Does technology make us more alone? Technology has made lives in the present times a lot easier than they used to be. It saves a lot of time and effort of the human kind. But does technology make us more alone?
We will dive more into the said concern in this article. But first, we should have a correct knowledge of what technology exactly is.
What Exactly is Technology
Technology is the application of applied science to make the daily life of humans easier, less complicated and less hectic. In a very basic sense, the terminology of technology refers to the use of scientific know-how to solve some of the biggest problems of society.
Technology has made it possible to meet various needs and requirements of humans in very few easy steps.
From the small machines such as mobile phones to giant machines such as aeroplanes and space crafts- these are all the gifts of technology we are bestowed with in the modern world to make life much more simple, easy and comfortable. Time-consuming, tedious and daunting hours-long tasks are not even a matter of seconds but microseconds and nanoseconds precisely.
Today’s age is the digital age where all the work of a person is based on clicks and buttons- a click on a device and pressing on a button will connect us miles apart, and a switch button will perform something which once seemed impossible to the human imagination. Indeed this was a wonder once, but now it is a part of our day-to-day lives.
Technology as a Boon
The marvels of technology are uncountable. And we should look into its upsides before we dive into the topic of “Does technology make us more alone?”
Technology has made our life a lot easier than we can expect. Once unexpected is deeply rooted in our lives today. Today everything has been made available to us in seconds with just the click of a button which has saved us from a lot of complications and intricacy.
It has saved us from the tension of standing in long queues to pay bills or purchase anything. We no longer have to wait in lines to pay bills or to buy things. In today’s digital age, all these services are now made available by various e-commerce websites on the net, and we can easily pay for the required services.
Also, it has also been ensured that these transactions are done in a secured environment so that no one can steal our confidential information posing a threat to a person’s digital privacy.
With the help of various social media apps, we can connect to people all around the world; therefore, we can make new friends. Technology has made it possible for us to communicate with our friends and relatives who are far away from us across continents and oceans.
Does technology make us more alone? For introverts, technology is a good escape to avoid people too. People who do not like to socialize much have been blessed by technology as they can watch movies and series on their phones, browse through e-books or play games whenever they feel alone.
Does Technology Make Us More Alone
Technology undoubtedly has many benefits. It helps in establishing new relationships, ties and connections and also helps in countering loneliness. But as a coin has two sides, just like other things, technology too has a flip side, and the harsh, dull reality is that we also need to consider the question that does technology makes us more alone rather than making us connected with more people.
Let’s look into some of the repercussions of technology and find the answer to “Does technology make us more alone?”
1. Loneliness:
No doubt technology has uncountable benefits but do we ever think that “Does technology make us more alone?” Loneliness is one of the major drawbacks of the increased dependence on technology in our life.
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We are so busy making friends online that we forget to focus on our real-life friends and relatives. We develop the misconception that those friends online are far better than the ones we have made in real life. Thus rather than making a person connect to more and more people, it makes us lonely.
Technology has produced a reverse effect which is catastrophic for human life. We start living in an imaginary world. People have stopped spending time with real people and their family and friends. Rather they prefer to spend time online with fake friends pushing them away from reality and plunging themselves into the dark gorges of the loneliness epidemic.
They start using online websites as an escape from reality which is a totally negative aspect and therefore finds it more appealing and convincing than real life. People start trusting friends they make online, and this decreases the real human interaction quintessential to a person’s interpersonal as well as intrapersonal needs.
A recent study conducted by the UK showed that in the race to make more and more connections online, we have stopped interacting with real people, which has made us more lonely in the long run. It tends to distance people, particularly young people, from reality, cutting social connections and diverting from idealised images of a happy family as well as society.
On an average amount, every click on a technology-aided social media makes us more alone, just the same way a sip of salty water makes people feel thirstier than before.
This technology-aided social media has set boundaries which are invisible superficially; but persist in our lives, and by the time a person realises this, that technology makes us bound to an unbreakable wall of isolation, seclusion, and loneliness.
