Are our social skills changing as a result of technology?

[Deleted]

There have been studies conducted on how the dependence on social media and technology affects the behaviour of users (links to articles below). With increased reliance on our current communication tools, are our interpersonal skills changing? The way we communicated in the 1990's is vastly different from how many of us communicate today. Considering further technological advancements in communication and affordability, will our social skills change?

Unplugged: Living without the media

Date: Oct 31 2010
A study led by ICMPA and the Salzburg Academy asks students at over a dozen univerisities around the world to go 24-hours without any media.
By: Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change

http://www.salzburg.umd.edu/salzburg...dy-goes-global


Student 'addiction' to technology 'similar to drug cravings', study finds

Withdrawal symptoms experienced by young people deprived of gadgets and technology is compared to those felt by drug addicts or smokers going “cold turkey”, a study has concluded.
The Telegraph
By Andrew Hough
7:30AM BST 08 Apr 2011

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...udy-finds.html


Facebook Addiction?

Is Facebook harder to quit than smoking?
Published on February 20, 2012 in Psychology Today
by Michael W. Austin

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...book-addiction

[Deleted]

I'd say yes, I'd also say people are more superficial, less inclined to form real and true friendships for example.

Why? For a simple reason, many of them use social networks (like Facebook for example) to make a ton of "friends". They always get bugged by 5-10 people about different crap, so they don't feel the need to socialize anymore since they feel they are already. They also stop meeting people face to face more and more because they have social networks. Besides this their circle of aquaintaces are restricted to their work buddies, family and wherever else they go (for example if they see regular people at gym they might get in chat... however they might not as they don't feel the need anymore).

So overall, people feel they have more friends, but in fact all their friendships are superficial and not real. They chat with people and when they get bored of someone they simply don't chat with that person anymore instead of actually talking about why they're upset. And as such, those close friends our parents and we (still) have are starting do disappear more and more from highly informatic countries.

However, this also has another negative effect, because the people that still care about friendships get attached to others, but those others may be those that see friendships as something superficial and break contact because they're bored or because they saw something minor they don't like. And as such it also hurts the people that are not caught up in the circle of "internet frienships".

[Garnier Fructis]

I think it depends on the personality of the person. I'm a pretty unsociable person, so it didn't make much of a difference to me when I went on a month long vacation and didn't use much technology.