With the outburst of the internet growth, everything has
become possible. By a single click in your search engine, it could bring you to
different countries or different time zone. Undoubtedly, technology has make
our life easier, especially in terms of communication. Technology has ease
communication between two parties.
Computer mediated communication (CMC) is a "communication
that takes place between human being via instrumentality of computers"
(Thurlow, Legal & Tomic, 2004). CMC allowing us to converse from
different rooms in the same house as well as from opposites sides of the
country. Compared from face to face communication, CMC have no limit in terms
of time and place. CMC happen anytime and anywhere.
Also, social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram has prompted a more subtle revolution
in the way we communicate.We share more personal information and also
communicate with larger audience. This computer mediated communication indeed
gives us more opportunity to know more people, have more access with the side
of country and allowing us to stay connected 24 hours. But are this
technologies or our smartphones actually getting in the way of socializing? Or
could technology make us more alone?
For an example, while waiting for the next flight to
depart, I see a group of family in a small circles. You would expect the family
to be conversing and talking to each other. But to my surprise, no one is
talking. They even not staring at each other. Instead, each and everyone of
them is staring down at their little rectangular device in their hand that
seems to give them more satisfaction than talking to their family. Nowadays,
the same situation as above has become normal view or "norms" to us.
Since the invention of texting and the ability for message to be sent at rapid
speed, society seems has shifted from conventional conversational method to
communicating mostly through emoji and texting. People are busy with their
smartphones, getting fit in with the latest trend and frequently updating their
social network till they seems to lost in their virtual world. Society happens
to be more engaging with their smartphone rather than their partner or family.
To conclude this, I leave a few questions for yourself to
ponder;
(i) Do you find yourself surrounded by people who are
staring at their screen instead of having face-to-face conversation? Are you
ever guilty of doing that, too?
(ii) Do you ever try to put your phone down to be more
present with the people in the room?
(iii) Is our obsession with documenting everything through
photograph and videos preventing us from living the moment?
End of note: This
is not about giving up our phone but about using them with greater intention.
Conversation is there for us to reclaim. For the failing connection of our
digital world, it is the talking cure 💛
(i) Yes, I do have some friends who prefer communicating via device rather than face-to-face conversation. Sometime, I do that too. I personally think that they do not feel guilty because they use it for their convenient.
ReplyDelete(ii) yes, I do that when I am with the person that closed such as family and closed friends. when we are together, I prefer to communicate using face-to-face conversation because we can see their facial expression, voice tone and emotions.
(iii)Personally, I rarely have that kind of obsessions. this is because, I just upload picture when I think it is interesting and attending certain event.. it is not like documenting my life to others. I think I am more conservative and didn't like video of me in the media, whether it is in blog or social media such as Facebook. based on your question, I think its depends on the person itself. This is because some people think by documenting their private life will fulfill or satisfying their own needs. if their needs is fulfilled then, they do live and enjoy the moment of their life. Different people has different perspectives.
CMC also brings negative impacts as what we have discussed in the class. When we are using technological devices to communicate, the quality of communication is reduced. It is not satisfying. There are restraints that prevents us from communicating perfectly. For an example: writing posts on social media like Facebook, Whatsapp or Twitter can't make us predict the actual expression of the writer. Is he angry or is he really okay when he writes "Okay", "Ok", or "K". Also, is someone actually getting angry if he writes things in capital letter? Things like this are a clear example of how the mediums of communication restrains us from perfect communication.
ReplyDeleteThere is not a day when I could sit with my friends having meals without them not checking their phones. Me too, actually. I do feel guilty but then, the technological device is very challenging to not having a look at them from time to time.
When I realized of the moments where we are acting like the anti-socials, I do put down my phone but I get too anxious of having thoughts that there could be emergency texts from anyone.
Somehow I feel like social media actually helps me living the moment rather than destroying it. So yeah, I don't think that CMC has come to prevent us from living the moment. The excitement of socializing and sharing in the social media makes me closer to my friends. We usually found a lot more topics to start a conversation than in real life. Also, I get the access to know how each of my friends have been doing at the same time without having to ask them one by one.
i) Yes I do find myself surrounded by people who uses phone rather than talking face-to-face. And yes I am guilty of it too. If everyone else are staring at their phone, then all you can do is stare at them staring at their phone.
ReplyDeleteii) Yes I have. My friends called on my behavior and said it is actually quite rude to do so. Now I try not to use phone when hanging out with friends but if they started first, then there is nothing I can do.
iii) I dont think so. Taking photos and videos in itself is fun sometimes. Living in the moment is good and all but why not eternalized the moment itself?
All in all, CMC is great way to stay connected with everyone but dont be obsessed about it to the point you ignore everything, and everyone, around.
I find myself to mingle and surrounded with those who are using their phone, not just looking but ignoring people around them. We can say that the traditional communication that emphasizes the interpersonal communication suddenly was jeopardized by technology nowadays. The existence of computer –mediated communication making our communication conversation limits our social interaction and I do feel guilty.
