culture and in the way we related to our spouses, our children, and our friends.  But the pace of change since has been breathtaking.  We’ve seen the emergence of the internet and of mobile phones, and then the convergence of the two.  We can now be plugged in wherever we are, 24 hours a day due to good old WiFi.
The technology is evolving so quickly that most of us are barely aware of how our behaviour is changing.  But we’re starting to wake up.  From some research on the internet, over the last couple years there’s been an increasing number of articles and books on topics like, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?, “Attached to Technology and Paying a Price”, and “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?”.

An interesting article that is worth reading is, “The Flight from Conversation,” an opinion piece in the New York Times.  Sherry Turkle, an author and professor at MIT, writes of her concern that our new ability to connect easily through the web and through cell phones is causing many to forget the importance of conversation in developing a strong relationship.  

“Over the past 15 years, I’ve studied technologies of mobile connection and talked to hundreds of people of all ages and circumstances about their plugged-in lives.  I’ve learned that the little devices most of us carry around are so powerful that they change not only what we do, but also who we are…”
The article went on to say- “We are tempted to think that our little “sips” of online connection add up to a big gulp of real conversation.  But they don’t.  E-mail, Twitter, Facebook, all of these have their places - in politics, commerce, romance and friendship.  But no matter how valuable, they do not substitute for conversation.”

The drift from conversation to connectivity should be a concern for any person and for any parent.  Other technologies - particularly television - have distracted us from conversation for many years, but recent advances give us the option to replace it. And how can you develop and maintain a strong relationship with members of your family if you aren’t talking to each other?
Some parents are starting to wonder whether their teenage children — obsessively focused on texting — are falling behind in their verbal and relational skills.

www.nation.sc would love to get some feedback from you as well.  What do you think of the rapid changes we’ve seen in technology and how they have affected family life?  Do you think some of us are too concerned?  Have you done anything to establish some limits in how you use web and cell phone technology in your family?  Write down your thoughts in the comments section below, and we’ll use them in a future LIFESTYLE topic.

Couples are no longer enjoying times together but times with cell phones on top as our photo shows