Technology V.S Personal Contact
Technology V.S. Personal Contact Is technology the main cause of diminished human physical contact? The answer as we all know is yes. “An unexpected outcome of computers and other technology is the loss of the ‘human moment.’ A term coined by Harvard lecturer, Edward M. Hallowell, it refers to the psychological encounter that can happen only when two people share the same physical space. The human moment is a quality of interaction that you don 't get through technology, even phones” (Barbara Bartlein). I couldn’t agree more. Although I object that it is an “unexpected outcome”; I believe that the moment that you choose to use technology over personal contact, you immediately feel the absence of the human touch. I don’t believe that technology is exactly easing communication, but weaken it instead. I’m not referring to the back and forth messaging that’s delivered and received simultaneously, because undoubtedly the message whether is verbally or written meets its goals. I’m referring to the communication in the human physical presence. Technology will never replace it; it can by all means weaken it and even destroy it. For most convenient that it is to just lay back on your most comfortable chair at home and converse with a significant person in your life via text messaging, chat, or even video chat, it could never fulfill the void of not conversing with that person in a more physical way. Due to the availability and easiness of talking through a computer, people often tend to postpone and delay family and friends hangouts. This is very harmful to everyone, especially to children. Children are our future. Does it mean that our future has to be physically unreachable due to fact that it’d mostly have to take an emergency to have a human to human interaction? I strongly disagree on this. One of the best feelings in the world is to feel the human touch, voice, and glance, which were available and free since the beginning of times, and will always be.
Cited: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/01/14/technology-is-great-but-people-still-need-human-contact/