ReplyDeleteI do keep down my phone during my conversation with friends because I’m personally appreciating the moments of having interaction and communication with friend. Usually I try to start the conversation with my circles without playing with my phone. I foresee that those people who play with their smartphone actually tend to be anti-social in real life because those kind of people too obsess with their social medias instead of having f2f communication. However some people really favor to share their personals, their problems in social media by uploading the pictures or telling people that they were sucked with blablabla.
Again, these satisfaction needs are desirable and depends on individual itself. The truth is CMC gives me a lot of excitements with my own personal entertainments. However, we must concern that CMC give us to connect with everyone in larger audiences.do not limit our communication and enjoy with the good technology with us.
Whether Internet has make us stay connected or not, is back to our self ( how we use the Internet, how we interpret "stay connect" and etc). Life is full of choice, we decide which path that we will take.
ReplyDeleteIn addition information to this entry, I'll explain about the disadvantage and advantage of CMC.
Firstly, Computer mediated communication is divided into synchronous and asynchronous modes. In synchronous communication, all participants are online simultaneously. In asynchronous communication there are time constraints on communication messages and responses, as with emails.
Like other technology, CMC also has its good and bad side. According to few researches, scholars have listed few of advantage of CMC such as allows for intellectual exploration; provides the capability to store, process and transmit messages; breaks down barriers to communication (status differences/geographical boundaries); eliminates stereotypical classifications as well as preconceived barriers related to individual/personal bias; provides a certain amount of anonymity; enhances existing interaction patterns; creates new interaction patterns; provides for a constant flow of ideas; allows timely sharing of ideas; supports open discussion and exploration; provides accessibility to information and subsequent sharing of the same; enhances the sharing of multiple ideas and viewpoints simultaneously with a large group of people; provides a forum for experimenting; allows for the neutral mediation of communication (messages); establishes a safe environment with less risk to communicators (people feel less inhibited about communicating their ideas/opinions/feelings about certain issues); fosters more participation and contribution from people who would otherwise feel intimidated (introverts); convenient; flexible; emotions are communicated more descriptively (emotions must be articulated in print); fosters independent learning (learn/communicate at your own pace); allows participants to communicate with experts (learn from the best); allows participants to learn from others without feeling like an idiot ; facilitates thoughtful scholarly discourse; allows for fun, exciting and challenging communication (curiosity is aroused by interaction).
Meanwhile, the disadvantages of CMC are lack of socio-emotional and nonverbal cues (often referred to as cues filtered out ); confidentiality issues; trust issues (how true and valid are the messages); creation of barriers due to the technology (the culture, rules, netiquette --example emoticons ;) );anonymity can cause abuse/misuse of the technology (sexual harassment/flaming/etc.); the lack of true human contact.
Here is some of my life experiences :)
ReplyDeletei) Firstly, to be honest, I was surrounded by the people who loves staring at their phone and avoiding a face-to-face communication. It is not like they do not want to communicate with us but the surrounding itself force them to be like that including me too :p We do talk to each other but most of the time we prefer CMC.:)
ii) Yes. I sure did especially with my family because for me, I rarely see them. I really want to spend a quality time with them by talking to each other instead of looking at my phone. For me it is rude to look at your phone while you are spending time with your family :)
iii)In my opinion and from what I have seen, there are many people who are obsess with social media. They like to post and share everything on their Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and so on. Yes, you can actually do that but it depends as long as it is not too personal to share to the public because it might bring harm to you. It is not wrong to share your personal moments to the public but it is better to keep something for yourself.
Always remember to think before you take any action..
Does internet makes people connected? To me yes and no. Yes, when people use it to connect with each other when they are far apart from each other. No, when they are face-to-face with each other but they still put the priority to the internet rather than the person infront them.
ReplyDeleteAs for the question above,
1) Yes, I am surrounded by person who are facing their screen much more than doing face to face conversation. Sometimes, I also do that and it does make me feel guilty where actually I'm not hearing what they say and I just 'haah'. This kind of attitude can be categorize as mannerless. But sometimes, we cannot blame them for it, it might due to their work that they are like that.
2)Yes, I have tried it not once but many time. Where I strictly make myself to put aside the phone and involved more with people surround me. To me, the time that I have with them is precious.
There was a time where my family and I were went out to have breakfast early in the morning and my father strictly said that no one can bring their phone except for my mother. We did what he said, and the impact of the 'no phone' was really big where we communicate much more than before and the conversation become more fun.
3) Nope, I don't think that our obsession in photograph and videos preventing us from living moment. Some of them make it as their passion and hobby while other just make it just for fun and their satisfaction. In reality, they have their own life to go through and it does not preventing them from living their moment while virtual the moment just stay like that until he/she updating the new status.