losing intimacy
11/8/2013
Basic Composition
Final Draft 4
Losing Intimacy
People yearn for relationships in order to experience intimacies and relate with others. It is in their nature to connect with other people to share emotions to try to, ultimately, avoid the feeling of being lonely. People desire relationships so they can have someone to share their interests with, confide their feelings with, and share experiences with. In earlier times, relationships primarily involved in-person interactions with one another such as talking face-to-face or spending time with each other. However, recently this dynamic has changed so much that relationships no longer require such in-person interactions as seen in Sherry Turkle’s essay “Alone Together”. With advancements in technology, it has been made possible to connect and maintain relationships with people without ever having to actually meet them, using services such as text message, e-mail, web chat, and social media like Facebook and Twitter. With these new developments, however, it can be seen that the predisposition of an “ideal” relationship has begun to separate itself from reality. Intimacy, for example, is something that is very easily lost when using these new technologies and can develop into problems within relationships. Adding to the flame of this new wave of relationships is the idea of capitalism over the traditional family values as presented in Arlie Russell Hochschild’s essay “From the Frying Pan into the Fire”. With Americans being so busy with working and making money, the old family ways of spending time with one another is no longer seen as necessary in the capitalistic lifestyle. It can also be seen that new technologies and the capitalistic market both promote handling situations in the most efficient manner, which, in turn, directly affects the practice of an “ideal” relationship. New technologies combined with the capitalistic mentality has separated the “ideal” relationship from reality as they create
Basic Composition
Final Draft 4
Losing Intimacy
People yearn for relationships in order to experience intimacies and relate with others. It is in their nature to connect with other people to share emotions to try to, ultimately, avoid the feeling of being lonely. People desire relationships so they can have someone to share their interests with, confide their feelings with, and share experiences with. In earlier times, relationships primarily involved in-person interactions with one another such as talking face-to-face or spending time with each other. However, recently this dynamic has changed so much that relationships no longer require such in-person interactions as seen in Sherry Turkle’s essay “Alone Together”. With advancements in technology, it has been made possible to connect and maintain relationships with people without ever having to actually meet them, using services such as text message, e-mail, web chat, and social media like Facebook and Twitter. With these new developments, however, it can be seen that the predisposition of an “ideal” relationship has begun to separate itself from reality. Intimacy, for example, is something that is very easily lost when using these new technologies and can develop into problems within relationships. Adding to the flame of this new wave of relationships is the idea of capitalism over the traditional family values as presented in Arlie Russell Hochschild’s essay “From the Frying Pan into the Fire”. With Americans being so busy with working and making money, the old family ways of spending time with one another is no longer seen as necessary in the capitalistic lifestyle. It can also be seen that new technologies and the capitalistic market both promote handling situations in the most efficient manner, which, in turn, directly affects the practice of an “ideal” relationship. New technologies combined with the capitalistic mentality has separated the “ideal” relationship from reality as they create