Opinion: Beware the Technology

If job interviews were conducted via text messages or Facebook chats, then our generation would be fine.

However, that is not the case, and therefore, I fear the rate of unemployment in the U.S. within the next few generations will skyrocket.

In this day and age, we are presented with not only the latest and greatest technology that society has to offer, but also a multitude of social networking websites. The phones we have are so “smart” that they can almost completely remove the human component from the equation.

The same goes for the social networking sites. The closest human-to-human contact you can get on those sites is by being online at the same time. The technologies at our disposal have negatively affected our society and desensitized us to the concept of actual human interaction.

New Ways of Interacting

As a high school student, cellphones and some sort of social networking site are a must. You are seriously out of the loop if you don’t have at least one of those. They are the new way of communication. Parties are planned and you are invited to events now by means of a Facebook invite.

In order to know about these parties and events going on, one must be online frequently. Pew Research Center, an online database for “numbers, facts and trends shaping (our) world,” recently held a survey to see how often people logged onto social networking sites. They discovered that out of the 55 percent of teenagers who actually have created a social network site, around 48 percent log on at least once per day.

Even more on the upswing is the prevalence of cellphones and text messaging. Pew Research Center has also done surveys on this area of technology and the trend is obvious. In the past few years, the number of teens who own a cellphone has risen sharply from 51 percent in 2006 to more than 72 percent in 2011. And roughly 54 percent of those cellphone-owning teenagers say they text on a daily basis. About 70 texts per day for the average teen (more Pew research) and that is … too much math. A whole lot of texts. This means a whole lot of kids focused more on technologically interacting than actually talking in person.

Social Networks Harming Social Networking

As entertaining as they are to use, social networking sites are greatly harming this generation’s ability to interact face-to-face. If you are logged in to Facebook, chances are you are not physically speaking with another person. You are instead just typing emotionless words (having to explain sarcasm or different emotions that I actually meant that were not portrayed in the wording). Minus the actual physical presence of the other being, people feel they can say their opinions without the repercussions of having to deal with the immediate feelings of the other person. This leads to conversations becoming more impersonal.

Then this translates into real-life situations, such as casual conversations between friends or even in job interviews with big corporations. If you end up being a total jerk and insensitive in your interview, the chances of getting that job are quite slim.

If you speak in person the same way you text or talk online, then you are one in a million. Texting lingo and real-life lingo are two different things. In technology, you can abbreviate a whole sentence into a couple letters. “Got to go, talk to you later” can be magically morphed into “G2g, ttyl.” Sure you can use that in a casual text to your friend, but try to include that in a written application to your possible future boss, and you are pretty much guaranteed not to get that job. Even little things like changing the word “you” to “u” can be the difference between employment and unemployment.

Perhaps a more relatable example for high school students is when we have to write essays. How many of our teachers allow for us to write “lol” or any other of our slang terms on anything we have to turn in? That’s right … none (unless you are writing a paper on the topic of the texting language). It is also advised not to write in that manner on any college essays that you will be sending out; it makes you sound immature and the admissions officers at your dream school will not be as fond of your cute emoticons and abbreviations as your friends are.

Pick Up the Phone

These methods of communication are destroying not only the way we talk and physically write, but also our comfort level when it comes to talking face-to-face with an actual human being. However, all is not lost. We can still maintain this important art of talking and non-technological interactions. These methods are simple.

Simply call! It actually takes less effort to press those 10 buttons for a phone number and talk to the other person than to actually type out every single thing you want to say. And it takes a shorter amount of time, too. Unless, of course, you are sending one of those annoying “k” messages.

Another useful method is to force yourself to talk face-to-face or speaking in your physical voice. There are easy ways of doing this. Instead of buying the unlimited texting package for your cell phone, only get the package that allows for 500 per month or something along those lines. That way if you go over, you start getting charged and it’s like you are fining yourself for not talking. Also, you could limit the amount of time you spend on Facebook or Twitter or whatever site you use. Unfortunately this is a little more difficult because it is mostly just on your honor and self-motivation.

A bipolar monster, technology has sunk its teeth into society. Its mark will be forever with us, a reminder of the deadly effect it has been having on us, turning us away from face-to-face interactions and crippling our futures. However, if we effectively monitor our usage, we can strike a balance to tame this monster.

This article was written by Anthony Mack, sports editor with Drops of Ink, a publication written, edited and produced by students at Libertyville High School.