Technology and Social Interaction

I think technology has made social interaction more prevalent and accessible to society. One story that comes to mind is the accessibility and affordability of phones and long-distance calling. My father often tells me stories of how expensive calling his parents back home used to be, how he and his siblings would stand in a circle and, with the one minute they had, say hello and wish their parents well, before quickly hanging up. Now, with the advancement of technology, availability has increased, the price of long-distance calls has decreased, internet phones and Skype have replaced international phone cards. Instead of calls once a year, my mother calls home every night. Instead of one minute long phone calls, my mother spends hours, sometimes the entire night, on the phone with grandma.

Personally, the spread of technology has both positively and negatively affected my everyday face to face interaction. Technology first became a considerable part of my life in middle school. For some time, a lot of my friends had already gotten AIM screennames, and would constantly badger me about getting one. However, my parents, due to the fact we had dial-up for the longest time, restricted my internet usage, thus making it more practical for me to call my friends instead of waste precious internet time talking to them. It wasn't until my parents reluctantly, for the sake of me completing my homework assignments at a reasonable time, upgraded to DSL and bought my own computer, that I finally signed up for AIM. Because the rest of my friends were so used to using AIM, I found myself conversing with them online more so than in person. It's not to say we didn't talk to each other at school or eat lunch together, but that our deepest conversations were carried out online. As middle schoolers, most of our parents didn't allow us to go out with friends every day. We were expected to stay home and study. This was even more so the case in high school. Although I have been able to maintain some friendships with elementary and middle school friends, I find that a lot of us have drifted apart. A part of me wonders if this is due to the fact we had so many conversations online. It's true that nowadays we can easily contact and update each other over Facebook, but I cannot deny the fact we're no longer as close as we seemed to be back then. On the contrary, my closest friends now are the ones I made in high school. With friends obtaining their licenses, SAT's completed, and college applications submitted, we had more time to hang out and talk in person. Perhaps for this reason, we're still close despite having dispersed across the country to different colleges. Although we're often too busy during the quarter to really talk and update each other, Facebook connects us superficially, enabling us to keep up with each other's day to day updates and life happenings. However, because our friendships were strengthened through in-person interaction from the start, we're able to survive long bouts of distance and silence, only to come together each holiday for our ritual sleepover and night of life storytelling. I think the ability to confide in a person, even after months of not seeing them, is something that online social interaction can never replace.

On that note, I personally believe that while online dating sites may help people open up to each other and provide a means for connecting to people of similar interests, it will never be the same or as rewarding as face to face interaction. There is something special about seeing a person's face, listening to their voice, and, at the same time, eating lunch with them. Thus, I think that virtual interaction can only serve as a means of starting off a relationship or friendship with someone. Sooner or later, in order for the relationship to have a solid foundation, there needs to be face to face interaction.