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
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I totally agree with you that these new Social Media Technologies really interfere with our normal life. Different messaging services disturb us while we need to do some other work. As you mention, the technology helps you keep in touch but it also becomes disturbing when you don’t want to stay in touch. I really agree with you, that we often need to disconnect us from the internet just so we can get some time to study. Otherwise there is always that urge to see if there has been any new activity on the different forums one is member of.
Because of the huge amount of information provided by the internet we have to skim through text before we decide to really read it deeply. This new way of thinking has done that we nowadays really don’t read anything deeply. We just skim through the text, find whatever we are looking for and then go on to the next page.
These all negative parts are just obstacles that we need to consider and find ways to work around or fix. In my belief we believe that we are too dependent of these technologies, more dependent than we in fact really are. SMT should be seen as a tool, not a lifestyle.
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