Communication plays an important roles in people's lives. Because it allows us to convey what is inside our minds. Communication is mutual exchange of understanding between the sender and the recipient of the message that is being conveyed. The way people communicate has gone through some changes, technology is one and is probably the biggest source of the changes. Technology affects communication in many ways, in this matter, we will only be talking about it positively and negatively.
How Technology Affects Communication Positively
Technology, as stated above, has done many changes to communication. Technology has made our communication more sophisticated. With the never-ending advancement of technology, now we can communicate with people a lot easier than ever before.
Nowadays, people can easily communicate with others through cellphones. We can call, text, and send email to someone, even though they are very far away from us. On top of that, lately, there are many phone applications which allow us to communicate even easier. All you have to do is press the key lock of your smartphone and open the applications. Moreover, smartphone applications usually provide more services to communicate. For example, we can chat and make a free call in applications such as LINE, Whatsapp, KakaoTalk, BBM and many more. Furthermore, the services are all free of charge, if you have the applications in your phone, all you need is just an internet access.
With the advancement of technology, now, transaction is just a smartphone away. We can shop anything without going out of the house, because there are many online shops in the social media and furthermore, it has its own websites. We just need to visit the websites or the homepages of the online shop we interested and choose the things we want to buy, pay the bill--also by phone, because we can also make an e-banking through our phone--and all set! we just need to wait for the things to be delivered to our house.
Technology also capable in making people to meet the 'significant ones'. Like lately there have been many online dating platforms (like Tinder) in the internet. That makes online dating happens a lot in our community. Two people can fall in love with each other by exchanging text or chat or call with each other. That makes it easier for people to find the 'significant ones'. There have been many couples, that meet from social media or online dating platforms, that marry each other and have happy marriage life. It is easy to communicate and socialize with people, then it is also easy to fall in love just by such platforms.
The advancement of technology has also simplified the process of socializing. We can just easily keep in touch with those around us by social media, interacting with them through social media. With the existence of social media, we can also express ourselves freely. People can easily let others know about their latest news through social media. Social media can also makes us easier to find our long-lost friend or even family and relatives.
Communicate with many people is also easier because of technology. Nowadays, to do a 'mass communication' we just have to make a group in social media or application like LINE, Whatsapp, and BBM. We can easily inform a message or news by posting it in the chat room so everyone in the group can read it. We don't have to send the message one by one. Spreading information is also easier than ever before.
Technology makes it easy for us to do long-distance communication. Now we don't have to send a letter to someone far away by post anymore. We don't have to write a letter, buy stamps, send it to post office, wait some days for it to be received by the person and wait for some more days for the reply. It's a lot more simple now, like everything is done by smartphone all you have to do is open the chatting application send the message through the application and done. The only waiting you have to do is waiting for it to be read by the recipient. No more stamps, no more going to the post office, no more waiting days. It's a lot more effective right? Overcoming distance is easy now thanks to technology.
How Technology Affects Communication Negatively
Everything is made in pairs. This applies to technology as well. The never-ending advancement of technology has positive sides and also negative sides. While technology have done us good, it also can stab us from the back if we don't, it depends on how we use it.
YES we can do all the communication-things by phone, but do you realize that because of the easy-to-do services facilitated by our smartphone, we are becoming more and more dependent to out smartphone. Like it will feel strange to not holding a phone. We even pay attention more to our phone rather than to around us. In my opinion, this habit can lead us to accident, like all kind of accident. A lot of people injured themselves because they are too focused to their smartphone.
Making a transaction and online shopping is more simple now. But it also potential to be a land of online (internet) fraud. There are many cases happen lately, many people get fraud by an online shopping. Because when you online shop something, it will be processed if you have transferred the cost of the thing and the cost of the shipping. But, in some cases, in cases of online fraud, they will not process your orders. Sometimes they will even change their contacts. So, if you want to online shop, choose wisely and choose only trusted sellers.
Yes social media makes it easy for people to meet the'significant ones'. But, it is actually like 'buying pig in a poke', like you don't know how they truly are all you know is that they are fun to chat or call with. Or sometimes you just want to know more about or interested to them because of their attractive photo of their profile picture. You don't know how they truly are. Are they really is a good person who wants to make friends with anyone or they are bad people who want to take advantage of social media and do online crime? It is good to make friends with anyone and there is no law that forbid you from falling in love with someone you know through social media, but you have to be selective and even more selective than when you are in real life. They are many examples of this kind of cyber crime. This also makes the trust issue phenomenon to raise.
While communicating and socializing is effective, it can also make us to be 'anti-social' in real life. This happens because sometimes, people feel more comfortable talking, communicating, and socializing through social media or by using smartphone, since it doesn't require any real-time and face-to-face interaction, some people find it more comfortable. But without we realize, little by little, it makes our capability in interact with people in rel life to be gone. Like we find ourselves uncomfortable to interact with people around us, we find ourselves to be very awkward socializing with people. This also can lead to social isolation because people tends to spend more time playing with their smartphone rather that interacting with people directly. It makes us less and less social in real life. Like it will be very upsetting to have many friends in social media but no friends in real life. Social media friends are not really friends because they don't know you well.
The conclusion is, technology has done good to our way of communication, technology makes everything easier for us to communicate and socialize. It also help us to overcome distance, but in the other side, technology also has negative effect in the way we communicate, the most visible effect is that our quality to communicate with people in real life is reduce and we become less and less social. Everything has two sides, positive ones and negatives. It is goes the same with technology, it is up to us what sides we choose to act on. technology has changed communication for the better if we use it wisely and smartly.
Why Listening Is Such A Big Challenge For Some People?
I think, listening is not something easy to do. Even though everyone can be listener, but only few can be a good listener. Sometimes, it take a wise person to be a good listener. I think listening is such a big challenge for some people because, people tends to hear what they want to hear. if the story they listen is interesting for the, then they will pay attention to it. And also people tends to listen to the story that they relate to. In my opinion, people likes to speak about the rather than listening to other's stories.
Sometimes it is also because the lack of concentration of the listener. So, they act like they are listening while actually they are not. Actually they are thinking some other things. Their minds goes somewhere else. People also likes to jump to conclusion. Like, the speaker is not done yet with the story but they just take the conclusion without hearing the full story of it, and worse, they just cut off the speaker, that is the worst actually (at least for me). And sometimes people just not in the mood to listen, so instead of listening they are doing something when the speaker is speaking. I personally thing listen is as important as reading. Some people fail at something because they are fail to listen. "One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say"-Bryan H McGill
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