Many people feel lonely when it comes to face-to-face interactions with a person though they might be highly connected to the same person via social media.
So, this point somewhat agrees to “Does technology make us more alone?”
2. Feeling of Dissatisfaction:
Online platforms and all its gaudy stuffs are fake. Social media tends to paint idealised images of a sham world. But whatever we see on social media do has an impact on our lives. We try to copy the various influencers and try to become like them. This tendency to imitate others is inbuilt in human beings.
We are too much influenced by the Instagram influencers’ lavish lives that we start judging other people’s lives by the pictures the users constantly post. However, these are all edited and beautified clicks by technology. This causes negative social comparisons, which are not good for the mental well-being and health of a person.
Does technology make us more alone? Spending more than nine hours has also increased self-centeredness among the youth. When people start comparing their life with the people they are connected to, they usually get depressed and isolate and seclude themselves from the rest of the world.
People feel a sense of alienation from their day-to-day lives. People tend to ignore their personal needs of exercise, fresh air, good literature, and a balanced diet, which produces adverse and the reverse effect on physical and mental health.
3. Depression
Technology aided social media not only increases an individual’s screen time but also reduces his time for other day-to-day tasks. According to the last year’s research, depression is found to be one of the most prominent side effects of such online connections.
Does technology make us more alone? Technology makes us isolated and makes us more alone. It does not only make us more alone but also produces a sense of dejection.
A dejected individual is known to exhibit lost interest in his everyday life. A productive asset changes into a non-performing asset, reverting an asset into a liability.
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In the long run, this also undermines national and global productivity and economy. Technology not only makes us lonely, but it also is a serious threat to the mental health of young people today.
Does technology make us more alone? Instead of making meaningful connections online, people just make social connections with random people to build relationships online, which are futile and, instead of making us contempt, makes us more alone.
A person with high social connections online people feel is happy, but such people feel and are often seen complaining about their dissatisfied personal lives and deteriorating their personal needs.
With the increased influence of such influencers in our life, we have entered into a meaningless rat race to get the best things and facilities just to flaunt them over social media. But sadly, this race is never-ending as once we purchase a particular thing, after just a few moments later, something new comes up in the trend leading us into the same state of displeasure we were earlier in.
This race has paved the way for the coining of a new term ‘affluenza.’ A combination of the two terms ‘affluence’ and ‘Influenza’ which in simple terminology is nothing but the extent of affluence of social media so much in our lives that it has occupied the status of Influenza; i.e. it has evaded our lives like an infectious disease like Influenza or flu.
4. Absence of real-life connections
Today, with the increase of e-commerce sites, games and others, the trend of face-to-face interactions among people has declined. People prefer sitting at their respective places and selling or purchasing things rather than meeting people in real life.
The purpose of trade is not just selling and buying but also an in-person transaction that makes an individual learn new things. Coming in contact with people teaches an individual how to interact socially, how to bargain etc.
In the same way, browsing an e-book and purchasing a book from a bookstall or a bookshop makes a person meet several other readers who suggest good authors, good books and novels, good genres for a future read and also exchange reviews on a publication.
The sole intention is interaction by exchange of ideas because long ago, before the advent of social media, views were interchanged by verbal interaction only, not by social media.
Gone are the days when people used to sit with each other and chit-chat for hours over a sip of tea while completing their other chores side by side or when kids used to play games with each other the whole day and strengthen their friendly relationships with each other. This indeed implies that the answer to the question of “Does technology make us more alone?” will be yes.
The chills were beaten by basking in the sun during the daytime, and the heat was driven out by people walking and children playing during the hours of dusk and dawn. Winters witnessed women sitting in parks or in their homes with knitting yarns in their hands and summers children rushing after an ice cream or flavored ice ball vendors to satiate their dry throats.
Yes, social media did connect far apart people but not so distant was the era where many people gathered together to watch a television program in an individual household, and any technical issue in the signals occurred and people would rush to the top of their roofs reaching for the antennae.
