Digital Technology Changed The Way We Communicate For Worse

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Digital Technology Changed the Way We Communicate For Worse

Towards the end of the 20

century, giant leaps in technology encompassing a wide

range of sectors were being experienced. Evolution of technology has been rapid with new

gadgets entering the market on a daily basis since then. Though these technological

advancements are usually meant to make the lives of people easier and comfortable, there are

certain aspects associated with technology that impact negatively on society. The use of digital

technology in communication has made it easier and more convenient for people to communicate

with one another using digital devices. People can either use email, video conferencing, mobile

phones, chat messengers and a variety of other digital modes to communicate as opposed to the

traditional analog modes of communication (Boyd and Nicole 215). Although digital

Technologies bring about convince, there are negative impacts associated with the use of these

digital technologies especially in the way we communicate with one another. This paper is going

to examine the negative impacts associated with digital technology in communicating with each

other. The negative impacts of digital technologies to be discussed in this paper arise from the

content of the information conveyed, the overdependence on digital modes of communication

which have adverse effects on our traditional communication competencies and the security risks

occasioned by the use of digital communication modes.

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Digital technology has adverse effects on interpersonal communication skills. With the

over-reliance on the use of digital technological gadgets in our communication, the basic aspects

of face-to-face communication with one another diminish. This becomes a problem since the

attention span when having face-to-face conversations is greatly reduced by relying on

communication through digital devices. The digital devices have greatly reduced people’s

abilities to hold face-to-face conversations due to our over-reliance on them that has led to a

shortened attention span during face-to-face communication (Agichtein185). In this case, people

tend to get tired of communicating with one another physically as opposed to the quick short

messages and clips that they use in digital communication platforms. Communication is a social

Endeavour which encompasses the feelings and emotions of people, In digital technology modes

of communication, however, the aspects of the communicators’ feelings are not taken into

consideration but it is enveloped by the digital device which provides the interface between two

or more people engaged in a discourse (Przybylski, Murayama, DeHaan, and Gladwell 1845).

Digital technology also provides an opportunity for conversations to be held between more than

two peoples simultaneously. This has an effect on the concentration to details in the

communication by the participants in the process as the presence of more than one person to

communicate with usually overshadows other communicators in the discourse (Rodrigo and

Abraham 65). In this way Digital technology affects the quality of communication between two

people as the lack of specific attention through distractions due to other ongoing conversations is

evident when communicating with more than one person simultaneously using digital

technological communication devices. As people embrace digital technology, it is important to

remember that communication is not just about forwarding data; it also encompasses human

aspects in which feelings and emotions play a big role. In using digital technology for

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communication, the personal touch in a conversation is usually lost as compared to the face-to-

face conversation (O’Keeffe, Clarke, and Kathleen 802). This physical touch in face-to-face

conversations is usually brought about by the acknowledgment and the presence of feelings and

emotions during the conversation. The presence of emotions and feelings in a conversation helps

in directing the conversation in such a way that the parties in the conversation are free and

relaxed to expound with ease on issues as they are always aware of the other parties feelings

during the conversation. This attribute is usually lacking when using digital communication

methods affecting how we communicate with others.

The quality of information passed through digital devices in most cases differs from the

quality of information in traditional modes of communication. These differences can be

attributed to the fact that in traditional modes of communication, the parties in the

communication are known to each other or can be traceable easily. To this end, the content and

quality of information conveyed in traditional modes of communication are usually tailored for

the intended audiences. But in digital technology communications, the identity of the parties

involved in communicating through digital devices is mostly reduced to names. These names

may be pseudo names that bear no characterization like in face-to-face conversations, and they

lack in the personality of the other end user in the communication process. In this case behaviors

like hostility and exclusion are common in digital technology as the person on the other side of

the interface is faceless and anonymous (Agichtein 184). Based on this, it is evident that digital

technology has changed the way we communicate for the worse. In the use of digital technology

young people are at risk of being bullied online with 25 percent of them have gone through this

more than once (Boyd and Nicole 215). As opposed to traditional modes of communication, it is

apparent that digital technology makes it difficult to shield young children from predators and

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molesters who lure them through digital devices. In this case, parents are tasked to ensure that

their children have access to sites which do not contain graphical content to shield them from

adverse effects associated with them. Although digital technology makes it easier for information

to traverse, there are certain delicate situations in which information should be disseminated after

careful evaluation and consultations, especially when the information to be passed on deals with

peoples’ emotions. The display of graphic images after a terrorist attack is an example where

communications using digital technology does not take into considerate the emotions of the

families and people who might be involved in such an incident (Rodrigo and Abraham 65). In

this case, people communicating through digital platforms might share the images just by

forwarding them without any regard of the emotional torment this might cause the victims of

such an incident and their families.

