Does Technology Make People More Alone?
Author: Greta Eshrefi
A plot twist created by society, does technology make users alone or connected? Many people claim that technology is drawing them apart and is a distraction from the real world, therefore, meaning it’s harmful. However, they treat technology as an important necessity in their lives. While this topic is very important there are also other topics that should be answered along the way like; how media is harming people instead of helping them, how many people are there who actually know how to use technology correctly and how technology is really affecting people and their businesses.
Are people spending too much time online? The answer is yes! Studies in Interbrand by Derek Franks show that around 3 billion people log in social media at least once per day, creating about 211 million of content online every minute. Although the media gives a lot of information, teenagers and also adults are having problems and suffering from it.
A documentary called Miss Representation shows how all this focus on media is affecting especially young girls, telling them that they are not enough. At the age of 13, about 53% of girls are unhappy with their bodies, and this number increases to 78% by the age of 17. For this reason, many have eating disorders and end up harming themselves. Our data in “The Future Workplace” platform show that there are approximately 186 young girls who graduate in ICT related high-schools in Prishtina every year. With this in mind, we should consider them somehow tech-savvy and capable of using technology in their positive manners.
Some years ago the technology was the innovation that people used to escape the real world, nowadays the real world has become the escape that is needed from technology. This online world has not just changed people’s persuasion for certain things, it has changed who they are. A Ted talk by Sherry Turkle called “Connected, but alone” talks about how these devices have psychologically affected owners. When it’s said that technology makes people alone everyone should understand that alone doesn’t have to mean it’s a literal concept. Humans have created a new way to be with their loved ones, by keeping their personal world. In common circumstances, people are together, but not talking, not even having eye contact, because they are paying more attention to their phones. A study shows that many people prefer to text rather than have a conversation, the reason behind that is so they can control what they can say. Turkle summarizes this as: “Texting, email, posting, all of these things let us present the self as we want to be. We get to edit, and that means we get to delete”.
Nowadays it has become impossible to do anything without cell phones. Although technology has simplified most daily tasks at major levels, the fact that it is possible to complete various tasks using phones has made people dependent on them. Businesses are growing and becoming tech-related day by day.
Based on “The Future Workplace” platform statistics show that there has been a growth of 187% of businesses in the ICT sector just within 10 years. We have 1187 businesses that have been registered in 2018, whereas in 2008 we only had 413.
Although technology has many positives, it is also affecting our society negatively. Media is clearly harming teenagers, putting them through different diseases. It has made people able to live through screens while destroying their reality. It’s important to know how to use it, and to keep a distance from the danger that is possessed. It doesn’t mean that technology is going to lose its values or its use, it has come here to stay. Anyway, it is up to people to decide how much they let technology dominate their lives. A person can keep his daily routine by scrolling uncontrollably in his phone first thing in the morning and the last by the night. Another person can make up his mind out of this imposture and create a new fresh daily life. In the end, it’s always their decision if they want to see the world through a screen, or their own eyes.
This article was published as part of “The Future Workplace” Project.
The Future Workplace is part of the Dig Data Challenge powered by Millennium Foundation Kosovo (MFK) and Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) as part of the The Dig Data Challenge on Labour Force Data. This project is implemented by Open Data Kosovo and The Kosovo Chamber of Commerce.
