There is the common perception that technology these days seems to draw us far away from the world we live in. Is this true or is this not true? This question depends on the circumstances surrounding the question. Technology could make us alone but on the other side it connects us to others. This is when we take technology to be telecommunications.
Technology has become an essential part of our lives in today’s world, helping us to communicate and interact. Even with its positive function of providing communication channel for the world, there is the growing concern that technology would contribute to making people feel alone and isolated from the outside world.
Technology serves as a means of connectivity to friends and families across the globe through virtual communities, social media platforms and various messaging apps. It bridges geographical gaps and helps us be able to maintain relationships which would have been difficult to sustain and maintain.
However, the constant interaction with technology and virtual interactions would lead to the detachment of an individual from the physical world. The excessive use of technology in connecting with people would rather break every physical connection and interaction which is not supposed to be. The use of technology is to bridge the geographical gaps between people of faraway distance and help to also sustain the relationship of nearby distance.
Technology has helped to revolutionise the way people connect, and has also opened up new avenues for social interaction and created a large network in unimaginable ways. Technology helps to connect with people from diverse backgrounds, cultures and also geographical location and not just with friends and families who are at faraway geographical location. It has helped to break the barrier of geographical location and turned the world into a global village where we can share ideas and exchange experiences and also find support from people.
Technology has therefore fostered a sense of belonging and connectedness that transcends physical boundaries. But many experts believe that being in constant access to technology especially smartphones would prevent people from making personal connections with people that are around us. This is because people are more dependent on the social media and the use of technology than real life connections which would therefore pull them away from the physical world and pull them into their own world of loneliness and being alone.
When technology takes the place of human relationships, it therefore brings disconnection from the world. Instead of making people feel connected, technology brings out the feeling of isolation and detachment. And this feeling of loneliness and detachment does not apply to only the persons using technologybut also to the people around them.
Technology is still very much important because, for instance during the extensive social distancing orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was used as a means of maintaining social contact with one another while heeding to the orders. However, the new found obsession with technology is the cause of these feelings of isolation and loneliness. People now prioritize their on-line communities over face- to face communication and physical communication.
A major problem with technology is that, as much as it eliminates boredom, it still encourages isolation. Before the advent of technology, every spare moment is used to engage in a conversation but with technology there is no longer any such thing as that. People no longer engage with their surroundings and their communities, rather they engage with technology; if they are not on their phones, they are on their tablets while others are on their laptops or other technological devices available.
Research made says that scrolling the social media is linked with increased loneliness and depression, which are often symptoms of FOMO (fear of missing out). The problem of communication through technology is that many a times the interaction and relationship had on it are not real, they just take us out of the real world. One of the reasons that make technology tend to make us lonely is because most people make fake personas on the internet and therefore puts another person who sees such in a place and state of loneliness and depression.
Technology offers a synthetic world different from the world we live in. It makes people believe that success can only be attained through and by the internet. And this therefore distract them from the immediate lives which they ought to live.
However, technology has helped to empower the introverts and those who have social anxiety to be able to connect with the outside world and also voice out their minds and also be able to connect with people of like-minds. And it also depends on a person’s personality. Various online platforms provide a safe place to enable individuals to build relationships based on shared interests and passion.
Technology is powerful and has the potential to bring people together rather than make people feel lonely. But many a times with the way people are living, they tend to use technology in a way that makes them feel lonely. It is important to acknowledge the advantages and the disadvantages of technology. However, there is the need to be able to balance things up when using technology.
When technology is consciously used and also used with the right intentions, it would help to enhance peoples’ social lives and also help to build strong and better relationship with people. Also, when positively used, technology would help one to place a healthy balance between both virtual and physical communication and relationship which is the ability to fully embrace the benefits that technology brings while also maintaining real connection with the world.
As humans we are meant to prioritize the use of technology to be able to bring out positive result and not just the negative aspects. We must be mindful and cautious of our technology usage and ensure to make face-to-face communication with the people around. Also, technology could be used to organise meetups and also help to engage in online discussions that aligns with our individual passions. We should therefore use technology as a facilitator to reaching people and not turn it to the substitute of people we are to have around us; this way we are able to fight against technology making us lonely, and work towards it making us connect with people the more.
Therefore, technology as an impact on loneliness is a complex issue and also a two-sided issue. It can contribute to the feeling of loneliness and also offer opportunities for people to connect. It is now in the hands of the user of these various technologies as to whether it would yield positive results for them or negative results; and also, as to whether technology would make them lonely or not. The decision is ours to make!
Akano, a student of Landmark University, Omu Aran, is an intern with Saturday Tribune.
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