This reading, based around personal relationships that are formed and maintained through online communication and its impact upon offline relationships, was very interesting. It discussed both negative and positive viewpoints about upholding online relationships, both of which I can relate to. I’d like to discuss some points that reading this article has brought to mind.
Daft and Lengel (1986) argue that people should choose face to face interactions over impersonal written media, in today’s computer and Internet driven society, this poses to be a significant problem for some. I know that personally, I prefer the less rich form of media where I can write/email/text people, particularly people I do not know well. For me, this is an issue with self confidence; I am mostly scared of confrontation and written confrontation is more easy to bear than that which occurs face to face. Therefore, if I ever need to contact anyone of importance, or have an issue/problem of which I wish to dispute, I will always attempt to email the person first in preference of making a phone call or a face to face visit. Does this mean I am socially impaired in some way? Has the Internet and its ease of impersonal communication harmed my social skills?
Another interesting point that was raised in this reading was the result of a study completed in 2002 which tracked the Internet use of 948 Americans to see if it harmed ‘real-life’ social relationships. The results found few differences in patterns of communication between those that do and do not use the Internet (Robinson, Kestnbaum, Neustadtl, & Alvarez, 2002). Personally, and from my own experiences, I find this to be quite wrong. I know this may not be the case for a lot of Internet users, but I know that the Internet has impacted the lives, or lack thereof, of many people I have known both in ‘real-life’ and online. It may sound silly, but Internet addiction is rather common and it does impair one’s ability to interact functionally in day to day society; with frequent Internet users known to stay up all night using the Internet or playing games, choosing to interact online rather than offline, making and maintaining friendships online rather than offline. I know that when I was younger my Internet use impacted upon my results at school and my family was concerned about the amount of time I spent on the Internet, but luckily for me it was a novelty that did wear off. I do still use the Internet a lot, but to a lesser extent and for different purposes than when I was in my late teens and early 20s.
These are only two points that occurred to me whilst doing this reading, but to me, they both revolve around the same principal. I think that the Internet is a haven for those who have low self-esteem and self-confidence. It allows people to form friendships/relationships with people that may be difficult or impossible for a person to do in real-life, it allows people to not feel ashamed or scared about how people will judge their looks, ethnicity etc; therefore allowing one to have an identity and confidence online that is unable to be portray to the real world. I think it is these types of people, which do include myself, that are impacted by the points that I discussed above.
References
Boase, J., & Wellman, B. (2004). Personal relationships: On and off the Internet. Retrieved January 2011, 29, from http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman/publications/personal_relations/PR-Cambridge-Boase-Wellman-ch2-final-doc.htm
Daft, R., & Lengel, R. (1986). Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design. Management science , 32, 554-571.
Robinson, J., Kestnbaum, M., Neustadtl, A., & Alvarez, A. (2002). Information technology and functional time displacement. IT & society , 1, 21-36.
No comments:
Post a Comment