Essay 4 - World - Actual or Imagined

A few months back, I visited my aunt who was under a lot of stress due to her twelve year old son. He was observed to have psychological disturbance of the new sort called online gaming addiction where the patient is called ‘internet freak’. The apparently normal child spent approximately of five to six hours daily and if not stopped than even more on internet. The only difference in attitude of this internet freak was that he was restless, impatient and uncomfortable in even the most enjoyable company of his own age group, he did not seem to smile at any joke and his thoughts were always wondering on the next levels of game. It was like that as if throwing a party for him was similar to confining him in a gathering, because all he wanted was his computer, internet and peace from the real world. Aunt shared with me that she wants to consult a psychologist for his son. A few years back my aunt was proud of his 6 years old child as he knew so much about computers and internet, he was considered cool among his fellow being but now he has caused a tense environment in the vicinity. The child lack physical exercise and was not interested to do any which was making him less active in ‘real world’.

I automatically started analyzing me if I was a ‘internet freak’ as well, I have to admit that not checking my facebook, chatting with friends, my emails, my online music, my flickr etc etc gives me a sense of incompletion. It is also true that the voice of my computer running gives me a sense of peace as if I am available to the world even if I am actively not working on it. But is it only that I wanted to be updated or does it make me internet addicted.

I guess to some extent everyone in our generation is internet addicted, in some the problem is so extended that their parents are concerned, and in others it is still to be identified. Logging onto the Internet is like a kid taken to a toy store; there is so much to do and explore that once you get in, you never want to leave. People also go online because the Internet offers freedom to do whatever they want, to say whatever they want and to be whoever they want. As a result of information and freedom, the Internet has become an addiction for individuals and society. The so-called computer age has a conflict between virtual self and social self. These two entirely different terms are now used in replacements of one another. A virtual world where by Neil Postman, nothing is unbelievable, nothing is predictable and therefore nothing comes as a surprise while then there is this real social world which is total opposite, which has the respect of individual being.

Essay 4 – Negative Effects of Social Media

Every coin has two sides. Every new technology also has two sides of effects, including the positive and negative effects. Social media has many negative effects too, for example, the overload of unorganized information is a big problem to deal with, and it drives me to distraction.

The development of social media provides lots of ways to search the information and contact with other people. And increased usage of social media and the overload of information lead to less time and less concentration on each work. According to my own experience, when I open my computer connected to the Internet, I always log in to my MSN, QQ and Gmail account first, then I stat to study and surf the Internet, etc. Because of the long geographical distance between Sweden and China, I can only contact my parents and friends who are in China now by MSN and QQ. If I log in and show my state to be online, then they will send message to me or send audio and video request to me, and I have to chat with them for a while. Of course the Internet helps me to contact them conveniently and cheaply, but it causes some new problems. They know that I should be online except when I go to lecture, and I should react to their chatting request. But sometimes I am busy with my studies or other movements, and I have no time to chat with them. Therefore, their chatting request may disturb my schedule and affect my work. Another example is the ads and instant messages. When I focus on the interesting online content, the new email message may announce its arrival and interrupt me, and the floating and blinking ads affect my reading. It is hard for me to concentrate on the specific task. Many online activities divide my time into many small pieces, and my attention is hard to focus. That may lead to less deep thinking and low quality of thoughts. For instance, before the exams, I have to close my computer or shut down the Internet connecting to make me focus on the preparation of my exams, otherwise, the usage of social media will decrease the quality of my preparation.

There is lots of unorganized information on the Internet, and I can use different search engine to find out what I am interested in. Even if I use the proper search engine, I will get lots of results and I have to choose the right one. During the period of choosing, I should view many webpages and skim over many contents, and it may shorten my reading time for each one and decrease my focus time. The process of searching information is new format of thinking and solving problems based upon the use of Internet. It not only decreases my deep thinking, but also wastes my time to look through many ads and lots of useless information.

Lusha Wang

Essay 4 – Negative effects on conversations over the Internet

The ability to choose between different types of communication channels is mainly a good implication of the social media technologies. However, the new ways to interact with people might not always be as good as the classic face-to-face interactions. There is always another side of the coin.

When talking face-to-face to a person it is quite easy to understand what that person is trying to say. Except from the obvious part such as the spoken words, the body language helps the receiver to interpret the message. When changing the communication channel to a phone the situation becomes different; the distortions in the channel increase. It is more difficult to understand when the body language is lost. The receiver has to listen to the tone of voice to understand the message. Using MSN as a communication channel the distortions increases even more. Now the body language is lost, as well as the tone of the voice. All that the sender can use to convey the message is the keyboard. Therefore the sender has to exaggerate and emphasise the words with smileys. My experience is that it is not only the smileys that differs in the language of MSN-chatting. As an example the good-bye-word is often replaced by “kisses” or “hugs”. Some say kiss to friends that they do not kiss in real life. For me the reason must be the distortions in the channel, since you cannot moderate the tone of your voice you have to exaggerate. Using only the word “good bye” might be more uninteresting compared to “kiss”.

Another aspect of using MSN or other computer chatting is that the receiver is waiting for your reply as you write. Therefore you want to write as fast as possible. This phenomenon has a variety of implications.

First of all, the language written becomes very simple and very few nuanced words are used. There is no time to think of what words that could be suitable to express what you want to say and there is no time for long and complex sentences. To express what you really feel smileys are used instead of nuanced words. The smileys can be used to mark that this sentence was ironical, even if I say this I do it with a smile. Because you cannot use all the words that you use when you talk or write without someone waiting for reply all the time the language used becomes fairly simple.

Secondly, the spelling comes in second hand. If you don’t know how to spell a word, there is no time to look it up. You try one way of spelling it and the other person understands you anyway. For me this is quite dangerous. When I see a word spelled in different ways I become unsure about how it is supposed to look. In the end no one knows how to spell the words. Even if you know how a word should be spelled, you might think that you will have to put much effort in writing all the letters and thus you take a shorter way around it. For me, the fact that I use a computer keyboard more than I use a pen results in difficulties to know how to spell words when I write by hand. I cannot see if the words I have written with my own hand are right spelled because I hardly ever write the words by hand.

Lastly, I would like to bring up what implications a simple language can have on your thoughts. I have been to England a couple of times. One summer I was there for two weeks without speaking hardly any Swedish at all. I learnt a lot of English, but I can of course not speak as fluently as I can speak my mother tongue. I experienced that my brain was adjusting itself to only think and speak in English. But since I did not know all the words I used the words that I knew. When I came back to Sweden I was quite bad at speaking Swedish. My brain was thinking in the same way and therefore I did not use all the words I could have used. I believe that using only a few words in conversations over the Internet can affect our vocabulary and therefore how we think. We might not be less intelligent, but I definitely believe that the words we use will form our way of thinking.