Effect of Technology on Your Social Circle
Human beings always seem to get affected by every new technology introduced. The most recent example of this is the use of smartphones these days. Almost all of us use these smartphones to send messages, receive calls, and for other social media sites including Instagram, Facebook, and Whatsapp. Taking into account all the advantages of these phones, there is a major disadvantage of these digital devices is that they don’t let your relationship maintain with the people present in your society. You must be wondering How! Let’s explain this with few examples.
You may have seen some of your friends using their mobiles while sitting in a gathering or while enjoying a party or at any such place. Have you ever thought of what forces them to do this unusual and non-social activity? We hope you didn’t. Well, there is no such reason for them to do it. It has just become a tradition now. Everywhere you go, you’ll observe the same thing. Smartphones have worked pretty well in maintaining the social connection between people but it didn’t go well in case of physical interaction.
When should We use our Smartphones?
Even though the usage of digital devices is much more as compared to what we think, there is no such time defined for you to use the technology. You can use it anywhere, anytime unless it’s not disturbing your social circle or your health. Researchers have revealed that an average student spends 3 out of his/her 24 hours using the technology either to study or for social media sites. That’s a terrible amount of time if we look at it in terms of health. Besides this, 1-1.5 out of these 3 hours are fixed for them to use these social media sites. So, they maintain their relationships with people socially but not physically.
Here is a picture of group of people sitting together but busy on their phones. What makes this situation even worse is that all of them are young. But the arguments that we get to hear from this youth is that they’re attached with someone else online rather than the people present outside him or they’re busy in some sort of political debate online. If the use of technology makes them realize the importance of such activities, then technology is surely beneficial.
Every country had gone through the worst phase during the COVID Outbreak. Most of the people lost their jobs, some didn’t successfully run their businesses because of lack of physical interaction. However, it’s the technology that helped the most in such a critical situation. The entrepreneurs continued to run their businesses online without any hesitation and earned enough without any physical interaction. This is what technology has made easy for all.
But the people that suffered much more were the students. They had to appear online for classes and exams which ultimately ruined their social relationships. They didn’t even manage time for their family and friends because of their hectic schedule. So there are pros and cons of each and everything which need to be discussed in order to know more about something.
Effect of Technology on Older People
Older People are often seem to be busy in some activity whether it’s gardening or watching TV or playing with their grandkids. You won’t see them get bored ever. But since the evolution of technology, older people are also attracted towards it in the form of social media and this also helps them to stay in contact with their old fellows. The use of technology also keeps them away from other activities which is not a good sign for their health because it’s the time when they should take a walk or exercise daily to keep themselves fit and away from the diseases.
In order to get to know about the effect of technology on older people, there was an experiment done by few researchers in Mexico in which they made a social media platform of their own which had the same features as in other social media sites. This was mainly done to learn about the influence of the social platforms on real life of people. The only thing that they came to know about the adults was that they were connected socially with their family and friends. This was because even if their relatives are far from the., they can still contact them at any time of the day. Moreover, they can come to know about their relatives more through these platforms.
So these steps help in understanding the behaviour of the people (of any age) and how has technology affected their lives.
The Negative Effects of Technology
Even though there are some forms of technology that have positive effects on human beings, the negative effects of it cannot be ignored at all. There are certain psychological and physical problems related to these digital devices such as the eyesight issues and loss of concentration on certain things. The teenagers and children are affected more with this.
Besides health issues, there is another problem related to the overuse of the technology which is Poor Posture. The position in which we use the digital devices makes us more lazy and we feel pain on the backside. The neck also feels difficulty in handling the pressure we apply on it sometimes. So we need to take care of such issues in order to avoid any long-term loss.
The usage of technology at night time is even more dangerous as it can lead to the sleep problems. It destroys your sleeping harmones which may lead to anxiety and depression.
Conclusion
Even though there are quite a few positive effects of this technology, there is no way one can forget its contribution in taking us away from our social circle. No doctor or psychologist asks to avoid the use the technology but they surely recommend using it as less as you can in order to live a healthy, interactive and happy life.
