Alison Stein Wellner's Text Lost In Translation

The concept of ‘work’ has changed over time. What was considered ‘work’ before and the techniques needed to acquire jobs have transformed in today’s society. This was mainly due to two things: technological advancements and increase in population. Technological advancements have created new jobs, such as robotics technicians. This has created new minds with new techniques and learning outcomes. At the other end, an increase in population has created new seats for different careers, thus causing an expand in the area. These two complements in society have changed how society works and acts. However, what has changed the most in job society was and is the continuous improvement of technology. From centuries and centuries ago, work was something
Companies in the real world have been merging onto the current technology from time to time, but some have not been careful. Or should we say: some employers haven’t been careful. With technological advances happening basically every month, some people take a while to adapt or get too fascinated and begin to over use it or use it inadequally. Alison Stein Wellner’s text Lost in Translation discusses the negative impact that technology has had in face-to-face communications at work. Wellner observes that “new research indicates that overreliance on e-mail can degrade an organization’s interpersonal communication.” (Wellner 374). What he means is that with the introduction of the email, people are overusing it and depending it too much, even when face-to-face communications are preferred. These situations may include those that are sensitive or complicated, where a personal conversation is the best fit to resolve the issue. This does not mean that when something is important someone can’t answer. Sometimes a face-to-face communication is best to solve an issue, and migrating directly to email and text can damage a person’s work and social ability. Wellner later claims that “If it’s not used properly, instead of making your company quicker and more effective, too much text-based communicating can actually make it stupider.” (Wellner 374). This argument is valid because depending too much on text communication can degrade our
Many researchers argue that an increase in work ability has blurred the line between social and work life. Wireless cellphones such as Blackberry and iPhone and wireless internet have made it easier to work at home or any place in the world. The main issue here is that due to the fact that is it now so easy to work, it has compelled people to do so. So, instead of going to the beach and enjoying the time with his children, a worker is now at the beach and is worried about what is happening at work and is connected the whole time to monitor the situation a couple of kilometers away from that peaceful environment. This has consequently changed the meaning of friendship. Adam Grant in the New York Times Article Friends at Work? Not So Much argues that people, mainly Americans, now have a different view of friends. He claims that once work was a source of friendships, but now it is more a transactional place. He observes the fact that in 1985, half of Americans had a friend at work, and in 2004 with number has dropped to 30 percent. These numbers illustrate the fact that friendships are changing once technology is