In most cases, content in digital communication is generated with little regard of the

audience it is going to reach. To this effect, these messages and content do not discriminate the

recipients causing inappropriate literature to be available for all and sundry. The lack of

consideration of the audience when using digital technology to communicate exposes vulnerable

persons in society to content that is not appropriate for them. This lack of consideration of the

audience usually erodes moral values held by the society by reducing them to simply data and

forwarding from one device to another (Shirky 27). Emotions are an important factor in

communication as it helps the parties communicating to gauge the mood of each other which

helps in directing the communication. Digital technology, however, has made it is difficult if not

impossible to gauge the moods of the person you are communicating with from the other side.

This results in a conversation devoid in emotions and feelings which are important in

communication (Wang, Tchernev, and Solloway 1832). The continuous use of digital technology

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in communication results in decreased ability to read the emotions of the people we are

communicating with making it hard for us to hold face-to-face conversations. Another issue of

concern when it comes to the use of digital conversations is privacy. In digital communication,

the vulnerability of information communicated to be accessed by third parties is very high. The

communication that we send through the internet using the digital modes of communication is in

most case insecure due to the possibility of being hacked by third parties who are not part of the

conversation or communication (Kitch 52). In this case, digital technology does not assure the

privacy of communication and conversations via digital devices as opposed to the traditional

modes of communication. These facts clearly indicate that digital technology has changed the

way we communicate for the worse.

In conclusion, digital technology has revolutionized the way we communicate with each

other; it has sped up the communication process and connected people from different parts of the

world with just a tap at smartphones or a click of a mouse. However, as digital technology

continues to be embedded in our day to day lives, some aspects of communication are also being

lost in the process. The personal touch in communication, for instance, is being lost as more and

more people spend more time with digital devices rather than with people. The emotional

attachment in communication is also being lost due to overreliance on digital devices as a means

of communication.

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Works cited

Agichtein, Eugene, Carlos Castillo, Debora Donato, Aristides Gionis, and Gilad Mishne.

“Finding high-quality content in social media.” (WISDOM – Proceedings of the

International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining, 2008, pp. 183–193.

Boyd, Donah M., and Nicole B. Ellison. “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and

Scholarship.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 13, no. 1, 2007, pp.

210–225.

Kitch, Carolyn. “Anniversary Journalism, Collective Memory, and the Cultural Authority to Tell

the Story of the American Past.” Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 36, no. 1, 2002, pp. 44–

67.

O'Keeffe, Gwen Schurgin and Kathleen Clarke-Pearson. “The Impact of Social Media on

Children, Adolescents, and Families.” Pediatrics, vol. 127, no. 4, 2015, pp. 800–804.

Rodrigo, Salto M. and Jacques G. Abraham “Development and Implementation of a Chat Bot in

a Social Network.” 2012 Ninth International Conference on Information Technology -

New Generations, 2012, pp. 55-70.

Przybylski, Andrew K., Kou Murayama, Cody R. DeHaan, and Valerie Gladwell. “Motivational,

emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out.” Computers in Human

Behavior, vol. 29, no. 4, 2013, pp. 1841–1848.

Shirky, Clay. “The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political

Change.” Foreign Affairs, vol. 90, no. 1, 2011, pp. 25-35.

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Wang, Zheng, John M. Tchernev, and Tyler Solloway “A dynamic longitudinal examination of

social media use, needs, and gratifications among college students.” Computers in

Human Behavior, vol. 28, no. 5, 2012, pp. 1829–1839.

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Digital Technology changed the way we communicate for worse

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