Communication Through The Keys

Typical teenager using her smartphone as a quick, easy
form of communication.

Say you are sitting in your room watching TV, and needed your friends advice about something.  Would you rather getting up off your comfortable couch, get dressed, get in your car, and drive all they way over to your friend's house, just to have the conversation with him or her face to face? Or would you choose the faster option of sending them a quick message, the only ounce of work being typing a few sentences.

Given this situation, as appealing as getting off your comfy couch sounds, I'm sure most of you would choose the second option.  Picking up your smart phone, and typing a message out is an every day occurrence in this generation. Teenagers do not think twice about whether they should be having face to face conversations with people, or if messaging is good enough.

I'll even admit sometimes when I am upstairs in my room, and my Mom is downstairs, I will send her a quick text if I want to ask her something rather than getting up and going downstairs to talk to her...

With so many advancements in technology, this kind of communication certainly is easier and more convenient for teens with busy hectic lives, but what is not addressed is the negative effects that teenagers will experience in their future.

Dr. Larry Rosen, a social media researcher from California State University, found that teens who log on to Facebook or other sites more than average tend to show negative social behaviors such as being more “self absorbed, narcissistic, belligerent, paranoid, and antisocial” 

As convenient as it is to press a few buttons rather than have a face to face conversation with someone, this lack of communication with people can effect these innocent teenagers simply using the technology that was handed to them. 


When Leslie, a freshman student, was asked about the effect she sees on social media, she said “Everyone uses it all day for as many hours as they’re awake. Yes I think social media and texting is making teens more anti-social, because you are slowly being separated from the world, hours at a time, and are not interacting with people face to face and you start to become more silent and watching videos and checking Facebook status’s and tumblr reblogging stuff and it’s not helping at all with people’s social skills especially all those new slang words like ‘yolo’ and ‘tbh’, ‘irl’, ‘idk’, ‘ikr’, etc.” (click here for more information)

See, even an interviewed teenager said that social media was making people anti-social. 

These slang words used over text, or instant message may be short cuts so your fingers get too tired (God forbid), but  are certainly not helping communication skills.  Teenagers who are constantly using their phones are not getting the real world interactions with people that past generations have been able to.  

Communication through smartohones is not giving teenagers the first hand experience they need to develop relationships with their peers.  Everything is ok in moderation, and it is important to make sure to have a fine balance between talking to peers through technology and in person.

You don't want to end up anti-social and not be able to get a job because of your lack of communication.

Do you?

The next post will discuss the ways in which social media can lead to fake friendships, which could potentially be dangerous.