Is technology affecting the way we communicate? If yes, in what ways? Is this evolution or devolution? Is I-speak and text messaging hampering our ability to express ourselves creatively and individually in our writing?
7 comments:
Anonymous
said...
i'm the kind of girl who needs lengthy, meaningful conversations in order to survive. technology -- the speed, ease and "sound byte-ed-ness" -- makes my way of being cumbersome to a lot of people. people don't have time, or don't take time. i think that our quality conversation is a major casualty of technology.
Thanks for your writing, which I enjoy! I hear what you are saying re working and writing and the clash between ... oh boy o boy do I hear you!!! :) Be well.
I dislike lengthy phone conversations, much prefer talking face to face. With writing I can take my time, think about what I want to say, try to find the right words.
That's why I blog, I think. I don't IM or text people.
Technology can be isolating. Why leave your house if you can email?
But I don't think it hampers communication. It speeds it up and shortens the distance, in some ways, between people.
A complicated question. I voted no, but maybe I should have voted unsure!
Technology enables us to communicate with a wider range of people more quickly than we used to be able to. However texting probably reduces people's ability to express themselves properly. Mobile phones and WiFi encourage a lack of awareness of people's surroundings; online social networking enables people to think they're making friends when tehy're just sitting at a computer, helps people to forget what real social interaction is. I would say for me personally, ordinary phones, email and blogs = good; mobile phones, laptops in trains, texting and online social networking = bad.
I see pro and cons. The most disturbing change is how truncated and abbreviated conversation is becoming. That bothers me for a few reasons. I am also troubled that students spend so much time using text messaging and i-speak that they are failing to master standard communication skills needed for professional and academic writing.
I love email. I write many more emails than I ever did written letters. But then, just having a computer opened the world of writing to me. I don't type well and being able to edit easily has made it possible for me to be a writer.
I have to do a lot of revising to get things said, right. So computers suit my temperment.
I do see a continuing weakness in my speaking ability, though, and liek to speak on the phone less and less. Long gone are the says when I could spend hours on the phone.
I don't like the distraction of multi-tasking communicating, and worry the next generations aren't going to be able to concentrate at all (like on the health-care I'll be needing!) I undersetand what Carolee means about needing breadth of conversation. And agree.
If I didn't have technology, I wouldn't have you all, though...so I take it rather than leave it.
7 comments:
i'm the kind of girl who needs lengthy, meaningful conversations in order to survive. technology -- the speed, ease and "sound byte-ed-ness" -- makes my way of being cumbersome to a lot of people. people don't have time, or don't take time. i think that our quality conversation is a major casualty of technology.
Thanks for your writing, which I enjoy! I hear what you are saying re working and writing and the clash between ... oh boy o boy do I hear you!!! :) Be well.
I dislike lengthy phone conversations, much prefer talking face to face. With writing I can take my time, think about what I want to say, try to find the right words.
That's why I blog, I think. I don't IM or text people.
Technology can be isolating. Why leave your house if you can email?
But I don't think it hampers communication. It speeds it up and shortens the distance, in some ways, between people.
A complicated question. I voted no, but maybe I should have voted unsure!
Technology enables us to communicate with a wider range of people more quickly than we used to be able to. However texting probably reduces people's ability to express themselves properly. Mobile phones and WiFi encourage a lack of awareness of people's surroundings; online social networking enables people to think they're making friends when tehy're just sitting at a computer, helps people to forget what real social interaction is. I would say for me personally, ordinary phones, email and blogs = good; mobile phones, laptops in trains, texting and online social networking = bad.
I see pro and cons. The most disturbing change is how truncated and abbreviated conversation is becoming. That bothers me for a few reasons. I am also troubled that students spend so much time using text messaging and i-speak that they are failing to master standard communication skills needed for professional and academic writing.
I think I agree with you all.
I love email. I write many more emails than I ever did written letters. But then, just having a computer opened the world of writing to me. I don't type well and being able to edit easily has made it possible for me to be a writer.
I have to do a lot of revising to get things said, right. So computers suit my temperment.
I do see a continuing weakness in my speaking ability, though, and liek to speak on the phone less and less. Long gone are the says when I could spend hours on the phone.
I don't like the distraction of multi-tasking communicating, and worry the next generations aren't going to be able to concentrate at all (like on the health-care I'll be needing!) I undersetand what Carolee means about needing breadth of conversation. And agree.
If I didn't have technology, I wouldn't have you all, though...so I take it rather than leave it.
Hi Susan. I just wanted to see if you were participating in NaPoWriMo. Visit ReadWritePoem.org and check it out!
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