Report: Email, Social Networking Makes Us Cold and Lonely
Report: Email, Social Networking Makes Us Cold and Lonely
Posted 06/24/2010 at 5:10am
| by Paul Lilly
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Time Magazine earlier this week ran an interesting piece arguing that email may be hurting our off-line relationships, and before you dismiss the whole idea has hogwash, take a look at some of the studies they've dug up.
Researchers from Duke University, for example, found that from 1985 to 2004, the percentage of people who said they have no one to discuss important matters with tripled, jumping to 25 percent. In the same study, researchers found that Americans had a third fewer friends than two decades ago.
Time Magazine then went on to cite another study, this time by the University of Michigan, in which it was discovered that college students have much less empathy now than in decades past. The reason, Time argues, could be that email and social networking has blunted the practice of building real friendships off-line.
"Technology has made us much more efficient but much less effective," said Gregory Northcraft, a professor of executive leadership at the University of Illinois who specializes in workplace collaboration. "Something is being gained, but something is being lost. The something gained is time, and the something lost is the quality of relationships. And quality of relationships matters."
Read the whole argument here (and there are other studies referenced in Time's write-up), and then hit the jump to sound off.
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Trooper_One
June 24, 2010 at 12:29pm
The article is right but it's also an overall culture we now live in. Everyone belongs to a certain clique with similar interest (you know what they say about pretty girls - they're all in one group, doubtful that you'll find a MPC geek with them).
Jelson
June 25, 2010 at 2:17pm
lol, why'd you call me...........that's a good one
{What is the brain of the internet. What is the Master of the Web. What is the Essence of Digital Matter}
Blues22475
June 24, 2010 at 7:50am
I think there is some truth to this study or statement. I mean I am the same way: I am more socially inclined via e-mail and Instant Messaging (I avoid social networking sites like the plague however) than I am in face-to-face relationships.
However, it's still up to us as to how socially we can be in the world. If you isolate yourself (even if you're not social network/email/instant message/etc user), you will be "cold and lonely".
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Ignorance is man's greatest enemy.
jnutley
June 24, 2010 at 7:45am
Trying to pin lonleiness on e-mail and Facebook is like trying to pin the Napoleonic Wars (and their brutality) on Grand Theft Auto.
1985 is a too-convienient cutoff. The de-humanizing of America dates from (at a minimum) the end of WWII. The leaders of industry and commerce were sold on braking up human scale relationships as a result of the "de-regimentalizing" policies of the two world wars. Jobs were (without conspiratorial influence) concentrated in the large cities and suburbs, undermining employment in small towns. The Interstate Freeway system and the bias of the times had more and more individuals assigned to the far ends of the nation. Look for
http://www.amazon.com/Nation-Strangers-Vance-Oakley-Packard/dp/067950351X
to find the same issues decried in the pre-net age.
stradric
June 24, 2010 at 6:00am
I totally buy this logic. Some people seem to think that having a lot of virtual friends and tweeting about nonsense is the same as real face-to-face social interaction. Facebook and social networking are great for keeping in touch with people or talking about issues, but it's no replacement for true face-to-face interaction. Pink Floyd's The Wall certainly touches on this aspect of the human psyche. We put up walls to prevent people from ever really knowing who we are and we make excuses that somehow facebook fills the need for true social interaction. Social networking is another brick in the wall.
Also Billy Joel's The Stranger... Facebook allows us to wear all sorts of masks, but if we never really let anyone in, it will lead to an indescribable emptiness.
Wow, that is certainly deeper than I've ever wanted to go in the comments on MPC.
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