Impact of Technology on Social behavior

Skhandhan Jeyakar (0755605)

Introduction:

In 1970, Moore’s Law described a trend in computing hardware in accordance with which the
number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit doubled every two years. This
trend has carried on since then and is estimated to hold up to 2020 and beyond. The performance
of digital devices is connected strongly to Moore’s law. This law has been a driving force of
social change brought about by growth in technology in the modern age. The rapid improvement
in electronic devices and additionally the evolution of the internet has produced a radical impact
in different segments of industry, economy and most importantly in the way we communicate. In
this essay, the focus is on the way technology has played a pivotal role in bridging the gaps for
communication and its effect on social interactions.

Technological revolutions in communication:

With the advancement in technology, over the years there have been new mediums to channel
communication. Some of these mediums are still in use but with the fast paced developments in
technology, new ways of interaction are being framed to replace the obsolete ones. Mediums of
communication have varied from radio to film to television to the internet to the current use of
satellites for cellular services and direct to home television (DTH) services. These have served to
entertain us in different ways from the earlier days of monochrome silent films to the current
usage of 3D and CGI software usage for graphics in the modern action blockbusters. This wave
of changes has redefined the possibilities of entertainment for the new generation of consumers.
A few decades ago, the television was the must have device for entertainment at home. It gave
the viewer the possibility of watching serials, news or movies at home. Today home
entertainment is a completely transformed field of business, with the presence of home theatres
and gaming devices with motion sensors. The breakneck speed of this technological growth has
led to mass consumerism that demands the purchase of the latest gadgets. It might be the first
generation Ipod, Iphone or Ipad that fascinates people’s imaginations and is the first in a list of
must haves. These devices aren’t limited to being just communication devices. Rather,
communication is just one feature amidst a myriad number of features ranging from special
display screens to advanced graphics capabilities and the use of Apps for games, weather
information, news and music. The models are updated frequently and the user makes the
transition to the newer generation of devices. The availability is also acknowledged by the
surplus demand as it is not uncommon to register for a waiting list to get the newest version of a
device. These devices have slowly become a necessity for communication.

Invariably, almost every new form of communication has heralded a revolution. The increased
usage of Internet has sought to bring together people from different parts of the world to form
cyber communities without any discrimination2. This gives the possibility of constructing a more
egalitarian world. The current advent of social networking has further revolutionized the way
people interact with each other. The concept of real-time web is evolving wherein we get a live
feed of information being posted by friends through web based services such as
Facebook,Twitter and Foursquare. Amidst all the positivity surrounding the use of such
computer mediated communication, there has also been a backlash to the use of these
technologies. Some criticize the loss of personality that occurs due to the mediation of
communication through computers while others bemoan the large amounts of time taken away
from face-face interaction and the need for attention to be given to use the computer expertly
which slowly becomes addictive3.

Social interactions:

Technology has definitely altered the way individuals share moments and interact with one
another. There are three aspects I would like to cover: Firstly, the change in the way we
communicate with one another. Secondly, the effect technology has had on the way people react
and finally the dependency on technology to serve us.

In ancient times, to send a message from one part of the country to another, people used to send
it through a person as a messenger or use birds to deliver it. So, it shouldn’t be too surprising that
even in the current generation, people talk of messenger services to contact people or the use of a
popular web-service with the image of a bird (Twitter). The obvious difference is the medium
and the ease of communication compared to the ancient times. The Internet has given rise to
electronic mail services that mirror the purpose of sending a regular postal mail. Its rising
popularity has seen a downfall in the usage of postal services and many people belonging to the
current generation already look at the habit of writing letters to convey one’s thoughts as archaic.
This is not to say that, one cannot convey the same thoughts through email. But the ease of
services to convey messages has also led to ease in language usage to convey them. For instance,
no longer do people feel the urge to describe their feelings of joy, anger, sorrow, desperation or
frustration through words. In the current times, these feelings of emotions are replaced by
emoticons. A smiley face conveys happiness. Messages nowadays also tend to include more
acronyms (for instance -asap).I believe this in some ways has also led to a fall in the quality of
work in literature and other fields like music and art. The celebrated geniuses in these fields are
still those belonging to earlier generations. No work from the current generation can be placed on
the same pedestal.

