The Decline of Social Interaction in the Age of Technology

Technology is great. I love it and I frequently use the latest gadgets and technological devices on the market, as do many people. However, all of this technology, mixed with social media, is destroying our social abilities and interactions as human beings. We may love technology and the cool new things our phones and computers can do, but our social skills are beginning to fade.

In my house, my brother and I usually stay in our rooms. I am in my room mainly working on homework, but my brother is mainly on his computer playing video games with his friends. He can literally spend 7 hours a day playing depending on the day and amount of homework he has to do. Sure he has fun and enjoys time with his friends, but times have changed. Interactions between friends use to be playing outside and talking to each other face-to-face. Kids would play games in the streets and yards in their neighborhoods. When I was younger, the kids in our neighborhood were out playing everyday. We loved being outside and having fun together. Now the kids in my neighborhood are hardly ever outside and when they are, they aren't out for very long. The kids of today just hear each others voices over a microphone as they attempt to best the other in a game of Madden. Social media has taken over as well. Many people simply talk to each other over Facebook or Twitter instead of going out with their friends. Don't get me wrong, many people still hang out frequently, but now they are on their phones together deciding which picture of their food to put on Instagram.

I am no exception to this change in sociability. On long car rides to golf tournaments, my teammates and I will occasionally text each other in the van. We are a few feet away, but our laziness mixed with the simplicity of cellphone usage takes over. For me, I frequently catch myself checking Twitter or Facebook almost instinctively now. I won't even realize I'm doing it until I think about it, and then I realize that I just checked it thirty previously.

I am very fearful of the future in terms of the social interactions between people. Technology is only going to continue on an exponential growth rate making things easier and more fun to play with. People need to seriously consider the path we are heading on. Our social skills are seriously going to decline if we aren't careful. People need to start being more sociable and seriously consider their interactions with other human beings.