By Thompson Perry
Before she even crawls out of bed in the morning, sophomore psychology and communication major Ashley Malone has already logged into Facebook once.
“I check my phone on my night stand for missed calls or texts,” said Malone, “and then I use it to log into Facebook for messages and wall posts.”
Malone isn’t alone in her reliance on Facebook for communication and news about her friends.
Some international experts, however, feel that this reliance on technology could be doing much more harm than the current generation of young people realizes.
These specialists contend that the instant communication through technology can encourage bad behaviors and even stunt young peoples’ abilities to interact with others when they enter the real world.
According to Dr. Himanshu Tyagi, a West London Mental Health Trust psychiatrist, students entering college have developed a dangerous reliance on the internet and other recent advances in technology.
Backed up by recent findings at the Annual Meeting of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Tyagi claims that this technology, especially its instant communication and social networking aspects, has robbed young people of their intrapersonal skills and even impeded their development as well-rounded social creatures.
“It’s
a world where everything moves fast and changes all the time, where relationships are quickly disposed at the click of a mouse,” said Tyagi. “It’s a world where you can delete your profile if you don’t like it and swap an unacceptable identity in the blink of an eye for one that is more acceptable.”
In addition, the reliance on the internet as the primary facilitator of relationships may leave young people less capable of forming new relationships, as they do not learn the physical clues involved with communication relating to aspects like body language, speech pauses, tone of voice and facial expressions.
“If you can’t see the person’s expression or body language or hear the subtle changes in their voice, it shapes your perceptions of the interaction differently,” Dr. Tyagi said.
“The new generation raised alongside the internet is attaching an entirely different meaning to friendship and relations, something we are largely failing to notice.”
In his book, “The Dumbest Generation,” author Mark Bauerlein cites the digital age as harmful to not only intrapersonal skills but also as an excuse for young people not to retain information.
“The casual social language and demeanor people adapt on [instant messaging programs] permeates into the real world,” wrote Bauerlein, “and in the real world, what can pass for standard internet behavior is just disrespectful.”
Furthermore, Bauerlein goes on to state that young people look to the Internet not to store knowledge in their minds, but merely “to retrieve material and pass it along. The Internet is just a delivery system.”
Though most agree that the internet makes life easier, not all are willing to admit that it interfering with the healthy and natural development of the digital generation.
“I think that [internet use and intrapersonal skills] are completely unrelated,” said Malone.
Though she readily admits that there is some validity to the claims, Malone does not see the connection.
“I suppose our generation doesn’t communicate face-to-face as much as others because we have more options; to try to twist that around would blow the effect of the internet way out of proportion.”