The current popular trend to communicate on a global scale with a large number of people has
been the use of social networking services. They give the possibility for people with shared
interests to interact with others around the world irrespective of economic, political and
geographical borders. A lot of scholarly research is currently devoted to the impact of services
like Facebook on privacy issues, education and effect on youth culture. Facebook has also
ensured that the definition of a friend has changed in modern times. Almost every person we
meet during the course of a day has a Facebook account and we end up adding them as a friend.
Do we really know them well to call them as a ‘friend’? It can very well be you might not meet
most them ever again since the more people one tends to know, the easier it becomes to replace
them. But, there lies the advantage in the use of the service. It helps in connecting or
reconnecting with people we might have met during some stage in our lives. We get to know
what they are doing by noting their posts or photos. This way, we seem to know about his/her
life despite not being close.

We might be having a long list of friends on Facebook but the quality of personal connection is
inversely related to quantity. The distance between friends is not made meaningless but once we
are connected by such a service we are infinitely distant from one another while not
communicating.

With the web acting as a repository of information for people to tap into, the way people react
has changed. Particularly, if we look at the way they react to oppressive rule. History has pointed
to different reigns of tyranny in different countries that have suppressed the civil liberties of
people and affected their well being. In modern times, there are still many countries in Africa
and the Middle East that are under the repressive leadership of dictators. Even in democratic
states, people often have criticism against their elected leaders. There have been various accounts
of mass uprisings and protests against some regimes to express the public’s misgivings.

In Rome in the fifteenth century, the Pope took over spiritual and civil leadership. People who
were aggrieved by his leadership started voicing short compositions ridiculing the behavior of
the Pope. They posted these compositions on statues in piazza squares and these statues were
since regarded as ‘Talking Statues’. They acted as means through which people could post
messages and claims. This created a bonding between the people and opportunity to express their
states of life affected by the inefficient rule. In today’s times, the internet acts as a large forum
where people plan to exchange ideas and seek to take collective action. The recent Egypt protests
were organized by people by creating an event on Facebook. It received an unprecedented
response that led to conglomeration of people at the central city square to protest against the
dictator’s rule. They did eventually manage to make the dictator relinquish his throne of control.
The usage of the internet to serve as a medium to message and bring people together is thereby a
potent weapon. Protests are also launched in other Western cities against rise in prices and
government cuts. Thereby, the term ‘People power’ has taken a new dimension. This has also
given rise to governments framing committee’s to look for any malicious activities, by tracking
and monitoring internet traffic.

On the other hand, the question arises how much of this information being served to people is
really useful. Web based services have become ubiquitous owing to continuous connectivity
accessible through different networks using computers and smartphones. It is very well possible
that a person is being served with more information than he can comprehend or his mind can
take. The presence of these services may initially serve as a leisurely activity but soon people are
addicted to its usage and easily get distracted from the task at hand. This is not to say that
technology hasn’t helped a person in doing a job. Technological prowess has served to make
man’s work easier as computers are better at handling computational tasks which would take an
inordinate amount of time to do by mind. But, this has also escalated the amount of work
expected from an individual, which has in turn led to almost a complete dependency on
technology for performing the work at hand.

Nowadays, everything ranging from our lifestyles, workspaces to communication and

entertainment are dependent on technology. The worst nightmare for a person would be when the
network is down and his access to the internet is cut or if there is a satellite breakdown and it
feels like almost everything around him collapses. This is a profound impact of technology on
the way people lead their lives nowadays considering that the popular usage of the internet and
its services could be dated back to less than a couple of decades. It begs the question were people
living with less comfort or happiness a century ago when none of the present day marvels of
technology were available. It is very much evident that moving ahead societal behavior is driven
and controlled by products and services rendered possible by technological revolutions. People
are interacting through different mediums in a virtual environment. The new generations of
people are now accustomed to meeting others coming from diverse background through this
virtual environment. The growing worry is if we are disconnecting from our real selves by going
for such a virtual setup to interact with one another.

Gabriel Marcel’s view:

Gabriel Marcel was a French philosopher who wished to shed light on the dehumanizing effect
technology had on society. Marcel believed that we lived in a ‘broken world’4 occupied by
functional persons. He cites the example of a subway token distributor, whose job is monotonous
and repetitive. He notes that the same job can be performed by automated machines. He wonders
what the inner reality of such a person will be. The tedious work undertaken is initially
infuriating because of its monotony but slowly it is accepted as a necessity and the functionalism
of the task being performed is lost. He attributes the functionalism of the modern broken world
to its highly technical nature. Marcel portrays our world as one where everyone is viewed in
terms of the function they perform. He believes it to be dominated by “technics”. He
acknowledges that technology does have its advantages but that the deification of technology can
only lead to despair when it is inefficient to answer important existential questions.