Does technology make us more alone? Nowadays, people feel it is burdensome to communicate with people in real life. This results in social isolation. They feel that just making accounts on social networking sites makes them highly connected to the world. No, this is just a myth. In the long run, this has resulted in the spreading of the loneliness epidemic among young people.
They don’t like to spend time or communicate with their own family and siblings as they are so blinded by technology. This has weakened many relationships over a period of time.
We can see everywhere that young people are so much busy on their personal devices, specifically smartphones and computers, that they aren’t aware of what is happening in their nearby surroundings. This leads to a decline in social interaction and real social connection with people.
Although with the help of technology, we even know what is happening on the moon, the sad reality is that we are unaware of our own folks, friends and relatives.
So, the answer to the question of “Does technology make us more alone?” is yes.
5. Over Dependence
This is one more side effect of over usage of technology. When given assignments or homework to do, students rely on the internet to find the answers rather than discussing the assignments with their parents or friends.
Copying the data available from the net is considered far easy and simple than doing their assignments on their own.
This has killed our creativity as we don’t like to do the assignments on our own or by taking the help of our teachers and classmates. Rather, we prefer just copying and pasting the assignments.
This, too, has limited our interaction and communication with our fellow mates, teachers and friends, agreeing to the question of “Does technology make us more alone?”
6. Addiction
Addiction to social media to build meaningless relationships online is one more side effect. It also results in loneliness in real life over a period of time.
People, especially today’s youth, is too busy scrolling on their phone or their laptops that they have forgotten how to spend time with their family and friends. They might be physically present with their family, but mentally they are in some other imaginative world.
7. Distraction
With the increased use of social media, we are also unable to completely focus on the work we are doing as it has become a part of our daily routine.
We can’t stay for even half an hour without looking into our phones to check out what the latest trends are going on.
This distracts us from our work, and we are unable to give our 100 percent to the work we are indulged in, leading to a less efficient project or task we were performing.
Therefore it is advised to people, especially young people, to maintain a balance between their professional and social life in order to avoid any harmful consequences in future.
8. Lack of privacy
Does technology make us more alone? Some people are so addicted to social media use nowadays that they even don’t hesitate to post pictures of their personal moments, which can be misused.
This hampers the privacy of other people who aren’t interested or are not comfortable in posting pictures of their moments.
Not everyone likes to show off their daily routine online, leading to conflicts and fights between them, creating an unhealthy environment and a sense of tension between them.
Conclusion
Technology has certainly made our lives easier in numerous ways, but the fact is that they also have made us rely on them fully.
Does technology make us more alone? Technology makes us more independent and fast forward than we were just a few years ago. Today with the help of technology, we are able to do a lot of things in the simplest and easiest way possible.
Technology has changed the lifestyle entirely. With the help of technology, we are connected to a large number of people and services worldwide which can either be known or unknown.
People today are so busy in their jobs and at their workplaces that standing in long lines just to pay bills or buy something sounds like a total wastage of time and manpower. Technology makes it possible to save us from the tension of standing in long lines to pay bills or purchase something, but it is equally important to focus on the question, “Does technology make us more alone?”
Technology negatively influences our social interaction. It makes people more socially awkward and lonely in real life. We might feel confident talking to a person via various social media platforms, but when it comes to real-life connections, we are not that confident and often hesitant.
Thus, to sum up everything we have discussed so far, man indeed is a social animal. And social animal needs society and social connections to socialize and not ‘social media.’ So before becoming too much dependent on social media, we need to at least consider once that does technology make us more alone than we were before.
If we eliminate ‘social’ from social animal, then only animal remains. So to prevent this most evolved animal, i.e., human being, from turning into an inferior animal, he needs to interact in society and not only on social media.
I hope you got your answer to the question of “Does technology make us more alone?” If you liked the article, do let us know in the comment section below.
Last Updated on by Sathi
