Do You Think Technology Can Alienate People?

[dangerdan 0]

Technology is clearly a double edged sword. On the one hand it can clearly empowers people to learn, communicate and work in completely new ways but this social revolution caused by technology clearly has its problems. A recent study I saw showed that there was a link between excessive internet use and depression (though I seem to buck this trend) and this is simply one element of the effect that technology can have as a means of alienation. Despite the positive social aspects of the internet, it can also lead to people living out their entire social life over the internet, avoiding face to face contact altogether, which is worrying. Technology (and I have focused particularly on the internet here) can lead to a ghettoisation effect whereby like minded people only ever come into contact with one another, a prime example being terrorists, who operate on certain networks and only operate on those networks. In this sense technology can be very alienating, but of course the positives probably outweigh the alienation as technology has enriched all our lives in recent decades.

[princeofvegas 0]

I am a believer that if used right technology can bring people together, however at the same time if used the wrong way it can alienate people. I am one of the many people who lost their families to World of Warcraft.. lol. Yes.. my ex wife ran off with a level 70 Orc warrior. My ex wife started playing that game and at first it was not so bad. She played the game for a couple of hours a day and that was fine because I worked during the day. But then she gfradually started playing more and more and more until she was up to 16 hours per day!! It got to the point where she could not come to bed because her and her "clan" or whatever they were called had to go on a raid or something that was time sensitive. It got so bad that she was sitting in front of the computer non stop.. she was more wrapped up in her little imaginary world that the real world did not exist anymore to her. I would wake up in the morning and she would be playing the game. I would get the kids ready for the day and head off for work. I would get home from work and she would not have moved a muscle and I had to get the kids ready for bed and feed them dinner. This game was causing her to neglect her own children! It got to the point where I had enough and asked her to leave. I feel that technology alienated her from reality which in turn led to the end of our marriage.

[iGuest 3]

I strongly believe internet can make people closer, especially for those friends who live very far from each other. I'm a undergraduate and study in place thounsands kilometers from my hometown. I miss my friends very much. Thanks to internet, we can contact with each other and even play games together.  

-reply by Dana

[mandla 0]

just look at me, im up at 3 am busy using my pc to post stuff on line. Tommmorw at work will b tired and will sleep as soon as i get home not go out with my friends on friday night and then wake up in middle of the night trapped here again. its the same when i first found sekond lyf i was on life all night long making friend virtually no in real life i had a whole family to hang and cht with and we all spent our time glued to computer screens. definitely technology taking over our lives. even video games like ps3 with all the games like guitar hero families find they don't see johnny for weeks on end and all they here is him stumming the guitar doing a world tour and going to and from school in the morning and evening and having luch dinner supper and breakfast on the world tour stage. lolYes technology is bad when it comes to interaction between physical humans.

[k_nitin_r 8]

Sure it can! Didn't you see what happened to that poor guy in District 13 after he picked up that canister built with alien technology and morphed into an alien? Not funny? Sorry, I just had to say that after reading the title of the thread :-PI'm at work right now and instead of socializing with the natives, my co-workers, here I am posting on the Xisto. Sure, it's definitely a negative sign but I guess there's got be a good mix between stuff. If I were going about the office all the time, the folks here would simply be irritated. Between work, talking to co-workers, and posting to discussion forums, it's also a part of my job as a knowledge worker to read about recent developments and that takes quite a bit out of my time. Sure, the social image that folks who are adept at using technology puts us somewhere between a rodent and a cactus tree (Umm.. is it a plant or a tree?). In either case, the job stability in the I.T. industry seems to be marginally better than in other industries and when we get laid off, there's some freelance work to go around too.The use of social networking sites has helped people get in touch with one another. Apparently, Orkut was started as a means of getting a couple back together, or so the email forward says. Email forwards sent to folks you know tells them that you're thinking about them but don't really know what to say to them and so decided to send them a forward instead... though if they notice that the To field is blank, they would know that you just have a mailing list that you send the email forward to and it gets sent around to all of the folks on your mailing list.

[anwiii 17]

no. technology cannot alienate people. it's like guns. guns don't kill people. people kill people. even with our advanced technology, people still have choices. technology as nothing to do with what choices people make. influence people? yes.....but the choices people make still come first so don't be blaming technology when we still have our choices

[roger112 0]

lol

 

Does a sword make us weaker? The caveman who wrestled and pushed a deer down a cliff just to earn his living, was probably a lot stronger than a Samurai. Does a gun make us weaker? The Samurai, who's strength relies in swift and powerful strikes, is probably a lot stronger than a Sniper sitting up in a building, holding his breath and waiting to pull the trigger. But the weapons aren't to blame. A weapon is a tool. A tool is something that makes the general procedure of any given aspect more efficient, hopefully. How this greater efficiency affects the people/things involved in the process, can not be blamed on the tool itself. In this case, the internet gives us a generously easier way to communicate with an infinite amount of people. Sure, the presence of something like this makes the average Joe Bloggs want to stay at home and chat/game, where he could otherwise be outdoors Trick-Or-Treating. That isn't the inter-net's fault of course, it's Joe Bloggs who is unable to find the right balance between outdoors and indoors life, that is to blame. Same thing with most technology, they are made to benefit us, but when we grow slothful in the presence of these tools, we are to blame for being too darned lazy!

 

No it doesn't lol!!

 

Technology is actually bringing people much closer these days..

 

Look around you pal, cellphones, the internet...etc etc...tv channels,

 

The list is endless...depends on the person and how much they want to be involved with others, period.