Marcel further insisted that the body is not something one possesses but rather has- “I am my
body”1. This belief stresses on the revelatory character of the body. The body is the person I
manifest to the rest of the world. It is the place in the world, where I am able to interact with
other selves who are in reality centered in their bodies. So, when we encounter people in the
“flesh” as when we see them, we are able to grasp so much more than on any other virtual
environment. There is always a difference in reading the description of a person as tall and
muscular than when seeing him in real. The experience a person has from a face to face
interaction varies from that on some forum in a virtual environment. When meeting some person,
we can easily experience their emotions that define their state of mind when we see them in their
“flesh”. Such an interaction brings with it not only focus but seriousness as there is an emotional
connection.

The social networking services and virtual environments provide the users with more freedom in
interacting with people across the world. In this way, we are able to foster relationships with
more people. Marcel notes that the deepest and most significant human relationships are those
that a person is born into. We find ourselves bonded to our family, ethnic group, country and
physical environment. In this way, we are nourished and sustained by the physical and social
environment, we grow in. There is a moral obligation on our part to take a great degree of
responsibility to succeed in these relationships. In a virtual environment, the relationship we
develop through our interactions will never have such a level of seriousness as it is more so
present in bodily engagement.

Fidelity is absolutely central to Marcel for maintaining relationships and building communities.
He notes that a faithful commitment to others demands dedication on one’s behalf to act as a
moral agent who accepts responsibility as well as intransience in others that makes them
continue to be worthy of our commitment. Fidelity is a belief in someone. This belief is more so
easily built when a person is in touch physically and at an emotional level with the other person.
Stable relationships are those that are initiated and patiently nurtured to sustain for a long
duration of time. If the only interactions, a couple or a group has over a prolonged period of time
is through messenger services and social networking forums, it would be more difficult to
maintain a faithful commitment.

The exchange of information in interactions between people today consists of a rapid flow of
brief messages that neither necessitates nor promotes the same concentration or patience that the
presence of a person would demand. Interactions between people through such a virtual medium
are free from the complexities one must have to overcome while interacting in the real world.

Merleau-Ponty’s view:

Merleau-Ponty was a phenomenologist who advocated the belief that “I perceive with my body”.
His work was influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. Similar to Marcel, they also
believed that “I do not have a body, but I am my body”. This is further referred by Merleau-
Ponty as the distinction between the subject and the object being blurred in the body and the
body being a person’s point of view of the world. Thereby, according to this the reality is in the
“flesh”, as supported by Marcel.

In the real world, there are a number of disagreements which may arise due to differences in
opinion between people. This may prevent the development of a harmonious relationship. With
the latest wave of changes brought about in the nature of social interactions, our connections are
limited to those that share our interests primarily. We are thereby, having experiences with other
people who are more to our liking. But, in the real world, it is easily possible that our thoughts
would face stiff opposition from some corners. Thereby, we are eliminating some problems by
avoiding them in such a virtual environment and not by confronting them. Merleau-Ponty agrees
that one can vary their experiences in imagination by moving from the real to virtual world. But
this would not be “complete” as the real world will be deviating from the realms of the possible
things that characterize the actual world and the actual beings.

I believe that Marcel and Merleau-Ponty would deem that social interactions facilitated by the
Internet technologies that serve to setup a virtual environment would be delicate relationships
that lack embodied subjectivity.

Conclusion

Opinions continue to be divided on the advantages and disadvantages of the new technological
developments in communication. There are further examples cited by philosophers who question
the harmful effects of the change brought about in people by these technological changes2. Given
the positive and negative impacts of technology, there is no denying the significant change it has
brought about in the way people lead their lives.

I personally feel that technological advancements modify the structure of our interests: they
serve to vary the things we think about. They vary the things we think with and change the
nature of community, in which the thought develops. The paradigm shift in the way people
express themselves through a virtual presence will lead to more disassociation with the real
world leading to difficulty in maintaining a steady unwavering relationship. The preference to
use the Internet more as a point of contact will further take away life in the “real” world from a
person. Thereby, my concern would be the detachment of the person from the real world, where
certain indifferences that are blocked off in a virtual world would still remain.

References:
[1] Thomas C.Anderson, “The body and communities in cyberspace : A Marcellian
analysis,Ethics and Information Technology, 153-158,2000.
[2] Neil Postman,Chapter 1-The Judgement of Thamus ,Technopoly- The surrender of culture to
technology. Vintage Books,New York, 1993.
[3] Steven Jones, “The internet and its social landscape”, in Steven Jones,editor, Virtual
Culture, Chapter 1. Sage Publications, London. 1997.
[4] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Gabriel Marcel- 2.The Broken World and Functional
Person, plato.stanford.edu